Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Leading The Way With BRUCE SOORD From THE PINEAPPLE THIEF

Transcript

Leading The Way With BRUCE SOORD From THE PINEAPPLE THIEF · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Yeah. So my name is Bruce Sword from a band from the UK called
• 0:06
  The Pineapple Thief and we got a new album. It's actually came out this
• 0:11
  week called It Leads to This and well you can stream it, buy it
• 0:17
  whatever now. Yeahful by, thanks for joining us today, Bruce. That's
• 0:22
  a pleasure. Pleasure. So as you say, I made The Pineapple Thief
• 0:26
  for release your latest album, It Leads to This back on February the ninth,
• 0:30
  Like, I know, it's only been a week or so, mate,
• 0:32
  but how's the early reception been for it? Yeah, it's been good.
• 0:36
  I mean, you know what it's like, you can't hide from from
• 0:39
  the reaction nowadays with social media, so you get to see everything. Yeah,
• 0:44
  it's been really positive. So thank goodness for that because you know,
• 0:48
  you know that that the internet and online can be, you know, quite
• 0:53
  brutal sometimes, but we've been saved so far so far. And the album
• 0:59
  essentially tells the story of you looking back and fearing for the world your children
• 1:03
  are going to inherit, mate, So it's a great idea for an album.
• 1:06
  Where did it come from? It's kind of I've always sort of written
• 1:11
  about things that that that you know, I wake up in the morning and
• 1:15
  how I feel. So you kind of you put the news on. You
• 1:18
  look out the window. You know, I live in a small town in
• 1:21
  southwest of England. It's got its proper share fair share of problems, you
• 1:25
  know, drugs, alcohol. You look out the window and you see it.
• 1:27
  You see these lost souls walking around. You read the news. It's
• 1:32
  just getting worse and worse. And then you look at your kids and you
• 1:34
  think, I look at the world through the letter, like my kids are
• 1:37
  a lens to the world, and I think, oh shit, what's going
• 1:40
  on? And then you go and pick up a guitar and it just kind
• 1:42
  of that's the inspiration. But the thing about the thing about it is,
• 1:47
  even though it's all that kind of dark thoughts about the future and what the
• 1:49
  hell's and my kids gonna herit, it's still positive. It's still like there's
• 1:53
  still a positive message. It's not it's not all doom, not all doom
• 1:57
  and gloom. Was it? Like I can understand what you're saying about writing
• 2:02
  about the things that are going on around you in the world, But when
• 2:06
  you bring your kids into it and like say, look at the world that
• 2:07
  they're going to are in hero Like, did that make it a bit more
• 2:10
  difficult because it was a more personal sort of nature. Yeah, I guess
• 2:15
  I've been doing the Pineapple Fy for twenty five years. It's always I've always
• 2:21
  done it like that. I've always written about this, you know, the
• 2:23
  really sort of personal things, because it kind of that's what really gets you
• 2:27
  inspired, you know, really you pick up the time you just want to
• 2:30
  go ah or you when I'm sort of there's a few tracks in there which
• 2:35
  have got some really quite heavy whammy bar like guitar solos on, and that
• 2:38
  was when I was just wanted to be really aggressive, you know, because
• 2:43
  I found you know, you're kind of having those feelings inside. So yeah,
• 2:46
  it's just it's really good to be honest, it's good songwriting, you
• 2:51
  know, fodder. Now, the press release caused an album of eight different
• 2:57
  masterpieces, so I want to know a different I want to run through those
• 3:01
  eight masterpieces individually, and I get you don't elaborate on them a little bit
• 3:06
  for us, So all right, you'll start with the first track, Put
• 3:08
  it right, Put it right. I just want to say I did not
• 3:12
  write that press release that I did not call I'm happy for them to be
• 3:17
  called masterpieces, but yeah, put it right. It was the first song
• 3:22
  that we wrote for the record, and that was in the lockdown, and
• 3:24
  and I remember it was deep lockdown, so that the town was dead,
• 3:29
  the sky was clear blue, no no aeroplanes, and I got my studio
• 3:32
  in the garden and I just picked up my guitar and that was it.
