Indie rockers Hail The Pilott recently released a brand new single called "In Circles" and to celebrate we asked Jason Iversen to tell us the story behind the track. Here is the story:
This was one of those songs that took years to fully develop. In 2000, I had bought Radiohead's Kid A and the track "Optimistic" in particular really stood out to me. The way that the guitars sounded just fascinated me. That sound inspired what would later become "In Circles". The riff is kind of a circular groove-heavy pattern which definitely fits the lyrics, but that was more of a lucky accident. It went through few changes over the years before becoming what it is now. Music is always the first thing I write so the lyrics weren't written until a few years ago. When Hail the Pilot first started, It was just Matt, Bobby and I so it went through some further changes until we finally finalized it in the studio.
The idea for the lyrics came to me when I overheard someone saying that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Now I'm not sure of the exact accuracy of this (I've since looked it up and haven't found this definition word for word) but it kind of sparked an idea. Don't we all do this from time to time? Whether it's a friend who always picks the same kind of girl to date even though he's been burned over and over again or a situation that we find ourself in that evokes that familiar feeling of "here we go again"...we all have our Achilles heel that we end up facing at one point or another. And unless we better ourselves and overcome it, we continue to find ourselves treading over the same old path.
?I was excited but nervous to finally record it. I'm always afraid that the sound in my head won't be able to be attained. But I really couldn't be happier with it. Matt and Bobby really lock in with the drums and bass and I was able to get this raw overdrive using my custom Bertoncini guitar loaded with Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickups through my Vox AC15. But my favorite thing about this song is that it is really an amalgamation of what we set out to do throughout this album. It has moments of beautiful ambient textures and melodies, groove-heavy verses to all out driving choruses. It's the reason we chose it as the opening track.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!
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