It's dangerous to take yourselves too seriously - Best Fit catches up with Pete and the Pirates

In the wake of their sophomore album One Thousand Pictures, and despite rapturous acclaim from broadsheets, tabloids and radio DJs alike, Pete and the Pirates front man Tom Sanders sounds pensive.

“We’re going back to basics. That’s how we started out, meeting up in each others bedrooms,” he begins, explaining the band’s new tactic for song writing, “Yesterday and the day before we spent some time recording. We’re doing demos, basically – pretty good quality demos of a few new songs. It sounds really cool; quite strange, but quite intriguing. It’s compulsive listening. We’ve stopped going to the practice rooms we normally go to. It feels a bit more comfortable… I think we’ve rediscovered a certain way of working that seems quite natural to us,”

These may be strong words coming from a successful musician, but Pete and the Pirates aren’t lacking any enthusiasm for their work. “It’s more like something we accidentally rediscovered that’s quite fun,” interjects Tom, “I think when you’re feeling more relaxed and you’re in a very familiar environment you work a bit differently. When you have everything set up in a space where you just work and record and practice, you lose sight of your aspirations. We’re just happier where we are at the moment.”

That element of energy and fun that launched debut Little Deaths in 2008 has served the band well, and can still be heard on new single ‘Half Moon Street’. “It’s a strange paradox,” says Tom of his attitude towards his work, ”On the one hand we take what we do extremely seriously and we work really hard at it. On the other hand it’s dangerous to take yourselves too seriously. I don’t take myself too seriously as a person, to be honest, and I think it’s important to have a light hearted element to your approach to life and career.”

Directed by Jonny Sanders, the band’s video for ‘Half Moon Street’ depicts them doing “something slightly ridiculous whilst having aspects of tenderness to it. We were worried that the video might kind of lean in the direction of something sentimental,” Tom elaborates, ”so we played with that idea of how it can be sentimental but also very tongue in cheek.”

Pete and the Pirates remain very passionate about the serious side of their project. When questioned about negative attitudes towards the eclectic manner of Little Deaths, and whether he thinks One Thousand Pictures confronts their critics, he’s admirably honest. “There’s definitely a more uniform and consistent sound to One Thousand Pictures,” though Tom credits producer Brendan Lynch for encouraging the band to play live, “When you take the instrumentation apart and put it back together again, it ends up sounding a bit… clinical. There’s more of a rounded sound to the second album.”

2011 has already been an extremely busy year for the band, with a new album having been released in May, an armful or tour dates and a new single released this week. So what about the future? Despite a mysteriously vacant slot at this year’s Reading Festival, Pete and the Pirates are pencilled in to soon play to a Leeds audience, as well as heading out to the continent for festivals in Germany and the Netherlands.

“In the past three years we’ve worked pretty hard and we’ve spent a lot of time going back and forth to Germany, Holland, Austria, Switzerland,” Tom admits, discussing nearing festival slots in the Netherlands, ”It’s nice – you go a few times and people start to enjoy your concerts. Our crowds are getting bigger and bigger in Europe.”

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When asked when the aforementioned demos will see the light of day, the tone of Sanders’ voice lifts, “We want to get our third album out pretty soon – basically within a year of the second one, which is quite ambitious. We felt like we waited a very long time to get One Thousand Pictures out. We’re aiming to start working as soon as we get back from tour, and start rounding up our choices.” Passionate, responsive, and above all, dedicated to their cause, Pete and the Pirates have enjoyed a very busy and musically prolific year so far, and with another album pencilled in to appear before next summer, things are looking very bright indeed for the Reading five piece.

The band’s new single ‘Half Moon Street’ is out now through Stolen Recordings.