Today was much more upbeat at Pilot rehearsals. Tbey "nailed" three songs in quick succession early in the day and it was all upbeat from there. Granted the songs were only Can't Sit Still, Amy and Brothers & Sisters, three of the least challenging of their songs, but it clearly buoyed their confidence. I was able to talk to Stephen Holland over lunch. I wanted to talk about his personal life, after having learned that he divorced from his wife, Laurie, a few months earlier. He wasn't so keen to talk about that though, so I asked him about what his motivation for this tour is.

"If you've played a gig infront of tens of thousands of people who are absolutely losing their shit then you'd understand it. It's hard to give up man. Obviously with what's been going on with me over the last few months, that's an extra driving factor to."

Does that make him feel for Murray, after he's been single throughout the whole time off?

"Yeah, I guess so. I know that it seems to have made us closer. Me and him and another of our mates, Mark, have been going out drinking together a fair bit lately, having chats, trying to pick up girls..."

And how does he go at that?

"Ha, it's so much more difficult when we're not on tour. My face isn't as well known as you'd think, nor as fucking good-looking as i think. But, we do ok. When we're striking out we just grab a booth somewhere and talk shit for hours on end."

Is he happier now than, say, six to nine months ago?

"Not really. I'll be happier as long as this is all successful. This is the hardest part, rehearsing and getting back on your game. It's the sort of time you'd like to be able to come home to someone at the end of the day. But, oh well...shit happens I guess...You're doing a great job of making me talk about this when I said I didn't want to talk about this aren't you, you manipulative little fucker."

What plans does Stephen have personally for this reunion?

"I don't know if we'll do an album or what...there's talk of just releasing any songs we come up with digitally. I don't mind not doing an album, I've not really been writing anything. What I have been doing over the break is doing some dance remixes of some of our songs. Kind of wanted to go with the whole dance music thing after the Lightyears idea (in which he and Nick were going to dress up as aliens and do a sort of Daft Punk thing) came to nothing. They're mainly house, techno sort of stuff. I've just recently got into dubstep, so there's a couple of dubstep songs too."

Any chance they'll get released?

"I'm gonna have to feel a lot more confident in them before they see the light of day man...chances are low but not zero."

It was a more positive but shorter day of rehearsal today. They started a little earlier, at 10:30, and wrapped it up at about 6 o'clock. Andrew explained that the partners (his, Clint's and Nick's) were getting restless that they were getting home so late. That leaves Murray and Stephen to head off to a local pub. I head along too to see that Stephen wasn't lying about not getting recognised.

"It's a fucking Tuesday night man, what can you do? Our time will come, our time will come."

It may yet...or it may have already been.


By the way, if any of you readers out there have any questions you'd like me to pose to the Pilot boys at a later date, feel free to post them here. They're usually pretty open about answering stuff. Or if there's something they don't want to talk about, they won't talk about it. But what have you lost? Nothing.

Well I got sent packing the last day I rocked up. Rocked up with a cold, Nick saw me sniffling and told me to "get fucked and come back when you're not gonna fuck up my voice." Well I was back at rehearsals today and the mood is a very different one. Very positive, the band seem to have settled into a nice groove and performances are generally tight. They're still not attempting any of their more difficult songs, such as Lightyears, Insomnia, or most things off Inside Newtopia. Today I thought I'd squeeze in a chat with the guy most consider to be the heart and soul of the band, Clint Walkingshaw.

What happened the other day with Nick?

"Oh, that's all cleared up. Everyone's entitled to have a little bitch tantrum. It'll only really affect him, he's the one who missed out on five hours rehearsal. Easy enough for us to carry on as if we don't have a vocalist."

What set him off?

"Something taken out of context probably...it's not really important."

Pilot seem to have a history of not discussing, or smoothing over personal issues with and between band members?

"Yeah well, we didn't get into this business to be in the tabloids and have people talking about who we're fucking and why we hate each other. We got into it to play music and have a good time. Of course we're gonna argue, lock people in a room together for long enough and someone is gonna want to kill someone else. We're still best mates, even after all these years, all the good times and bad, it doesn't matter. We consider our personal lives to be just that, and we're not interested in rumours about people we don't know and may never meet. We don't read about, or give a shit about frankly, personal lives of people we don't know, so we wish to maintain the same sort of privacy we give to other 'famous' people." (He does the whole finger quotation marks thingy"

What's it like being in Pilot at the moment compared with other points in their career?

"It's frustrating to go from headlining stadiums a year and a half ago to now being out of sync with each other and having to fight to nail some pretty easy songs. It's a lot like when we started. We left school, and the only way some of our parents were going to accept that was if we treated it like a day job. So that's what we did, rehearsed from like 9-5 every weekday, worked our arse off. The weird thing is there was more excitement then, when we didn't know exactly what we were working towards, we were just naive kids wanting to take over the world. Now we know we're working towards playing to some big, fuck-off crowds and it's not the same excitement... it's strange. But we are still excited, we can't wait to get back infront of the fans."

Whats the difference between the band between now and then, other than the back catalogue you've got behind you?

"We've settled down a bit now that we're getting on in years a touch. We used to drink shitloads, smoke weed, snort coke and just go off, fuck birds. Now we've all been married apart from Murray. Three of us are in long term relationships of some description. We don't get drunk so often now, we don't do drugs. We've become wine snobs and beer snobs interestingly. Half the time we'll have a few bottles between the five of us and swirl it and discuss the flavours that come through and all that shit. Not too rock and roll but it keeps us off the liver transplant list."

A tough question to finish off. Are Pilot still relevant?

"I'm sure we're relevant to some people out there. We're not as big as we were back around The Leed Balloon album of course. I don't know, I don't think we've ever been a cool band, just a respected one. Maybe there's a reverance about us now, maybe heaps of people are saying, 'Pilot? Who the fuck are they?" I don't know, but Quarantine are back doing shit which is great to see. Dead Roses are kicking around. Seeing those familiar faces continuing to plug away gives us hope. It's not all cool kids with their hairdo's and pop tarts I guess, though there are a whole heap of pop tarts around at the moment. That seems to be what's 'relevant' and maybe they're super-talented too. I'll be honest and say I've not given much of a listen to new bands, I've been feeling all nostalgic."


Remember, if you're following along and would like to suggest a question for one or any or all of the Pilot boys, chime in and let me know.

Adios