• 3:37
  That was the inspiration. And it was kind of like, oh my god,
• 3:38
  how this tiny, this tiny little virus that has caused the world to
• 3:44
  shut down almost overnight, and how delicate. You know, obviously the world
• 3:47
  is all all the stuff, it's offvious stuff, but hopefully people can relate
• 3:51
  to. And then that's what it was about. It was about like,
• 3:53
  you know, we can still put it right as a as humans, not
• 3:57
  just about the world, but about you know, personal relaylationships, all kinds
• 4:00
  of stuff. Then you've got Ruby Gone. Yes, Ruby Gone. It's
• 4:05
  a weird one. So I wrote that with Gavin Harrison. He's a drama
• 4:10
  and we we actually so this was after the lockdown. We were all free
• 4:13
  and we and Gavin said to me, do you know what, Bruce,
• 4:15
  Let's get in the same room and write as opposed to what a lot of
• 4:18
  bands do nowadays, which is, you know, writing in their studios,
• 4:21
  home studios, sending the files off and blah blah blah blah. I thought,
• 4:25
  oh, you know, it's just you losing that kind of human interaction.
• 4:29
  So I went to Gav's for a couple of weeks and that was one
• 4:31
  of the first songs that we wrote. And he's he came up this drum
• 4:34
  beat and it's in a five to four shuffle. Don't ask me what the
• 4:39
  hell of five four shuffle is, but I kind of just got got it
• 4:43
  and played this sort of heavy riff on a really low baritone electric guitar.
• 4:46
  I've got six string baritones, which which I wrote most of the record on,
• 4:49
  so it's got this really low, sinister, sinister feel. And but
• 4:54
  aside, that song is actually about inspired by Julius Ses. That's why it's
• 4:57
  called Rubicon. It is about Julius Ses across in the Rubicon and destroying the
• 5:01
  Roman Republic for his own selfish ambition, and only because I looked at the
• 5:06
  current world and thought, well, it's just history repeating itself. So that's
• 5:11
  that one, right, And then you've got the title track. It leads
• 5:14
  to this Yeah, so that was a similar one to put it right in
• 5:17
  the same sort of writing sessions. That was a lockdown song. And you
• 5:21
  know it really that one is a love song. It's it's quite a sort
• 5:26
  of it's really based around the sort of this bass hook. But there's a
• 5:31
  line in it about you know when I say, for all this time,
• 5:34
  I didn't notice you, and that's about you know, for me personally my
• 5:40
  wife. But it's basically the messages that you spend Life is so so hectic,
• 5:45
  you know, life passes you by so quickly that before you know it,
• 5:48
  you look back on your life and you think, shit, I didn't
• 5:50
  actually spend enough time on the important thing, you know, Like it's that
• 5:55
  kind of deathbed regret thing. The top top ten number one is always I
• 6:00
  wish I spent more time in my family and I didn't work so hard.
• 6:02
  You know. Again, it's really obvious stuff, really obvious, but I
• 6:05
  don't think we think about it enough and sure we're dying. Yeah, next
• 6:14
  stuff is the frost. So the frost again, that was and it was
• 6:19
  frosty. I looked out my gods and then was very frosty. And then
• 6:24
  we put the albums together, I thought. Actually, the Frost is actually
• 6:27
  a nice name. Actually, you know, it's got a story behind it,
• 6:29
  a history, so that's why it's called the Frost. And yeah,
• 6:32
  it was just one of those songs where it was I just came up with
• 6:35
  this hook and this wrist and the whole song just just sort of sort of
• 6:40
  came out, and that's you know, it's one of the heavier, sort
• 6:42
  of rockier tunes on the on the record regard all that's left. Yeah,
• 6:47
  so all that is left. That was again it's similar vibe to put it
• 6:51
  right in that that there's a line in there that says all that's left to
• 6:57
  figure out. And what that really means is when you when it all comes
• 7:00
  down to it, life is very simple. What makes you happy, what
• 7:03
  makes other people happy? Being kind? You know, that's all that's left
• 7:05
  to figure out. Forget about all this complex thought about about life. And
• 7:11
  the thing I love about that track is that it goes through loads of different
• 7:14
  sort of I mean, we're classed as a progressive rock bound and that's kind
• 7:17
  we've kind of been in this sort of progressive rock world, but I kind
• 7:23
  of but really we're just a rock band. But because our songs sort of
• 7:26
  go through various sort of phases and sections and lots of different atmospheres. I
• 7:31
  think that's where the kind of prop influences come in, and this is one
• 7:34
  of them. And in the middle it's got this riff that gets really big.
• 7:39
  It's really good and I can't wait to play it live again. Written
• 7:43
  down low on the on the baritone. Okay, now it's yours. So
• 7:48
  now it's yours. That was another sort of life through the lens, you
• 7:54
  know, the world through the lens of my kids. Now it's yours.
