“It makes you say, ‘What the f*ck?!’”: Friday Pilots Club take us inside their debut album, Nowhere

Bassist Drew Polovick breaks down Friday Pilots Club’s debut album Nowhere for us, one song at a time…

“Nowhere came to us around midnight on a writing trip in LA after James, Caleb, and I drank a fifth of tequila. Earlier that day we had written one of the worst songs we had ever written and were definitely feeling down and in need of letting off some steam, so we decided to try and make the most chaotic thing we could. Running Caleb’s vocal through guitar pedals while he sang the first take and James and I look at each other asking, ‘What the hell is he singing about?’ I’m not sure I know now, but I think that's something cool about it. It was a clear choice for the focus track of the album, as it really just makes you say, ‘What the fuck?!’ pretty much immediately. Our manager describes it as our ‘artistic pick’; Sean describes the song as ‘coo-coo crazy town, ow, zoom, bang, clank, beep’!”

“We Don’t Wanna Talk was one of two songs we did with our dear friend Chris Lyon for the album. We had actually gone in directly trying to write a song at a specific tempo because we realised we had zero songs in our discography that were kinda this ‘cool guy walk’ tempo. Starting with trying to merge our love of funky riffs with some French house turned into this wonky angry disco thing with maybe the sassiest vocal Caleb has ever recorded. Within a few hours, we had the whole song done – but it was only around a minute-and-a-half long. The following eight months were just us playing musical Tetris trying to find a way to add a minute to the song. It was certainly the hardest song to crack on the album but we’re all so stoked on how it turned out. James describes it as an, ‘Awesome song. Really nice.’”

“Vampire Disco came from some weird fucked-up instrumental I had brought to the guys in February 2023. Originally it was this more electronic, industrial, Nine Inch Nails kinda thing with no vocals, but as we worked on it more and more we pulled it into this dark, dance-y, but overall very band-y vibe. It’s funny because in the early stages of working on it, none of us really fucked with it and it wasn’t even high on our list of songs we thought would make the album, but when all was said and done it somehow ended up as the debut single for the record, encapsulating a lot of the overall vibe of the album. It’s a perfect example of not knowing what to call a song and just picking the first two words that come to mind based on pure vibe alone.”

“Spectator was the other song we did with Chris Lyon and it started with this super-cheap, weird, vintage baritone guitar. I was fucking around on it and came up with that main verse riff, which eventually turned into the chorus riff. Caleb came in with this concept about being present in your own life instead of living passively in the third person, and started weaving together this idea of being a spectator. The vibe was pretty much entirely there right off the bat and was a song we all felt could sonically be our North Star and inform a lot of the decisions we made creatively across the album. It’s big, creepy, and it’s got recordings of how loud the damn bugs were where we recorded the album in Blue Ridge, Georgia.”

“Coffin might take the cake for the most morbid happy song of all time. If you know of a better one, let me know! One day I was thinking how everyone is always talking about spending your days with the love of your life, but never about wanting to die with them, so I wanted to write about that. There’s a lot of stuff packed in there: the verse guitars that were recorded in one take with numerous mistakes and missed notes – but sometimes that’s the vibe – the washing machine that was going when we were writing the song and we ended up recording it and putting it in as this sort of mechanical looping noise; and this very natural drum vibe which really captures the energy of the cabin living room where we recorded and lived for a month. It’s also the only song on the album with parts that were tracked simultaneously which is the most 2024 thing I could say. And it’s got two of many Beautiful Sean moments across the album. In general, it’s sweet and tender and the lovely little ballad on the record.”

“This song is actually a demo I wrote in a moment of spiralling thinking. I had lost the ability to write songs by myself, as I hadn’t for at least two years at that point. It came super quickly and was tracked just as fast, to the point I realised I even recorded the wrong lyrics. I sent it to the guys thinking we would flesh it out into a full song but to my surprise, everyone really fucked with it and wanted it to be as is on the record – no changes. The perfectionist in me had a hard time wrestling with that but in time I’ve come to love it for what it is.”

