Ep. #82 Bruce Soord- The Pineapple Thief

Back Stage Pass with Steve Ryan Ep. #82 Bruce Soord- The Pineapple Thief. Talking about his new solo album, the new tours and the songs, The Final Thing on My Mind, In Exile, Pillars, Nestle In, Meet Me on the Downs, Nothing at Best, So We Row, A Thousand Daggers, Driving Like Maniacs and more. #Brucesoord #thepineapplethief

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

It's Backstage Fast with Steve Ryan. And here's your host. Steve Ryan. Hey, Bruce.

SPEAKER_09 0:24

How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I'm good. How are you, my friend?

SPEAKER_09 0:26

I'm very well, thank you. Very well.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Well, thank you for giving me some time today.

SPEAKER_09 0:30

That's all right. My pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hey, um, I've been spending some time with the cuts I've been able to listen to off this new album, Ghost in the Park. Man, it's good, Bruce.

SPEAKER_06 0:41

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Tell me about this this project and and kind of, you know, I I guess the first question that I had was was I had read, tell me if this is right, that you recorded this uh kind of over a pretty lengthy period of time when you were touring with Pineapple Thief. Um and some of the recordings were done in like hotel rooms and stuff like that. How how do you decide what to keep for yourself and what to share with a band and and what goes what's what's your process?

SPEAKER_09 1:11

So I think um that I have to decide that that this that there's gonna be a period of songwriting that is going to be focused on on the solo. So and and then during that period, there isn't there's not really any any uh any conflict in my head about oh, is this gonna be for the pineapple pathief or is it gonna be for me? Because I it's there's a kind of internal process that goes on that actually the music was really only ever going to be suited to this to the solo during that period. So so yeah, I don't really don't really think about that. And because we just finished the Pineappath record actually, and the process is so different. It's like there's four of us, we we get together a lot, um uh it's it's very much a team effort. Whereas the solo thing is it's it's strange actually, because it's it's very solitary and um and I was very, very aware that I was it was very introspective and I was sharing absolutely everything personally. I I made that decision, I said let's see, it's all or nothing. So I'm just gonna share everything that you know that the depths of my soul. Um that's another question, is why you do that. But um, so yeah, it's it's quite a different but quite a different process.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yeah, that's interesting because for some reason in my head, I I I for I don't know why. I was thinking that maybe you would write a song and you would think then you would decide which if if you keep it for yourself or you share it. But it sounds to me like once you're in that mode of this is I'm working on solo stuff, it's the the whole process just is that.

SPEAKER_09 2:50

It is, yeah. I think, I think, you know, when you start songwriting and you go into this sort of world, it's always funny when I tell my wife, I told my wife, right, I'm starting to write now, and she she actually shed a little tear because she knows that it's so it's all-encompassing. It's it it's with you 24-7 when you're songwriting. Um, so it actually it probably takes me a good couple of weeks to actually mentally get in that sort of creative space, that creative world um where you can actually start writing.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Yeah, and you played you played most of the instruments on the on this uh this album.

SPEAKER_09 3:28

I did, yeah. Played everything apart from Kept Me Thinking bass, which I got uh my old friend John from the Pile of Thief to play. But yeah, everything else was was so it's very much uh so a lot of it was was done here where I'm sat now, which is a little studio at the bottom of my garden. Um so it's it's strange to think that oh today I'm going to spend the whole day writing music. And and it can be ment when you're on your own, it can be mentally pretty exhausting. And sometimes I walk out the studio at the end of the day and I'm like, you know, your head is all over the place, and it's quite a strange thing to do to spend an entire day just coming up with you know words and and and music and melody. It's it's uh it's a strange job. I'm not complaining, not complaining.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, truly solo. I mean, because you you don't have anybody to bounce things off of or collaborate with.

SPEAKER_09 4:17

No, none, no, none. So it's quite it's quite strange. I mean, I'm I I honestly say that when I'm doing it, I'm not even thinking that oh, one day this is gonna be an album, that this mus this is gonna be music that people are gonna listen to. I'm just thinking, how can I how can I convey what's going on in my, you know, in my mind and what I'm experiencing? How can I convey it? I can't put it into words, but I can try and put it into music and and music and lyrics, I guess, yeah, together. So yeah, it's um it's yeah, it's quite intense.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

So this album comes out next week.

