The pandemic has isolated so many of us, confining us to our homes and cutting us off from some of our closest relationships. But it has also brought us closer to new people. That’s how Pile of Love was formed. The super group, featuring members of Drug Church, The Story So Far, and State Champs, came together in 2020 to fill some of the downtime that came with cancelled tours and quarantines.
“Us four made it a weekly thing, every Saturday, to get in a room and write a song and jam. It happened super organically like that,” says guitarist Ryan Graham, who also plays in State Champs.
Initially, the group didn’t put stakes on the project. It was an excuse to hang out with friends through the cathartic release of music. When they began accumulating songs, they started thinking about actually recording them.
“Once we got to a place where we had six or seven songs that we could play pretty flawlessly from front to back we were like, maybe we should make a record, and we should do it live. We should play it like we’re playing now, capture that raw energy, and see what we get from it,” Graham says.
For the group of career musicians, Pile of Love became a return to their earliest involvement with music.
“This kinda felt like we were going back to the beginning. When you first picked up a guitar, and you were playing music with your friends in your basement in high school, hoping to impress the 10 to 15 people that were gonna be at the local show that you were gonna play on the weekend” Graham says. “It was super exciting to me because it was fresh, and it was a style of music that I never really tried to make before.”
The band’s self-titled debut release is crisp, poppy, and joyful as fuck. But besides getting a good record out of the experience, the group also gained something else: close friends. Which, as lonely as the world has been these past couple years, is invaluable.
“These guys, they weren’t my best friends,” Graham says. “They became my best friends during the process.”
Stream “Those Things” here:
For more from Pile of Love, find them on Bandcamp.
Photo courtesy of Pile of Love and Ryan Scott Graham
