Bread Pilot

“There’s an immediate, Big Star-like appeal to Bread Pilot’s unabashedly poppy music….New To You is the full-length result of a decade of playing together that began in high school. And it’s one hell of a coming-out party.”

- The AV Club

“...a dense and breezy record that manages to feel both spacey and intimate” 

- The Alternative

“New to You is indie rock at its most intimate and energized. From the nostalgic settings of the tracks to the emotional outpour in each song, to the interpersonal relationships of the group, it is a record of vulnerability and closeness.” - Under The Radar

Bread Pilot’s official debut album, New To You, arrived in stores and on DSPs today via Double Double Whammy; listen now HERE. The Seattle-by-way-of-Connecticut band has been earning praise from outlets including The AV Club, The Alternative, Under The Radar and more around the album, and will celebrate its release tomorrow night with a show at Seattle’s Sunset Tavern on May 28th. 

New To You charts a decade of memorable places and momentous occasions, while exploring life’s most intimate emotions through detailed and dynamic arrangements. Bread Pilot — Stephen Ibanez, Jr. (guitar/vocals), Taylor Hayden (guitar/vocals), and Evan House (drums) — met and began performing together in high school in Southbury, CT, and the album is a combination of songs that came out of years of writing and touring, and new ones crafted after the band (which now features Levi Nattrass on bass) relocated to Seattle. The songs on New To You are pins on a map, sonic encapsulations of the distinct thrill of new places and the mundanity of familiar ones.

Allured by the grandeur and nature of the Pacific Northwest, the band made the cross-country move together, and with their shared mutual admiration for The Microphones, were eager to record at The Unknown, an old Catholic church-turned cozy recording studio in Anacortes, WA, where Phil Elverum brought his personal, intimate, and wrenching songs to life. The band worked tirelessly with producer/engineer Samuel Rosson (Great Grandpa, Death Cab for Cutie) to distill a decade’s worth of material into something new, and the studio’s backdrop — surrounded by panoramic views of nature, parks, and quiet small-town life, reminiscent of the band’s youth in Southbury — made it easy to connect and record songs so rich with atmosphere and personal significance. Though Ibanez and Hayden brought new levels of introspection and solitude to their songwriting, Bread Pilot’s ten years of chemistry and companionship radiate from their performance, their gentle and earnest harmonies reveal years of deep friendship and connection. 

New To You stands not only as Bread Pilot’s official debut, but as a testament to how far the band can push itself to reach its full potential — a blend of songs that are poppy and catchy, but non-traditional and non-linear. The album’s softness and tenderness are juxtaposed with emotion too strong to hold back, and too intense to be hushed. Packing 10 years of life experiences and influences into one album, Bread Pilot put their own twist on what it means to make undefinable pop songs. New To You may be steeped in seclusion and introspection, but never enough to detract from the deeper purpose of finding beauty in despair.