Indie rock: It came, it saw, it conquered and fans of the ’80s college rock movement and ’90s alternative scene bunkered down, waiting for the worst to be over.
By Lindsay Smith; Photos by Jessica Leah Photography
Now that the dust is settling, the slow but steady re-emergence of alternative rock is well on its way. Still fighting the good fight, local alt-rock band Pilly Wete sounds like an updated version of Everclear and Weezer with their own Gainesville twist. INsite caught up with Rob Curtis (guitar, vocals), Matt Core (guitar, vocals), Matt Caniff (bass) and Mike Swart (drums) to find out what it’s like to be in a niche genre in a musical town.
Favorite place to play in Gainesville: Common Grounds Favorite place to eat: La Fiesta Most forgotten piece of equipment? The bass player Band you would die to open for? Foo Fighters How many cars does it take to get your equipment and members to a show? 2 Who is the hottest member of the band? Pilly, Matt’s dog and honorary member of the band
First off, where in the world did you come up with a name like Pilly Wete? Mike: We had a list of names that we had come up with, and that was just one of the names on the list. We had a couple of military-inspired names, like Willy Pete, which is slang for phosphorous, and we liked it and decided to swap the letters around to get Pilly Wete.
What inspired the military theme? Mike: Rob and I were in the military; that’s actually how the band got started. Matt C.: They were in Iraq and they had the idea, on their time away from duty, to play guitar and hang out together, which is when they had the idea to start a band up. When they got back from Iraq, Pilly Wete was born.
How long did you serve in Iraq? Mike: A year, we were deployed. We were in Fallujah, actually, and midway through the tour, we just had the idea that we should start a band. We started writing some songs and we had an acoustic guitar we had bought off of a guy who was leaving.
I drove by the 34th Street Wall and noticed the promo for your upcoming show. Do you do that for every show yourself? Painting that wall is a lot more work than it looks. Matt C.: We’ve done it for our past big Gainesville shows. We try to do it every time. There have been a couple times we’ve failed. We’ll promote, get fliers, chalk up campus sometimes. That time it was Matt, all by himself. Mike: He paints. He’s an artist.
You released your EP Equipment in the fall. What sort of work went into making that album? Rob: We wanted some material that we had recorded that we could give to people so they knew what we sounded like. The reason we spent the time on a full studio EP was that we wanted to have a good product; we realized it was a lot of time to put into making those seven or eight songs, but we didn’t want to cheat fans and give them something we had recorded in our basement—we wanted to give them something worth the money they were spending.
A lot of bands are surprised at how much time a studio recording really takes. Were you? Matt C.: We all have jobs. I have to work in the early morning, and then go straight there and stay there until 2 o’clock in the morning, so it was 16-hour days. It was fun, and it was the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever done, but I was definitely surprised at the time we invested and that had to be put into it.
The artwork looks great for it, by the way. Matt C.: Mike’s sister did the photography for it and made it look real cool. In the inside of it, we went with the World War I theme and borrowed that from Mike’s job.
Pilly Wete’s sound is distinctly that ’90s, Everclear/Weezer alt rock that is being hailed as the “new classic rock.” What brought you to this genre? Matt C.: We’re all over 25; we’re not straight out of high school. We were introduced to music and rock mostly in the ’90s, and we all kind of listened to it on our own and were somewhat isolated from any scene, and we all have similar (but different as well) influences. I like garage blues, but we have the Weezer and Foo Fighters kind of thing in there too. We weren’t very cool; that’s what did it.
Do you ever get the sense that the alternative and college rock scene was pushed aside by the emergence of the indie music scene, or do you still find a niche out there for your music in Gainesville? Rob: Gainesville is like, to me, it’s a magical place that has a lot of potential. In its heyday, and maybe it will have another heyday coming, it had some really, really good music that was being made by really cool cats, but I think as of late it’s not doing what it should. It’s not producing what it should be producing with the amount of talent from its musical heritage and the University of Florida right here. I think Pilly Wete is more of a straight rock band as opposed to all that other bluegrass stuff; we’re not music majors. We’re not trying to show you that we can play 7,000 chords—we’re trying to play a really good rock song that will make you jump up and down. You don’t need embellishments to show talent. If you have feeling, that’s your talent. Gainesville is good, but I think it could be better. I really hope that it gets back to where it once was.
You have a show at Common Grounds coming up on April 23. What can we expect? Matt C.: We’ve played there a couple of times, and the last time we played there we played with Peelander Z, and it got pretty crazy last time. It’s on a Friday this time, so it’ll be even better, definitely a lot of fun. They put on a good show, and I may be kinda biased, but we put on a pretty good show as well.
What’s in the future for Pilly Wete? Matt C.: We’re trying to get into some music festivals. Hopefully somebody will throw a stone. We hear we’re pretty big in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Tuscaloosa…Alabama? Mike: We started sending out some CDs to college radio stations, and a DJ at the University of Alabama really liked our songs, and he told us he put us on medium airplay, which is about once a day, which is pretty great. The running joke now has been that we’re a hit in Alabama. I haven’t heard anything back yet though, so maybe we’re not as big as we think.
For more on Pilly Wete, check out myspace.com/pillywete or catch their show on April 23 at Common Grounds.
These guys are pretty good. Definitely gonna check them out at the Common Grounds show this Friday night.
|2010-04-20 16:22:34
jonny b.
i completely disagree with steven g.
|2010-04-28 19:34:22
pat from wi.
- pilly wete
I can't wait to get back to Gainesville to see a concert they are GREAT!!!
|2010-05-08 19:29:32
Elisabeth
- They rock!!
I love their music, sound and totally enjoy every show I go to!! No matter how many times they play Joe Ellis, I get excited and sing right along with them!!
Indie rock: It came, it saw, it conquered and fans of the ’80s college rock movement and ’90s alternative scene bunkered down, waiting for the worst to be over.
