You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone
I think you miss me already
And I’m gonna miss you too
But after all, that’s only natural

- The Amazing Pilots The Price of Winter

The Pilots with Iain Archer at the Irish Breakfast in ‘05.

Meeting up with The Pilots for those first two SXSW’s was so much fun, and both years there, we spent at least a day traveling around the town in search of a great backdrop to take some publicity stills.  While I don’t think it would have been possible to find a location as dynamic as the one we stumbled upon during our first year at the fest, that certainly didn’t keep us from trying.  And the second time around, we found this random junkyard.

The thing about The Amazing Pilots is, these brothers are some of the funniest guys I know.  Always quick with a sarcastic reply, an absurd observation or a bit of physical comedy; they’re truly a blast to hang out with.   Yet nearly every time I turned the camera onto them, the smiles went away, replaced by the stern and serious.  So it was quite refreshing and a lot of fun to finally get them to open up a bit at this junkyard shoot.

Here’s a candid shot of my good friends, The Amazing Pilots, on our second trip down to Austin together for SXSW in ‘05.

If it weren’t for these boys, I probably would have never discovered SXSW.  The Amazing Pilots looking serious in an Austin junkyard in ‘05.

Today, down at Wapping Press Studio, we began filming for a video called “How To Record Your Own Paul Pilot Song.”  Stay tuned for that…

If it’s hard for you
I can make it easier
I want it to be easy for you
It shouldn’t have to be hard

-PP

This shot is from last summer’s trip to Pogo, when Paul Pilot brought Duke Special over to the little studio nestled in the middle of the Midwest to record “I Never Thought This Day Would Come.”  Paul had been here once before, the first time being when he and his brother, Phil, (otherwise known as The Amazing Pilots) came to record their debut album, “Hello My Captor.”

A fan of all things old fashioned, here’s a pic of Paul Pilot with his classic Gretsch guitar behind a really old looking microphone.  The photo was taken in Champaign, Illinois’ incredibly eclectic Pogo Studio, one of PP’s most favorite places in the world to record.  Or so the legend goes at least.

I met Mr. Pilot too many years ago now.  He was the hard-to-understand Irish exchange student on my dorm floor.  I was a freshman, attending my first year at the University of Illinois.  And oh, the countless nights of coffee in Pete’s and my room, filled with rhetorical arguments, philosophizing disgrace and dreaming our dreams out loud while sitting on a couch we pulled out of the dumpster.