SPEAKER_09 4:55

Yeah, May the 15th.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

Yeah, and uh, and I've I've listened to Pillars, which which I love. Do you have a favorite cut on this album, or is it is it too hard to pick?

SPEAKER_09 6:21

It's funny because the subject matter, um, because I I've right now I'm going through all the songs because I'm getting ready to play them live, and um, so I'm revisiting them right now so that they're quite fresh, and and then you remember obviously musically I've got some favourites, but then there's also the the the circumstances that I was that uh of the time when the songs came out, you know, they all come back, and there's um there's a track on there called You Made a Promise. And I remember vividly what was happening when when those live when that that came into in into my head and then became a song. But I think I guess the track I'm most proud of on that record is probably the title track, Ghost in the Park, because that was written actually in hotel rooms, but it became this 12-minute thing, uh, not by not really by any kind of um, you know, I didn't didn't set set down and say, right, I'm gonna write an epic, you know, I'm gonna it's almost like an orchestral kind of feel to it. It just became what it became. So I think going through that, I'm going through it now, playing it with a loop pedal and and and the build the way it builds and the silence that's in it as well. I'm really proud of that one.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Do you um I get w how how what lane do you put your your music in? Would you say progressive rock? I mean, because I I kind of get that, but I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 7:49

Do you know I or do you not care? I grew up as a kid, my formative years it was progressive rock that I loved. Um and it was more the melodic kind of bands that you know I remember liking Super Tramp a lot. And uh and but then when I grew older, I you know, you you you you you you you you expand into all kinds of genres, and you know, I I I I did I do love the singer songwriter. I do like listening to singer songwriters, so so yeah, I think there's kind of a crossover. I mean you can hear the you can hear the progressive rock influences, you know, in the in the in the arrangements and stuff. But at the end of the day, I just love listening to a song by that is clearly heartfelt and I feel a connection with. And that's that's that's what music is for me. It's when you can connect, when you feel you're connecting with someone, sharing something and they get it. That's that's that's everything to me.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah. How many songs do you think you've written? I mean, I mean, think I mean, uh you I read that you said you got a Pineapple Thief is got a new album. So that I think that's 17 just with Pineapple Thief and you've done three or four solos?

SPEAKER_09 8:57

Yeah, my gosh. Yeah, that's a lot I'm in fact I know because they're all on this database, this online database in the UK we have uh where you know, and so when I go on there and I type in, you can type in search my works, and then this is like 24 pages of songs come back, and I think, oh my goodness, uh have I really written that many. But I guess you know, I did start in 1999, so it's been a fair fair chunk of time. I've never stopped.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 9:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

It's not really a job, huh?

SPEAKER_09 9:31

No, it's really odd because I I think I've got this um sense of perspective because for the good portion of my life I had a day job. I was putting on a high-vis jacket, getting on my bike and cycling to the office and then coming home and then spending my evenings in the studio. And then 11 years ago, I think my wife said, Right, you're gonna have to choose what you're gonna have to go full-time music, and I'll support you because it's just too much. So for 11 years I've been full-time music, and every day I used to pinch myself and go, This isn't a job, you know. What what are you doing? And every time I would like find myself going, Oh, you know what, I can't face can't face what I've got to do today. I just have to come on, get your perspective goggles on because it's an incredible way to make a living, and and and I'm very conscious that it's not that many people can make a living out of creative arts and especially music business nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, you're gonna take it out on the road, this new album, huh?

