Interview: The Pineapple Thief's Bruce Soord Dives Into New Album

“We always have this thing where it’s like, how do we get that live energy and that vibe in the studio?”

That was the question that helped drive the Pineapple Thief forward as they created their 16th studio album, Far and Wide, which is out on Friday, Oct. 9.

Ahead of that release, founder Bruce Soord joined Loudwire Nights to look back on the band’s career while celebrating the new record. Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

“We said, let’s just do what we do live,” Soord told Loudwire Nights host Chuck Armstrong about the direction the Pineapple Thief headed at the beginning of Far and Wide.

“Let’s only do what in the studio, do what we can take onto the stage so we don’t have to have any trickery in order to perform it live.”

Soord remembered what he loved about bands when he was growing up, like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and how the music they created was just them.

“It was just the guitar, the vocals, drums and keys, that’s all they needed,” he expressed.

“So yeah, we kind of went back to that philosophy … If we do this on stage, we can do it in the studio. If we do this in the studio, we can do this on stage.”

That philosophy served them well as they add to their already impressive and massive catalog with Far and Wide, an album that should be celebrated as one of their best.

That’s no small feat considering Soord started making music under this moniker nearly 30 years ago, though he has always pushed the Pineapple Thief to avoid complacency or contentment.

“It kind of brought me back to what I enjoyed being in band when I was 18,” Soord said about Far and Wide.

“You get together with your mates in the garage and you’re all looking at each other, rocking out. That’s what we wanted to get, that kind of feeling on the record.”

What Else Did the Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

The beginning of this new direction when they started Far and Wide: “As soon as we started, everybody was saying, ‘Oh, this is so much, this is so nice because I’ve got so much space to actually do my thing.’ The keys and the bass and the guitars all had space. So we all really had to, in a way, we had to push ourselves as well, because you had to make your statement without millions and millions of layers, which you can do in the modern world now.”
His reaction to the band’s intent with Far and Wide now that it’s almost out: “I do [feel like we did what we set out to do]. I mean, you always look back on what you create with a very, very critical eye. Personally, I would never say, ‘Oh, I’ve done a perfect record,’ because that’s what drives me to do the next one, to wake up and be a better songwriter, be a better performer. But yeah, I listen to it and I think, ‘Yes, I’m really looking forward to people hearing it and getting on stage.'”
What runs through his head when he thinks about the Pineapple Thief releasing 16 studio albums: “I can’t actually believe that I’m talking to you now, 26, 27 years since I started. But it went through such a period. It started so small. That’s the thing, the first record sold 500 copies and then the second one did 1,000…between 1999 and 2010, it was very, very slow sort of upward trajectory. And then we started to get bigger, did small little tours in Europe, but really small, and then in 2016, we met Gavin Harrison, the drummer, and we did this record called Your Wilderness and that kind of broke through … When I look back on this sort of 16 records, it kind of feels like there’s so many periods, so many epochs of the band that it feels like there’s different bands in a way in that history.”