Although downtime is rare for Tommy and the High Pilots, the members take time to relish in the small things.
“I’m just standing here watching my boys play pool,” lead singer Tommy Cantillon said. “They’re a good-looking bunch.”
It’s been a long and exciting ride for the members of Tommy and the High Pilots. Since their last appearance in Columbia, they’ve been working nonstop.
“We’ve been writing a bunch of songs,” Cantillon said. “We’ve been staying on the road and working on new stuff. While we’re in St. Louis, we’ll be recording an acoustic EP, which will serve as an in-between album for the kids with _American Riviera_.”
Taking a break doesn’t seem to be a frequent occurrence for these guys — even during the holiday season.
“We don’t ever break,” Cantillon said. “From the road, yes, but from the band, no. Over the holidays we booked the next tour. I try to write songs every day, which can take a long time. When you get as much time as you need, then that’s what we use that time for.”
The release of the band’s newest album _American Riviera_ has been a huge success.
“We’ve taken a step up,” Cantillon said. “When we put out our first record, we weren’t correlated with Ludo, but we’re very fortunate to be incestuous with them — in a positive way. We hadn’t gotten to be under that umbrella with them until this release.”
The new EP can be expected sometime in March.
“It’ll pretty much be an acoustic album,” Cantillon said. “We’re totally working on this album and we want to put out this in-between album. We want to introduce and show people what we’re into. We want to show people the folksier side of the band.”
Touring with the same people for months at a time can be stressing and at times sickening, but that’s not the case for The High Pilots.
“We’ve been touring for so long that our relationships are really positive,” Cantillon said. “Everything totally falls into place accidentally, everything meshes. We sometimes take 20-hour drives and you really get a lot of time to figure out the personality of every person and to find out who they are.”
Sometimes, their relationship is a little more than just a brotherhood.
“It’s really like having a bunch of girlfriends,” Cantillon said. “You go down a different road to make sure very person is happy. Everyone gets to put their own two cents into everything. We’re a really tight unit. If there’s any dust between any of us, it settles so fast.”