SPEAKER_09 10:29

Yeah, uh so so at the moment that I I've written it deliberately so that it's we're able to do it quite stripped back, and we've got so I'm doing I'm going out with my friend John as a sort of a duo, and we've both got looper pedals and we've got percussion. So it's not just an acoustics show, it's actually quite there's quite a lot to it, and and it's very, very live, so no backing tracks. It's uh um so I think it's gonna be quite interesting um how that that turns out. In fact, I have no idea how it's gonna turn out. I'm finding out now when I just trying to remember how to play the song. So um, so yeah, we're taking it on the road, and if it goes well, then I think we're gonna be in a position where we can do a lot more shows. Yeah, it's that gonna be UK stuff, just UK and some Europe, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 11:12

But of course the pineapple thieves coming to the States in uh in uh in the fall.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Oh, nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_09 11:19

Touring, touring, yes, a major tour. So I think we land in November, so uh so that'll be good. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Hey, um you did uh another solo album called Um Luminescence, yeah, and there's a song on there that I love, it's called Um Nestle In. Oh yeah, yeah, kind of this mid-tempo groove with kind of some electronic elements to it.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

You know, I was I did a deep dive into your catalog, and man, it is it is deep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

When you go ahead.

SPEAKER_09 12:21

No, no, I it's it's it it's something people often say, Bruce, where do I start? And I say, I honestly don't know.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah. Yeah. Hey, um, do you mind if we talk about some of the older stuff?

SPEAKER_09 12:35

Yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

I was gonna talk to you about the uh Your Wilderness LP.

SPEAKER_09 12:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

There's speaking of long songs, there's a 10-minute song on there called Um The Final Thing on My Mind. It's so mysterious and just kind of this, it's just kind of this this ride. This it's kind of like not a I wouldn't say roller coaster, it's just kind of this slow ride that just kind of goes and goes. It's so great, Bruce.

SPEAKER_09 13:32

Yeah, thanks. I think that I I think if you look back on the catalogue, you know, that was definitely one of the high points. It's just one of those moments where I tr I remember just sitting on I was lying on my sofa with this guitar and just half asleep, and then all of a sudden this this this thing started, you know, the way the song starts, and then I was doing the melody, and then I came up with this vocal. It just came and it's one of those moments where you just wish that happened every single day.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 14:02

Um and yeah, yeah, it's it's we play it, we always play it, and you know that the the the audience they're waiting for that one, they love it. So uh yeah, I'm very lucky to have that song in the canon.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Yeah. Also on that album is In Exile.

SPEAKER_09 14:18

Yeah, so that to be honest, that album is where we really broke through. So you've got Final Thing on My Mind and In Exile that are right at the top of uh of of our list.

SPEAKER_05 14:29

I am in Exile.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

I love those little those little guitar breaks in between the lyrics. It's not really a it's not really a solo because they're too short, but they've got kind of like those little guitar riffs in between the um the lyrics. I love that.

SPEAKER_09 15:14

Yeah, yeah. And we were really lucky we had a guy, uh my friend Darren Charles who plays in a band called Godstick, so he did some brilliant guitars on on that record, so we were lucky to have him on that.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah. When um when you're out with a band, you don't you don't mix in solo stuff, no?

SPEAKER_09 15:31

No, no, no, no. It's dead the pineapple thief head is is firmly screwed on when we went out with a band. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

You guys you guys still get on pretty well though, huh?

SPEAKER_09 15:42

Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, so we've been the the so the four of us, so there's a core four of us, um myself, Steve, John, and obviously Gavin Harrison. So we met Gav ten years ago now. So this lineup's been stable for ten years. Yeah, we get on really well. In fact, we've just come back from like a time at a residential studio together, you know, just writing, recording. Um, so we just delivered the new album and uh it was great, just great fun. Really great fun. And I think it's so important. And I I I read a lot about bands and and and how difficult and dare I say it, toxic the environment can get with with bands. Too many egos, but um and I kind of we're in an environment where everybody seems to be capable of of listening to everybody else and being um you know, being able to to to shift and and and accept how where songs are gonna go, and they might not necessarily go where they thought they were gonna go, and it's and it's a it's a really nice, really nice environment. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Sounds like your recording process with the band and your solo stuff is extremely different because it sounds like you do a lot of the stuff kind of made in your home studio or whatever, in a hotel room, but with the band, you're going to a recording studio. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 17:03

