sleeping pilot

Sleeping Pilot
Panic Sex
(Sonic Deadline, 2006)
Sleeping Pilot - Panic Sex Cover Art I've never had panic sex, and I don't really want to. It's not really a term that can have many happy endings. There are really only three things I can associate with panic sex: an unwanted pregnancy, an STD, or a dead hooker. Not what I want the outcome of any sexual encounter to be. But now a more positive term can be added to the list: Sleeping Pilot. While maybe not the most creative sex you will have, it certainly isn't the worst, and it will be quite sufficient whenever you're just looking to get your fix.

The first time you see Sleeping Pilot is at a Canadian bar during a weekend vacation to the country. When you walk into the bar, you see that Sleeping Pilot is quite the popular band in Canada. Surrounded by admirers and sporting their recently won Ottawa Express Reader's Poll award, you are intrigued by what they have to offer. You cautiously approach, seeing the shirt the band is wearing features strange artwork and the words Panic Sex printed on the front. Your caution turns to curiosity as you inch closer, the crowd seemingly parting to let you sit down and buy Sleeping Pilot a drink. Immediately you notice that Sleeping Pilot is interested in you. They've experienced the bar and the people inside, and they're ready to move on to the States and beyond, and you provide that perfect opportunity. Suddenly the ball is in your court. You decide to strike up a conversation and see what happens. If you like what you hear, you may very well be going home with Sleeping Pilot.

The beginning of the conversation is just small talk, as Sleeping Pilot introduces themselves with a minute long instrumental starter. As you begin to become more comfortable with each other, Sleeping Pilot begins to open up to you more, suddenly bursting out with a post-hardcore voice that reminds you of Dennis Lyxzén and his friends, although if you recall correctly they didn't really seem like the best of friends. As the conversation progresses, the words being yelled are all intelligent and well thought out, but the way they are being said doesn't change that much. You don't really mind though. You're still interested in Sleeping Pilot, and want to see what else they have to offer. You invite them back to your place, knowing full well a hook-up is about to take place. All you can hope for is for things to get better, or at least for them not to get worse.

When you get home, Sleeping Pilot sings you a song they wrote entitled “Crime Scenery,” and it's the best thing you've heard them say up to this point. You get excited and decide it's time to dim the lights and move to the bedroom, hoping the rest of your night lives up to the expectations of what you just heard. You start to do the deed, and everything is going great. Lyrics are being yelled at the top or their lungs (always a good sign), bass and drum work together as one to create an urgent blend of post-hardcore and screamo, and you're enjoying yourself. The only problem is that things don't progress much farther then that. The Panic Sex isn't bad at all, and in all honesty it's pretty good, but things begin to get a bit repetitive. You begin to show a little disinterest, and Sleeping Pilot does their best to spice things up with “Above the Earth, Beneath the Sky, Under the Thumb,” incorporating clapping and a dual-vocal chorus to the mix. It's a good final push, but then just like that it's over.

There's nothing wrong with Sleeping Pilot or the Panic Sex they provide. You'll see Sleeping Pilot around a few more times, and you'll remember the time you had and give them a few more spins. They definitely show promise, and you know that if they progress in the future you will definitely be calling them more. Plus, at least you know listening to Panic Sex won't give you herpes. - www.scenepointblank.com

Sleeping pilot are a long standing ottawa rock institution. and when i say "rock", i mean it. comprised of a bunch of young hooligans who also happen to be serious and accomplished musicians, sleeping pilot are the real deal. panic sex will appeal to fans of bands like city of caterpillar, malady, and all that kinda jazz. be warned: this isn't an imitator here. this is a non stop tour de force. canada gets back on the map with an instant classic. yes! - Oh No No Records

