Brad Newlands (Piston)

Hard working UK rockers Piston will finally release their debut album on September 13^th. Paul Woodward spoke to drummer Brad Newlands ahead of Pistons extensive tour this autumn about their journey so far.

Piston will be a new name to many of Fireworks readers, so can you tell us a bit about the band’s origins and what you bring to the rock n roll arena?

We turned the key in the Piston ignition a fair few years back, same story as any other band, a group of friends that just wanted to make music together on the local boozer scene. As we got better and gained more recognition, we decided to shift the gears up a notch. Collectively, we all have our different musical influences and as a band we are constantly evolving. Our music has a little something for everyone and we hope that our audience continues to grow and our foothold gets deeper in the rock n’ roll arena.

I’ve been aware of Piston for quite some time with you guys been well known on my local live circuit. So, I was a little surprised when I read this is your debut album, it’s been a long time coming. So, what clicked into place for the release of the bands first full length offering?

We had been hoping to create a collection of songs that we were all happy with for quite some time. There has been many setbacks and changing circumstances over the years but we never stopped working hard or playing live. We actually recorded an album two years ago but we decided that the songs were just not quite right, so we took a gamble and scrapped the lot and started from the bottom again. It was a ballsy decision, both financially and creatively, but we are all confident that it has paid off.

Can you tell us about a few of the songs on the album, which ones you’re most proud of and the meanings behind them?

I think we all have our own favourites. It depends on who you ask in the band. I particularly have a soft spot for ‘Rainmaker’. The song is a thunderstorm of slow, dirty riffs with a rumbling rhythm section. I love everything about it — the repetition, the preacher style vocals and the huge sound when the entire band kicks into the chorus! Another favourite of mine is ‘Carry Us Home’, our ‘almost’ ballad if you will. I love how Rob has the spotlight with his acoustic — he is an incredible singer and songwriter — then we all kick in with the arena rock sound straight through until the end. It reminds me of ‘Desperado’ by The Eagles which is secretly my favourite song of all time.

The energy in these songs instantly makes you think these songs are perfect for live performances. Is this taken into consideration during song writing? And is performing live important to the band?

Our songs are written with the live show completely in mind. We are always thinking of the audience when we write our songs, we think of everything we can to get them involved with us. We all come to life in our live shows and that’s what keeps us doing what we are doing. The live situation opens up so much room for improvisation, mistakes and generally the unknown — it keeps us on our toes and that is what makes a live show, no? Beautifully imperfect and different every time, unlike a record!

Talking of song writing, I’ve seen you guys perform acoustically and was really impressed with how well the songs lent themselves to a stripped-down approach and it made me wonder if you wrote acoustically before electrifying your sound. What is Piston’s song writing process?

Our song writing process is really unconventional. Rob lives three hours away from the rest of the band. We write guitar and drum parts that roughly resemble a song structure and we send them to Rob to work with. Rob is constantly writing at home. He has stacks of lyrics and vocal melodies to work with when we send him the material. We all then meet up and start to create the song. It often consists of us simplifying everything and extending sections of the song. Our songwriting has improved drastically over the last year and our recent producer Dan Swift is to thank for that.

Do you have any live dates you can tell us about? And if there was anyone you could tour with or support who would that be and why?

We have so many tour dates coming up, we are touring through September and October. In September, we will be heading out on a co-headline tour with Collateral. In October, we will be joining the Planet Rock Roadstars tour. We will be bringing our A-Game, it will be loud, sweaty and dangerous! If we could tour with any band right now, for me it would have to be Airbourne. I absolutely love that group! No frills rock n’ roll and a live show that every new band should aspire to follow.

As a band trying to make that breakthrough, have you found the industry hard to break into and do you find it hard to get the attention of the media and music fans?

The industry is difficult. The competition is incredibly tough. From our perspective we seem to be heading in the right direction at the moment. We have a team that works for the band and they have been a great help. As for the fans and the media, they have all been amazing. Without them we wouldn’t be able to climb the ladder.

The live scene is not what it used to be, fewer venues and attendances which vary dramatically make making live shows worthwhile increasingly more difficult. How do you find the live scene from Piston’s viewpoint?

The live scene is condensing but that is not a problem. We are now left with people who truly love their live music and they will do anything to support new upcoming bands. At the end of the day it’s about delivering value to the audience. We keep our ticket prices low, we invite local acts out to play with us and we deliver one hell of a rock n’ roll show. Our audience is confident that they will get their money’s worth. We love performing for people and our live show attendance is increasing drastically.

I think you guys have a strong British flavour to your music, who are your influences?

We all have musical influences from different backgrounds. Rob (Vocals) thrives off old-school blues rock bands (Humble Pie, The Faces). Jack (Guitar) takes a lot of inspiration from anthemic rock bands (Guns N’ Roses, The Cult). Luke (Guitar) loves the new wave of rock bands (The Killers, The Darkness). Stuart (Bass) is a metalhead (Motorhead, WASP) and I get my kicks from AC/DC and Dr Feelgood — if you throw all those bands into one giant melting pot you will be left with something pretty unique!