Pilot Speed

Interviewed By: Chris DePaul

Date: 2007-01-21

Being one of the top bands in Canada is not a feat Pilot Speed (previously known as Pilate) achieved overnight. Since the release of their debut album Caught By The Window, Pilot Speed has been garnering the attention and respect of music fans and critics alike. With such hits as “Into Your Hideout” and “Melt Into Your Walls”, Pilot Speed began their ascension of the Canadian music charts, and to critical acclaim.

In 2006 Pilot Speed released their second full-length album, Into The West, receiving such critical accolades as “sweepingly-epic” and “poetry-like”. Positioning themselves for a breakout year in the United States, the band recently teamed up with Wind-Up Entertainment, hoping to find equal successes south of the Canadian border.

Before embarking on a tour of the States, Todd Clark – vocals and lyricist – spoke with foundinthemargins about the books he enjoys reading and why he would rather pick up a book after a show, rather than having a few more drinks.

“[Reading] is just using your imagination to keep your brain from cooking over. In a society that seems to continually get dumber and dumber in all forms of media, I think books are proof that at one point we were all pretty intelligent and that we can be intelligent. I tend to not read a lot of contemporary literature, but there is still a hell of a lot out there that is really good.”

Spending a lot of time on the road offers Todd plenty of opportunities to escape into his favorite genre of book: fantasy. When pressed to name a few of his favourites he complies: “If I had to pin it down, for nostalgic reasons I would say Lord of the Rings left a huge mark. For pure enjoyment reading it is fantasy material. George R. R. Martin or Raymond E. Feist or a Canadian guy named Steven Erikson. I just finished reading everything Erikson has written.

"I am also into history of warfare stuff and Roman empire stuff. A book that I read recently, which I really enjoyed was called Eagle in the Snow, by Wallace Breem, and it is about the Germanic invasion across the Rhine and stuff.”

Listeners of Pilot Speed can find literary references in a couple songs – Tolstoy in “Drowning Man” and Joseph O’Connor on the most recent album. Referring to O’Connor’s book Star of the Sea: “I wouldn’t say it was one of my favourite books, but it was a very vivid book in terms of creating a feel. At the same time I was reading that we were out on the West coast, so there were a lot of themes going around.” Todd also points out Tolstoy’s Resurrection as an enjoyable book he read when he was younger.

“I always say to people that would say, “this book is really exciting” or “do you want to read this book”, that I don’t care really too much what the book is about as long as it is well written. Character development is the key in any book.

“One of the books I have enjoyed in the last few months – I am a huge sports fan - is a book about Michael Jordan [The Jordan Rules by Sam Smith], written by a sports writer who followed him around for a year in the early 90s when they won their first NBA championship. That was really amazing, getting some insight into that guy, the team dynamic and that sort of thing that went on there.”

Many critics of Into The West have called Todd’s lyrics very literary in nature – a compliment he enjoys, even though he claims not to spend much time actually writing the lyrics. “As a writer, you have to have lyrics because you have to have words to the song, right. And it is not a process that I really enjoy, to be honest, but I do hope to get better at it. I think that comes from mostly the amount of reading that I do, and just having an understanding of language. Like in anything, I am sure I could be a lot better at it. But for me, the upside of all the reading, I get to use what I picked up, whether subliminally or not, to write lyrics.”

Gearing up for a tour in the next few months, Todd has already packed a list of books he hopes to get through while on the road. “I am excited, I have a whole list of things I will be reading. The trouble is I just discovered this one author and I plowed through seven of his books, each about 1000 pages, in four months, and now I am up to the point where I have caught up with him and his books. But he is still writing, so I have to wait another six or eight months for the new book to come out, and in that time I have to prepare to forget everything, so that becomes an issue. For me it is an easy thing to do. There are some things I would like to read a lot more about, and I am sure at a different point in my life I would be interested in different things.

“I just find it enjoyable. For me it is something that I really enjoy doing. When you are on the road there are some ups and downs to it. The downs being that I am leaving, but the up being that now I can just be selfish and spend hours with a book. And for me there is nothing better than after a show, leaving as soon as I can and going back and reading. I’m not interested in going out and having more drinks. When you read you go somewhere. You let your imagination go to that world.”

Purchase Books
You can purchase the books recommended by Pilot Speed here.

Links:
http://www.pilotspeed.net/