"Packaged in a nice looking, gatefold cd cover, comes the full length of Sleeping Pilot. This is their first real release after one demo. 8
tracks of up tempo rocking post-hardcore. I'm in a
i-love-canadian-post-hardcore mood for some weeks now, and this falls right into place next
to The Plan and The Grey. Although Sleeping Pilot isn't that angular or
anything. But it has a similar drive in their sound. Good solid riffs,
nice hoarse vocals, and a drum that isn't impressive but steady and with a good sound. But what makes Sleeping Pilot good in my opinion, is that they have the ability to write some great songs with little, to no flaws. They build up nice, without (what seems) filler parts.
Basically, it's rock out stuff. Sometimes they slow things down, sometimes they throw in a frantic bit. I'd definitely would like to see this band live, i think it would be a blast.
My personal favorite is "Above the earth,..." I especially like the
details in the guitar rifss and the break. The handclaps in the song don't even sound cheesy! How about that. Yep, this is a really good album if you dig post-hardcore/indie rock a la The Grey, Haram, Malady, etc..
you get the idea. A+." - www.mashnote.net

SLEEPING PILOT- ‘PANIC SEX’ CD
Hysterical and sharp noise that shifts from a chaotic frenzy of abrupt and discordant hardcore to more refined and elusive arty style. It’s dark and dreamy all at once and destructive and graceful simultaneously and done very well. To be able to benefit from a band and a release like this you have to let them lead you and take you wherever they want to go because this isn’t they type of thing you can just have on in the background while you’re working or whatever, you have to set time aside for this and listen to the thing as a whole. Get engrossed.
- No Front Teeth zine

Written by Johann Kwan
Thursday, 26 October 2006

Every year Ottawa goes nuts Oct. 31 at Halloween Hardcore, a night of costumes, music and fun at Babylon Nightclub. This year the event will be marked with the release of local group Sleeping Pilot’s debut album, Panic Sex.
Panic Sex promises to bring passion, intelligence and an intense combination of punk, hardcore and pure unadulterated rock to Ottawa’s scene.

Sleeping Pilot is comprised of some of the best-connected members on the local level, and it shows. “Everybody in the band had played in bands before, so we sort of knew each other. That’s just how Ottawa works, especially in this age group; eventually you’re going to play music with someone in the scene,” says Justin Gobeil, rhythm guitarist for the group.

It is difficult to describe what Sleeping Pilot sound like if you have never heard them play, but the group is undoubtedly hardcore with intricate lyrics.

“It’s a really big challenge to kind of write music these days because it’s been done so many different ways by so many different bands in good ways and bad,” says Gobeil.

“It’s really [difficult] to write heavy music nowadays that doesn’t sound contrived or it’s just like watered down like it’s some commercial thing. It may be in a cheesy way, but we kind of pride ourselves in being a little arty and pretentious about it, and trying to add some weird prog, or spacey, trying to make it complex and layered so it just doesn’t sound like any teenage band’s hardcore song.”

At the same time, the group is about energy and passion as much as it wants an interesting, hardcore sound.

“[It] goes back to the spontaneity of how [the band] started. You can’t just keep doing the same thing in order to get at that energy; you have to differentiate in order to maintain the same kind of spontaneous energy and combustion that you started with. You have to keep reinventing,” says Scott Birdwise, the group’s singer and a film studies major at Carleton.

After listening to a preview of Panic Sex, it is safe to say it is a fantastic amalgamation of the different musical influences from each of the band members, but there is a unifying vision behind it.

“So on the one hand this music’s about self-expression, but on the other hand it’s precisely trying to express self-expression to the extreme point where I get beyond myself. That’s where communication is with people,” says Birdwise. “You try to get beyond being the band and the crowd and try to break beyond that distinction; it’s using self-expression to get beyond the self.”

Birdwise says this idea is where the name of the album comes from.

“Sex is the linkage between two bodies. [...] There’s some sort of truth to sexuality, but then also again it’s the midpoint where you’re not yourself anymore, even where your body’s interconnected with somebody else’s body. It’s a breakdown of identity, which is what I think our music is. It’s decidedly non-narrative; it’s about clashes and oppositions more than it is about creating a continuity,” he says.

