To think, less than six months ago most of us were unaware of
Blind Pilot. There was no 3 Rounds and a Sound (their
staggeringly gorgeous debut, which is primed to top many a year-end
best-of list), no bike lanes traversed by their peddle-powered tours,
and no ensemble cast of musicians (which can balloon from a pair of
members all the way to a firecode-violating stage of nine performers).
Six months ago, there was none of this. Because, for all intents and
purposes, the odds that we’d still be feverishly discussing Blind Pilot
months after their debut were miniscule at best. The band was
essentially new to Portland music, lacking connections, and armed with
little more than a handful of songs and a desire to share their music
by bike. If there ever was an unlikely success story in the unforgiving
musical landscape, this is it.
First came the release of 3 Rounds and a Sound, which moments
after becoming available was nearly impossible to ignore. The modestly
assembled songs beamed with an air of confidence and a deep sense of
importance, something generally not associated with newer bands. The
bare structure of Ryan Dobrowski’s minimal drumming alongside the
vulnerable delivery of singer Israel Nebeker is a simple, yet utterly
irresistible, presentation of polite indie-pop. What followed was a
stars-aligning favorable turn of events for the band: There was the
iTunes store incident—where the band’s “Go On, Say It” was
prominently featured—that begat a personal invite from Aimee
Mann, a CMJ showcase, a fancy new booking agent, and so on. And, don’t
forget the concept of touring via bicycle, something the band
did—at the height of the $4 gasoline panic—for most of the
summer.
It’s no gimmick—although to be fair, when you think about it,
Blind Pilot just might be the greatest thing to happen to the world of
spandex bike shorts and rock ‘n’ roll since Axl Rose combined the two
elements on the Use Your Illusion tour—the band truly is
inspired by not only the rides themselves, but the opportunities that
come with them. As Blind Pilot travels on their own two-wheeled terms,
the band encounters a level of interaction with outsiders seldom
experienced in a typical van tour.
“We tried to play at a prison. It was the only establishment in
between Eugene and the coast on the road we were taking,” explains
Nebeker, referencing the band’s strict policy to try and perform every
night, either at booked gigs, or as unannounced visitors looking for a
show, even if it’s outside a locked prison gate. “The caretaker came
out and he was like, ‘Oh, that sounds like a pretty good idea but all
the prisoners are gone, this place got shut down last year.'”
Of course, modest bike tours require a healthy amount of time, which
can impede the swelling popularity of a band. This has forced Blind
Pilot into a Catch-22 situation where their growing reputation—in
some part derived from their unorthodox devotion to bicycle
travel—will eventually be what forces the band off the bikes and
into touring by vehicle. But no matter the cost of success, the band
isn’t ready to let their ideals go by the wayside. Explains Dobrowski,
“I think we’ll always find a way to tour by bike even if it’s going to
remote places where people haven’t heard us. But I don’t think we’ll
have to worry about that for a while.”