Hi Rick, thank you for joining me after such a busy end of the year. Now you’ve been home for a few weeks after a mammoth tour across the UK and Europe how do you feel it went?
The shows were a lot of fun. They were well attended but it was exhausting, but then again that’s also kind of part of the deal. When we’re in the EU and the UK, that’s just kind of how it goes for us, mainly because we have to rent everything and try to maximise our margins. It makes it so that instead of having four shows in a row and then a day off like we might in the States, we might do seven shows in a row and then the day off is a travel day where we’re on a ferry or, in transit for like 13 or 14 hours. I think that we did a good job as a group. We have six of us all together and we stuck together and took care of each other.
As the cost of touring has increased since you were last here, how has the band adapted this time?
As time has gone on, there have been things that we’ve had to spend more money on than we have in the past. But that’s been a very deliberate choice, knowing what the cost of it would be to our health if we didn’t do those things. Like sleeping arrangements. If we’re deep into a tour and someone’s willing to let us crash at their house but there aren’t enough beds/couches for everyone. In the States we can bring our sleeping mats and it’s no problem. But when we go over to the EU/UK all of our luggage is reserved for bringing over as many records as we can. Especially because we have a few records that are self-released, so we don’t have distribution for them but people would buy them if they didn’t have to pay for shipping across the Atlantic. So just kind of stuffing our luggage with as many of those as we can and then it doesn’t leave room for too many luxuries, because paying the airline for baggage allowance is a bit pricey.
The new album Sunshine and Balance Beams came out and has received critical acclaim across the board. how’s the reception been for you?
It’s been great, we sort of knew that there were things that we could do as a band that generally people wanted to hear from us. So I think that maybe leaning into some of that while also incorporating stuff that we’ve been exploring over the past five years or so. It does feel like a bit of an amalgamation of all the things that we’ve done, but it does call back to some of the earlier stuff that we’ve done in terms of it being more guitar-based.
Did you take elements of 2023’s experimental release ‘All Fiction’ into the creation of the new album?
Most definitely. Knowing that some of the production choices were on the table because they were no longer unprecedented allowed for some of those choices to be made readily. However, because of how we circumstantially ended up tracking the record, there were less of those production choices than I had originally thought there would be, thus leading to a more guitar-centric record.
Nine albums in how do you find curating a setlist these days?
At this point, it’s kind of silly because it’s basically trying to play most of whatever record we’ve just released and just one song off of each of the other releases. We’re going to do a Northeast US trip in the spring in support of mclusky and still play some of the new record, but also bring in more of that old stuff. That’s when we can really have an equal parts mix of everything. This one was an easy one to look at and feel strongly about all the songs and they occupied a place in the set that felt like it lent itself to the dynamic of a beginning, middle and end. The quiet moments are really fun to see whether or not the audience is game. We come out of the gate and give a lot of energy but there are some moments when we try to bring it way down and if people are willing to go there with us I think it can lead to a pretty special shared moment.
Having attended the Leeds show there was a great energy in the crowd with a variety of ages in the audience from students to experienced gig veterans. Are you surprised at the ages of your crowd these days?
Leeds is always a great place, we’ve been very fortunate that consistently for the past few years people have come out to see us. I was kind of surprised at the age range of the attendees in Leeds because I maybe was expecting most folks to be about my age. It’s really been difficult to pin down which I’m grateful for. I remember when we toured on All Fiction we played in Burlington, Vermont, which is not far from where we live and we played this room and there was a group of 20 kids going nuts for all the new material and as soon as we played ‘Prom Song’ these kids were like completely quiet and very clearly did not know that one. A friend of ours that we’ve known for ages was there and he was shocked that there would be people there that didn’t know that song but have connected to a batch of other material. But then on this past trip through Europe and the UK, there were also a lot of people in their 50s and 60s that were showing up to shows and I love that.
If we can play a show and there’s people in their teens and 20s, but also in their 50s and 60s and everyone’s just hanging out and having a good time I kind of couldn’t ask for more. It’s nice to know that it can reach a wide variety of people.
Sunshine and Balance Beams is your first release on Sooper Records, how have you found the transition away from Exploding in Sound?
Working with Sooper has been great and Glenn Curran is the primary person that handles a lot of the day to day stuff. And we toured with NNAMDÏ, who is also an owner of the label, and that tour was fantastic, NNAMDÏ is great and I think it was a good move for us. I’m very grateful and we’re going to keep working with Sooper for the foreseeable future.
Having spoken about a willingness to play the game when it comes to applying technology to album promotion, how has that relationship changed this past year?
I definitely feel fatigued at this point. But I’ve just educated myself a little bit more on surveillance capitalism. The idea of having a pipeline to everybody who is willing to listen to you is great. But it’s just a matter of who owns the pipeline and what they’re doing with that. So on the one hand I’ve used those tools and I probably will to some extent going forward, but I think that reflecting on my relationship to them is something that needs regular attention. So right now I’ll use those things to let people know that we have a record coming out or we’re going on tour or whatever announcement that we need to make. But having a newsletter feels like the way I feel most comfortable communicating, it allows me to sort of dig into some of the more nuanced things about doing this work. I’ve noticed even just through being back home and slowing down a little bit by opening my phone, there is a sort of inherent choice of being bombarded with anything that is thrown at you. It may be like directly at you or it may be just sort of like some information about the world. I’m not too familiar with all of the mechanics of why it’s showing me what it’s showing me, but I know enough to not trust it. It’s an assault on your sense of wellbeing, so I’m regularly reflecting on my relationship with it and also pondering alternatives to connecting with folks who are interested in what we are doing.
Pile have had members come and go over the years, how is the make up on the band going forward for the foreseeable?
The next tour that we do it’ll be sort of a switch up, we’re going to have a different drummer, which will be weird cause I haven’t played with anybody but Kris (Kuss) in like 15 years and we’re bringing back our old guitarist Matt Becker for this tour. We wanted to do this trip with mclusky and then going forward as a band into the next Pile record, whenever that might be it will be with Kris, Alex (Molini) and Matt Connery but that’s way down the line.
Any plans for festivals in 2026?
If there were some festivals that came our way and all the stars aligned then we would do it. But our drummer Kris is taking a year off from touring and then sort of trying to figure out what next steps are for him and our bass player Alex also wants to just take some time. I think that Pile has been such a central focus in his life for a while that he wants to sort of explore other things. So if something came along it’s a possibility but I’m not actively pursuing it. We need to give this a little bit of a rest and I’m going to keep active and while Pile has been the sole umbrella for my creative output, I might find something else that’s outside of that umbrella just so I can keep working.
Is your relationship with Pile the healthiest it’s ever been at this stage?
I think for the moment yeah because it’s evolved so much. All the people have changed so much from the beginning to now and my relationship has undergone maybe the most dramatic change in the past year, so that feels like a kind of monumental thing for me personally and having feeling like I’m on the other side of that does feel like arriving at a place that is healthy and sustainable. So it’s nice to finish a stretch of touring like that which was so intense and feel like we’re taking a break rather than hating each other and never wanting to do it again.
And finally, what have yourself been listening to this past year?
Nothing that comes to mind that I’ve loved too much but I’ve been listening to J Dilla a bunch. I started getting into Flying Lotus and Oneohtrix Point Never second most recent one Again is one I’ve been pretty drawn to.
Sunshine and Balance Beams out now via Sooper Records. Pick up the record here.