While Birdwise uses long, philosophical explanations to explain the group’s sound, Sleeping Pilot’s music is heavy. It is the kind of music that jumps out at you when you least expect it.

That’s how the band started, after all.

“We got together and jammed [...] and within 10 minutes of us playing, Scott had sliced his lip open and [was] bleeding all over his white shirt, and me and Pat just looked at each other and we were like, ‘This is great. You know, we’ve really got something here,’ “ says Gobeil.

Sleeping Pilot’s music is hardcore, smart and fun. Get ready to rock this Halloween. - The Charlatan

By ALLAN WIGNEY -- Ottawa Sun

The Spruce Street fixer-upper bears all the hallmarks of a home for wayward musicians. The smell of stale smoke hangs in the air. The living room is populated by a motley assortment of bodies, in varying states of alertness, reclining on well-used couches and chairs whose longstanding battle with gravity is all but lost.

Soon, most of those present will navigate the decaying stairs to the basement practice space. For now, they are taking in an episode or two of Beverly Hills 90210 and discussing Panic Sex, the loud, fast and under-control CD that marks the proper debut of local live favourites Sleeping Pilot.

Panic Sex is an edge-of-your-seat hardcore excursion that plays out as a continuous musical journey. A "concept album," as guitarist Mike Bond suggests to no objection from anyone present. Not lyrically, though vocalist Scott Birdwise's opening cry of "Give me 30 lashes and make me pure" effectively sets the scene for what is to come thematically. This, Bond stresses, is a musical concept album. And as producer, he should know.

Besides, as Birdwise notes, "Vocals can convey something that goes beyond the rhetoric of the lyrics." Those who have seen Sleeping Pilot in concert already know as much.

The quintet's adrenaline-fueled performances have generated much talk on the local scene. Panic Sex, and pending tour with For the Mathematics, should effectively spread the word beyond the 613.

Whatever recognition might come their way, Birdwise, Bond, guitarist Justin Gobeil, drummer Pat Johnson and bassist Alex Cairncross have worked hard to earn it. Sleeping Pilot may have been assembled a mere two years ago but it is a band of seasoned musicians.

And busy ones.

Bond and Johnson, for example, are also members (in reversed roles) of the increasingly active Embassies of Denmark; while, Johnson and Gobeil maintain their Army of Saint Joan project.

And they're savvy. At least, savvy enough to release their album through the ambitious Sonic Deadline Records, home of The Grey and FTF. And savvy enough to use the ever-popular annual Halloween Hardcore event to introduce the release that was essentially completed more than a year ago.

"We've all played previous Halloween Hardcore shows with different bands," Birdwise explains. "It seemed like a fitting occasion for the release. There's always a good crowd there."

The delayed release was not by design, however. Sleeping Pilot members place the blame for the waiting game on problems with the CD's mastering. And on a number of distractions. But, they note, the band has been careful not to allow the songs to grow old.

"We've played them at shows," Bond says, "but we've made a point of not getting to the overkill point at practice. Instead, while the business end of this release was getting done, we were busy writing the next one."

"With a year's distance," Birdwise adds, "we're no longer slave to the album. We can look at it in new ways. It's all about controlled doses."

The music has lost none of its power during that year. And the lyrics, Birdwise says, remain relevant. "A lot of questions are asked in these songs but the form of the question will determine the answer."

Birdwise briefly ponders his band's concept album as the slumped figures around him veer off into discussions about everything from the definition of hardcore to, of course, 90210.

"It is," he says with a weary smile, "a study of exhaustion." - Ottawa Sun

A Review Of Panic Sex by Sleeping Pilot
Written by Ben Jensen

Style: Rock/post hardcore
Sounds like: Refused, Isis, Queens Of The Stone Age, Rye Coalition
Standout tracks: Crime Scenery, Above The Earth, Beneath The Sky, Under The Thumb (Above The Earth etc... is all one track), The Machine In The Ghost


"Sometimes, when a rock band's really good, people'll say about them: "man, those guys are really good; those guys bleed rock and roll". Which is pretty good, right? That might make you stop for a minute and go: "what? These guys bleed rock and roll? Shit, I better check them out, that's way better than sweating rock and roll."