“Outta My Body was a song born out of our love and desire for bouncy, more classic-sounding alternative music à la Foster The People, Portugal The Man, and Pagan Oath. We wrote it with dear friend Sean Silverman from Beach Weather. It was one of the first times we had ever written a song with someone who is in a band, and that sounds like it wouldn’t be something of note, but Sean has a way of understanding band dynamics and contributing to this collaborative and open atmosphere. The song always felt pretty solid but generally missing a final five-to-10 per cent of ‘wow’ factor, which somehow manifested in Eric pushing us to the big left turn in the half-time ending that it is now – classic drummer thing. It’s so over the top and so hilarious. Try to listen to it without laughing. I bet you can’t.”

“Ultraviolet came from another writing session with Sean Silverman where he brought in all these guitar loops for us to start with. I remember us listening to a bunch but almost immediately being grabbed by the one that became Ultraviolet – and is the loop you hear in the intro of the song. Right off the bat, it brought us to this really sort of unique vibe and place; kinda like if Deftones were a new wave band in the ’80s. Caleb managed to sing this super-sexy falsetto hook, but still kept it so powerful which made it into one of the standout vocals on the record. Caleb wants to say something here but is struggling to keep it PG. He really likes this one.”

“There has always been a part of this band that has loved heavier and faster music, and we have always experimented with bringing that out in different ways. I think Nosedive is maybe the best we’ve ever done it. Sean, Caleb, and I originally wrote the song with Cici Ward and Ilan Rubin – who is the drummer for Nine Inch Nails – which is a hilarious thing to be in the absurd position of trying to write and play music in front of a goated musician who could be also be considered one of your musical heroes. Ultimately, we ended up crafting this really pissed and searing critique of what it takes to be an artist in 2024. This is a song where Sean especially shines and showcases his insane ability to bring this total left-field guitar approach in the riffs and the solos – which I think takes this song and band to the next level.”

“Okay, here it comes: the song of the summer. The anthem of joy. A symphony of jubilation. Three minutes and 30 seconds of pure Killers worship. It’s a fun sort of return to form for us, calling back to some of our poppier roots and ideas we used to try but in a more mature way. The original demo that James, Caleb, and I made with the incredible Liza Owen was a lot more ‘stadium alternative’ vibe, but we ended up pulling it more to this hyped modern take on the strokes. It’s honestly just a really fun song and kind of the sole ray of sunshine on our otherwise very dark album, which feels like a very ‘us’ thing to do. Musical Whiplash is the brand.”

“This was another tough one to crack. From the jump, the song had this energy that we all fucked with but couldn't figure out the right way to take it to the finish line. The original was written with Dan Farber, Sweater Beats, Caleb, James, and I – but we ended up bringing the song to our longtime friend and collaborator John Fields, where we re-wrote every part of the song except the chorus. Caleb wrote all of the new verse lyrics mulling over a beer at the Mexican restaurant next to John’s studio, while the rest of us worked on the instrumental. The version we made with John ended up in this kind of fast Foo Fighters world, and when we brought the song to Georgia, we decided to pivot to this sort of Oasis meets Del Water Gap vibe, which is sonically a first for us. It’s kind of a funny pairing with lyrics, considering the song is about life beating the living shit out of you with no end in sight – but all in all, it’s a surprisingly emotional moment at the end of the record.”

“Finding the right song to end your debut album feels like an impossible task. How do you decide the perfect emotional note to say, ‘Goodbye for now’ on? I don’t know if we ever really decided, but we had the song fall into our laps out of the ether. It had started as this line, ‘Paint me in the light of a passing car,’ from a poem that Caleb wrote a while back about the unfortunate connection between growing older and growing apart from your friends. He brought that into a session with James, Riley Biederer, David Burris – who we did Sleeping On The Ceiling with – and I and spun together this song that is the walking embodiment of, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.’

“All jokes aside this is probably one of the most special songs we’ve ever made and I think the process goes to show for it. Caleb did over 100 takes of the chorus vocals and we stressed for days over the arrangement of guitars and fluttery bits at the end. The sonic spot we landed on paired with the lyrics made it the perfect ending to this era and this record. It’s funny to listen back to all these months later and hear the bits of your own story that you didn’t realise you were coming to terms with. It’s raw in a way; what I would call a ‘hard listen’ but maybe the best moment of the record. In my eyes, it’s certainly my favorite part.

Nowhere is released today, May 9. Catch Friday Pilots Club on the road this month, kicking off at Voodoo in Belfast on May 15 and wrapping up at London’s O2 Islington Academy on May 23.

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