What does one of the most creative bands of the century so far do when forced into lockdown?
Plan ways on how to release more music, of course.
So was the case with European rock outfit The Pineapple Thief – a band that has released 13 studio albums, 7 live, 2 compilations and 5 E,P’s in a career spanning just 22 years – when they were forced into hibernation shortly after releasing their latest albumVersions Of The Truth in late 2020.
The band decided if they couldn’t play to their fans in a live environment then they would play to them in a more controlled environment and stream the process and result for all to see.
Out of that idea came the successful Nothing but The Truth, a pre-recorded streamed event that more resembled a cinematic experience such was the grand planning and design.
With the world slowly starting to return to some semblance of normality, The Pineapple Thief have decided to release the concert on disk, Blu Ray and DVD, capturing their popular and exhilarating performance and making it available the world over.
Founding member Bruce Soord joined HEAVYT during the week to talk about the album and pretty much whatever else took his fancy.
"Where do I start?” he replied when asked to give us a rundown of the release. “We released our last studio album about a year ago, Versions Of The Truth, and that was in the depths of lockdown over here in England so we couldn't tour. We all got together and said what are we gonna do? When a band releases an album the actual thing to do is go on the road and tour it. So we thought right, we have to do something. We decided to a live... well it’s a stream - we prerecorded it - and we had to make it really nice and the production really good and we got the big camera crew in. It was pretty high stakes really, because you know it was lockdown and we had to prove that we had to travel for work and we had to take tests and all that kind of stuff and we met up on the day and thought is this going to work, how’s it gonna look? We put all our trust in our cameraman and director of music who did all our videos - we knew he was great, but we were still thinking how’s this gonna turn out? At the time we were pretty anxious, and we only had one shot at it because it was pretty expensive but obviously it turned out well and everyone really loved it thankfully so we can look back on it now and laugh but at the time... it was strange times. It was strange and it was stressful because of the situation we were in and double stressed because we only had one shot to nail it."
In the full interview Bruce runs us through the song selection including a number the band hadn’t played live before, revisiting old tunes years later and the nostalgia involved, the early vision for The Pineapple Thief and how it has changed over the years, their sound and those who try to define it, their phenomenal output of music, future plans and more.