But how much better would a band that not only bleeds rock and roll, but also BLEEDS ALL OVER rock and roll (because their rock and roll makes them bleed) be? Are you following me? That's like a devastating, never-ending cycle of rock and roll, because you've got the guys PLAYING their rock and roll, which causes them to BLEED rock and roll, and so on and so on.

Well I'm here to tell you, not only does Sleeping Pilot BLEED rock and roll, they also bleed all over rock and roll. I don't think, of all the times I've seen these guys play live, I've ever seen them walk away from a set without fucking themselves up.

I've seen Alex (a seasoned bass player keep in mind, from a list of bands including Experiment In Terror) shred his fingers on his bass strings so bad that his pick guard was covered in blood by the end of their first, 15-minute-long set. I've seen them manage to accidentally smash like at least five stage lights with errant guitar necks and mic swings through the course of a set (and if they noticed at the time, they didn't show it), which would've probably been fine if Scott (the lead singer) wasn't so into dive-bombing the floor and rolling around, wrestling other members of Pilot to the ground while they're still playing and he's still screaming. I've also seen Mike, who normally plays lead guitar but traded duties with Pat for one song, get unexpectedly dive-tackled right off the drum kit by Scott. I've seen Justin violently wrestle the amps, and I've seen Scott bring his eye-socket crashing down on a mic stand. But I've never seen any of this fuck them up (musically--it's definitely fucked them up physically). Not even a missed note or anything.

But the craziest thing about any of these stage antics is that they didn't happen when they were headlining some giant bill in front of 1000 or even 200 or even 50 people. That's just how hard they play no matter what; most of the shit I listed happened opening for other bands in front of a handful of people in tiny clubs and basements (and, one time, in a coffee house unfortunate enough to have a little stage for open mic nights and no previous knowledge of Sleeping Pilot). These guys don't have to be playing in front of a room full of record execs to go fucking nuts. They just do it because playing their music MAKES them go fucking nuts.

And if you wanna hear what kind of music drives men to act this way when performing it live, go buy Panic Sex. Or maybe you could turn off your vagina, get out of the house for once, and go risk personal injury by seeing them live. And THEN buy their CD. (Here's a tip if you're gonna see them live: buy your beer in BOTTLES, not pint glasses, cuz Scott will inevitably run into you or someone around you and that shit will spill. If you see someone holding a glass, it's probably their first time at a Sleeping Pilot show, or they just don't really like beer all that much. (By the way, Scott's not being a macho asshole or anything when he bumps into people; it just happens. Being at a Pilot show is like being in a mosh pit back before you turned into a crotchety old man: it's all in good fun and you're not seeing punk rock jocks doing spin kicks and elbowing girls in the face or whatever it is goes on in mosh pits these days.))

But if you're still too lazy to do either of those things, I guess I'll actually do my job for once and try to describe what they sound like: Scott Birdwise's vocals are like a mix between Dennis LyxzŽn's frantic yelps and Nick Oliveri's throat-ripping screams, and the music itself sounds like two careless strangers, each carrying an awesome band's signature sound, bumped into each other on the street and got Rye Coalition's epic song structures and rock and roll swagger in Isis's dark atmosphere and heavy doom-iness, and they were both mad for a second, but then realized it sounded good, and walked down the street TOGETHER, as friends.

Finally, I don't often like writers who aren't me or Bret Easton Ellis, but one guy I read put it well when he said Sleeping Pilot were "hard rock meets hardcore". I can't remember where I read that though; it might've actually been Sleeping Pilot who wrote that, for a bio somewhere, but it's pretty accurate.

I'm only a little ashamed to admit I'm addicted to this band. Before any recordi - Standard Issue Magazine