Conscious Pilot - Life On The Plains
“I’ll be your modern…religion” Joe Laycock slurs in a deep, northern drone across the opening of Conscious Pilot’s sophomore single “Modern Religion”. A thrashing, rapturous anthem chronicling the collective malaise of a generation bereft of a unifying narrative. Poetic? Absolutely. Prophetic? Only time will tell...
Conscious Pilot was born from the embers of Leeds based band, Cheap Teeth. As Laycock explained during our recent chat ahead of the release of their debut EP, he and Jack Sharp initially indulged in exploratory writing sessions in the wake of Cheap Teeth’s demise with the intention of finding a new direction and it wasn’t long before things began to take shape, “myself and Sharpy were putting a lot of energy into these songs that were sounding slightly different, it felt like it was carving out its own path”.
That path eventually led the pair to Glasgow, “there’s so much going on in Glasgow, it’s probably got one of the biggest identities of any city I know. Yes, it’s rainy and grey but, there’s so much character and the people are amazing. It’s got a massive music culture and the music scene is fantastic”. There, they reconnected with former producer Chris McCrory, added additional members to the band (including individuals from Catholic Action and Pressure Retreat) and began to sketch out the blueprints for their sound, “we were going to go one of two ways, it would have either been full soft rock, almost like Velvet Underground or we would focus more on the basslines and make it really melodic but with a punk aesthetic”.
The first offering from Conscious Pilot revealed them opting for the latter. Debut single ‘Halfway To Hockney’, released back in October is a rollicking joyride that sees them playing freely with their founding principles and perfectly expressing the disparate influences that went into the record, “There’s a lot of classic 70s punk stuff that we’ve always liked but we found we were leaning more towards more beat driven music. There was lot of B-52’s, a lot of Talking Heads and a band called Cola who used to be called Ought” he continued “we really liked their record, that was something we were listening to loads at the time, they have a really great rhythm section, really great basslines and really great drum beats so, that was something that seeped into our early writing process”.
Following the release of their debut singles, the band headed out on tour to road test further material. This selection of shows, which included dates in Leeds, Halifax, Newport and Glasgow also featured a performance in Edinburgh, a part of Independent Venue Week which proved to be one of the highlights of the short run, “we did one at Sneaky Pete’s which was one of our favourite venues, it’s small but it sounds really good so, if you sound bad in there it’s entirely your fault. It’s a good litmus test to see how you are doing and it was a really good night.”
Today, the band release their debut EP Epoxy Plains, a five track project that is the culmination of their journey to this point and one that centres around the narrative epic ‘Benidorm’, that charts the twilight years of a British expatriate soldier as he sees out his days on the Costa Del Sol. A poignant exploration of blind patriotism and a track that shows off the band's sonic dexterity and penchant for deft lyricism.
A triumph from start to finish, the EP gives voice to the latent feeling of unease that has come to corrupt the experience of great swathes of society in the modern era, “The rough concept of the EP was influenced by the junction that we were at. We needed to decide what we want to sound like, what we want to be, what we want to sing about and as a result of that, a lot of the songs are about people who are stuck in a similar situation. People who are without identity and sliding through life, a bit worried about how they are going to be perceived and how they are going to be remembered”.
Of course, these are universal issues however, in recent years they have become particularly pervasive within a certain subsection of the music industry amid a media obsession with the post-punk aesthetic. A narrative which has brought the desire to stand out from the crowd into a much sharper focus. The subsequent effect that this has on artistry is something that Joe Laycock has seemingly given some careful consideration, “it’s difficult, you’ve got a lot of bands that maybe would have written post-punk songs that are now trying to write something that’s a bit different. They force themselves out of their comfort zone and it’s not great because that might be what they want to do but they don’t want to be branded as just another post-punk thing”.
Conscious Pilot were not immune from these fears yet, with the release of their debut EP, they now have a little more ground to characterise themselves although, they still appear reluctant to do so, “none of us define ourselves as artists but ‘art-punk’ was something that kept getting mentioned, so maybe that’s more appropriate”. Whatever they come to be define as, we are happy to say they aren’t the messiah but they are a very exciting band.
Conscious Pilot’s EP Epoxy Plains is out now on DevilDuck Records.