Well, yeah, but I think with the band, and we're lucky as the band has got more successful, we've we've been able to dedicate more time. So I think for a band to be able to say, you know what, we're gonna spend four weeks together, that's that's not something that a lot of bands can do because it's expensive. You're taking time out, you know, you're not earning any money during this period, right? You're actually just sat together playing, and it's almost like the the the classic sort of romantic vision of the 70s that I have. You know, this is what happened. Bands used to go into studios and say, Right, go in the studio, write me an album, and make sure there's a hit. Right. And that's what I yeah, that's what that's what I felt like we want I wanted to do. Um, because it's so easy, like you said, for everyone nowadays to have their own little studios to do their little guitar parts or sing, and then and then somehow it all comes together and someone someone makes an album out of it. And I kind of felt like, yeah, the romance, there was no romance in that. And also we knew that when we got together as a band and we played live, that by the end of the tour we were like, oh my goodness, these songs there's so much, there's so much more going on, it feels so much more real.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 18:10

So we wanted to get that, we wanted to get that feel, um, that that uh that vibe, dare I say, um, for this record. And and to be honest, it's the first time for the new for the new panel that we just come back, it's the first time that we've really done it together like that. We've we we've got together before, but then we said, right, I'm gonna go away to my studio and and do all the bits. Yeah. But this yeah, this one's been a bit bit more traditional.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

I I think and I think that comes across. I uh you know, there's a lot of projects that are over the last couple of years on this podcast that have been coming out that were that were COVID recordings where somebody, you know, everybody did their parts at home, and then you upload it to the internet and you know it it all gets you know edited together. Yeah, but you you miss that spontaneity, I think. And um, and I think that some people have thought, well, wow, we don't have to, you know, we don't have to take all that time, we can just do our parts and send it in. But but I think it loses something, it loses that that that that vibe, that energy. I think you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_09 19:06

It does, and you can fall into this trap where you just are see you're seeking perfection, technical perfection, when you are sat here on your own, and I'm thinking playing. Whereas when you're together, it's it sounds quite pretentious, but there's this there's this thing that you can't describe where everything comes together, where there's four, I mean where there's five of us when we play live. When we're like really kind of in the pocket, I guess, together, there's a feeling, and it just all of a sudden you go, Oh yeah, there it is, there it is, there's what we I was looking for. And you can't I can't really describe what it feels like. Yeah, whereas it's very easy for us to then go together in our own studios and to do everything technically right, and it'll all slot together, but you just but you don't get that that that you know indescribable thing that that makes makes it that all of a sudden makes it just sound special.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah. Sometimes those little mistakes are exactly that.

SPEAKER_09 20:04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

I've talked to people who like, I hated the vocal on this track, it was a huge hit, and they're like, I hated the vocal. I asked, I said, Let's do it again. And the producer's like, no, just leave it. Just you're overthinking it, just let it go.

SPEAKER_09 20:14

Well, this is the thing. I mean, to just go back to my solo, I I did all the um a lot of the guitar parts in hotel rooms, and I remember someone saying, Oh, because I didn't think it were ever gonna go on the record, I didn't really give them any thought. And and there was it, someone said it was the anti-red light syndrome. I just I was just like, Yeah, let's just play this. And then when I got back to the studio, I was like, right, I'm gonna set the mics up and I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna re-record this, and it's gonna sound better and it's gonna be better. And I did, and I played it back, and it was like, it just doesn't sound the same. Yeah, so I kept all these pretty you know, and I put I listened back, and there's noises and there's like slight, you know, fret noises and notes that are not quite in time, but it just all made it just all made it for me. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

There is an album, um, Someone Here Is Missing.

SPEAKER_09 21:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

And there's a song on there called Nothing at Best.

SPEAKER_09 21:07

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Man, that song rocks.

SPEAKER_09 22:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We played that live. It was used to be our um our sound uh encore song so for for so many, so many years because yeah, it just gets the crowd going that way.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah, yeah. Um Zoe Roe is on there too, which is which is kind of a surprise track to me because it's it's almost a pop song, huh?