• 7:57
  This is literally this is what you're going And but again it's that's another song
• 8:03
  that goes through loads of different sort of styles, starts off really soft,
• 8:07
  then goes into this sort of random, sort of heavy middle section. I
• 8:11
  remember writing this with Gavin at his at his place and came up with this
• 8:13
  middle section together did the sello. There's one thing about this record is a
• 8:18
  lot more guitar solos. So as I kind of spent years not doing guitar
• 8:22
  solos, so I thought, guitar sellers, we don't we don't do steps
• 8:26
  anymore. And now I realized, actually, guitar sell is if they're really
• 8:30
  well constructed they're really good. I'm not a fan of just whittling up and
• 8:33
  down, probably because I can't. Yeah, I can't whiddle, that's the
• 8:37
  thing. But you know, it's it's a it's a case of really constructing
• 8:41
  the guitar set so you can kind of they're kind of hooks that the solo.
• 8:45
  So so I really enjoy that. It's a really good fun to play
• 8:48
  live as well. Ye, Every Trace of Us, So Every Trace of
• 8:54
  Us again, that's kind of a mental health kind of song, you know,
• 8:58
  battling the more World and you kind of looks it's obviously it's in the
• 9:03
  forefront. Now you know it's okay to talk about mental health. I you
• 9:07
  know, I'm not saying that I have those issues, but I see it
• 9:09
  around me. So I was like writing about you know that kind of every
• 9:13
  trait of us. You know that your soul, your your mind and how
• 9:18
  it can be attacked on daily basis. So yeah, that that was what
• 9:22
  that tracked. And again that was written you know, face to face in
• 9:26
  with Gavin old school writing session and the album finishes with two Forget. Yeah,
• 9:35
  and that's a really when you kind of go through all these songs,
• 9:37
  I realize you know how quite you know serious sort of subject matter is because
• 9:43
  you don't, I don't. I mean, because the songs are really good
• 9:45
  fun they had a really good fun to play, but the subject matter is
• 9:48
  sort of quite you know, dark, And this one is about you know,
• 9:52
  living with tragedy, you know, with you know it just coming to
• 9:58
  terms of being human, you know, because humans have to live with all
• 10:01
  kinds of bad things like loss and tragedy and things like that, all of
• 10:05
  us. And and the older you get, the more of that you're going
• 10:09
  to experience. And so there's this line in there which is remembering is not
• 10:13
  easy, but to forget is impossible. So it's that kind of deep living
• 10:18
  with the difficult sort of aspects of life, but it's still positive, you
• 10:22
  know that. That's life. You know, we're all in the same boat.
• 10:26
  We all have to deal with it, but we but at the end
• 10:28
  of the day, most of us love life and embrace it and we just
• 10:33
  want as many days on this earth as possible. So it's you know,
• 10:35
  it's a it's a it's a it's a contradiction that but you know it's a
• 10:39
  it's a celebration of life. Really very cool. Now I understand you've got
• 10:45
  a UK and Europe Chols plane, mate, so tell us about them.
• 10:50
  Yeah, So were going off for four weeks and we're a bit worried because
• 10:54
  it's the first tour we've done post pandemic. The last tour we did was
• 10:58
  mid Pan, so we were doing some shows in Germany where people had to
• 11:03
  take a test in order to get into the venue. It was really messed
• 11:07
  up. So yeah, it was terrible, but still people were so desperate
• 11:11
  to come to a gig that they were prepared to, you know, to
• 11:13
  do it, to queue up, get a test and actually watch. But
• 11:16
  the shows that kind of had that kind of weird vibe. So it's really
• 11:18
  nice to come out post pandemic. And we're looking at the sales and it's
• 11:22
  the best. It's already the biggest selling tour we've ever done, so so
• 11:26
  we're looking forward to it. Obviously, every time we announced a tour,
• 11:31
  loads of people say, come to Australia, you know, and you know
• 11:35
  so and I've just noticed I've just seen all the photos of because of my
• 11:39
  my friend Jonas in Catstonia, he's currently touring, yeah, touring Australia,
• 11:45
  and it looks brilliant. The crowds look great, so so you know Australian
• 11:50
  New Zealand. It's definitely on on our radar to come out fantastic. Bruce,
• 11:56
  Well, thanks very much for your time that I made. The new
• 11:58
  album leads to This is out now and you'll be getting around the world breach
• 12:03
  surely so got your show somewhere need you Yeah, yeah, thank you very
• 12:07
  much, as atle brother and Joe the rest of your day.