SPEAKER_09 22:22

Yeah, I think Someone Who is Missing um is quite a poppy record. I think when I I when I went back, because recently we did this big box set where I revisit remixed all these albums, so I revisited them all and got them, got to know them really well again. And uh that was the so I think if I was to list my favourite Pineapple Thief albums, you know, it uh obviously your world this is up there, but someone is missing as well. You know, I'm really proud of the songwriting on that one.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah, that's a great album. Um you had another solo album, your your your self-titled uh Bruce Sword album. Yeah there's a song on there called A Thousand Daggers. Oh yes. Man, that song is it's that is a it's like a dream that song.

SPEAKER_09 23:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember, I remember I was walking down to my studio and this rain was coming down, and it I just looked up at it, and it was this this slow sort of dreamy rain, and then I just wrote the song.

SPEAKER_06 24:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Um, you know, this song is I I'm asking about specific songs because this podcast is really about it, it's about songs. Okay. And talking to the people who, you know, who make them, but I I really I love hearing the stories about the songs. I was um and I was listening to um Nothing But the Truth LP. Yeah. And the song that stuck out to me on that album is Driving Like Maniacs. Yeah. And man, that song is so sad. That song is so sad. I pulled up the lyrics, and there was there's a this part of it that that just kind of kept hitting me like a rock. It's like, um, I wrote it down because I didn't want to get it wrong. I gave you nothing, I gave you up for you and I. It's like, oh Bruce, man, brother.

SPEAKER_09 25:12

I know. It's it's it was about uh, you know, actually just thinking about that now because the song was about a really, really dear friend of mine. You know, I loved him, he was like a brother. And things happened with us, and I was hurting him basically, um, by being his friend, and and it was awful actually, it was a terrible time, and it was one of those moments where you just have to write. I had to write about it.

SPEAKER_04 25:45

We were always destined to fall as cool.

SPEAKER_09 26:23

Don't think he knows, but that the song is about him. But um, and so we we had to part ways. I had to give him up, you know, for for for for for him, for his for his because I care because because I cared about him so much.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

I think that that resonates with people, and and all, you know, we not just this song, but I think when you hear a song and it speaks to you personally, like I've been through that, I know exactly what they're singing about, I've lived that. I mean that people people can make that connection with that song. It's such a deep emotional thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_09 27:00

It is, yeah. And I think that's when that happens, when the song does that, and when when you meet people and they say, Bruce, Bruce, uh you know, the song Burr, and it's like, yeah, yeah. It almost feels like we're probably, you know, that we're actually friends, you know, because you've you've able to connect with this song where and you're singing about very, very personal, you know, things. So yeah, it's it's it's an amazing thing. It is that's what music and songs are all about, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Is it um is songwriting therapeutic for you?

SPEAKER_09 27:30

I mean absolutely definitely. I can say that instantly, yeah. Cathartic therapy, yeah, it's it's like it definitely helps you deal with with with being human.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Yeah, because you get it out there. It's kind of like people who a lot of people journal, and um, and once they get it out on paper, it's like, okay, now I can decompress because I've got it out there.

unknown 27:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Hey, um, I'm right up against the clock on what I promised time. Man, I only got through about half of my notes. I hope we can do this, uh, do a follow-up and and um talk some more because I got a ton of other songs I want to talk to you about.

SPEAKER_09 28:07

But I'm gonna do a part two at some point.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah. Where do you want people to go to to follow you and what you're doing on your solo stuff and then uh and then with the band? What's the best place for people to go?

SPEAKER_09 28:19

I guess you know, my Instagram, BSword or BruceSword.com, you know, um and then you get all the links. So that's probably the best place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Well, well, brother, good luck on your solo shows in the UK that are coming up. And uh maybe I'll catch I'll be able to catch you with the band when you come over here to the States. I would love that.

SPEAKER_09 28:35

Definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you see let the show this the dates are on the Pine of Teeth website, so if we're coming anywhere near you, let me know. I'll do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Brother, thank you for s giving me some time. I know it's your Friday evening. Have a great weekend. I'll talk to you soon, okay?

SPEAKER_09 28:47

Yeah, thank you. Thanks to you. All right, bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

For questions or comments, email Steve at Steve Ryan.song of the day at gmail.com.