Pipeline are a four-piece glitch rock band crashing their way onto the Brighton music scene. Since forming in May 2019 the band have already released their first single ‘Work It Out’ and have played a multitude of shows in the local area. I recently talked with Pipeline guitarist, Connor Wyatt about all things glitch rock, pedals and upcoming releases.
Glitch rock is a genre that may not be known by many, in your own words how would you describe it?
Glitch rock is basically just a giant wall of electronic, distorted sounds with a heavy, driving beat behind it, and then any added little extras on top to make your own reality. It takes the basic elements of rock and metal, like riffs, hard-hitting drums and aggressive vocals. But then you add the glitch side on top, which is weird, fuzzy, synth-style sounds and weird noises that come out of EDM, but they’re played on instruments, so you get the aggressive performance and delivery of metal with the sounds of digital music. It’s a bit aggressive and can sound a bit odd, but throw a little rap on top and it gets a little more pleasing to the ear.
Which pedals would you say you use the most in your set?
Despite having a stupid Pedalboard, the main sound for Pipeline, and my sound in general, starts from just 3 pedals. The first is a Disruptor, my custom fuzz that I was lucky enough to have built by Demiurge Instruments. The second is the BOSS SL-20 and the final key pedal to my sound is the Strymon Mobius.
How do they help you achieve Pipeline’s immense sound?
The Disruptor is just a huge sounding square wave fuzz, with a built-in sub-octave that fattens up the tone during heavy sections. It also has a fully customisable oscillation control set for just absolute modulation craziness, and it makes a great effect for solos as well because nobody expects to hear a noise like that. The SL-20 is the pedal that creates all those choppy and sharp rhythmic pulses of a Pipeline song, is definitely key to the sound. And finally, the Mobius is what creates those crazy, computerised overtones, and that’s where the main glitch sound comes from. I’ve created a gnarly ring mod on the Mobius and the way it reacts with my fuzz creates this huge wall of sound that replicates a dying computer.
If you could only choose 3 pedals as your “holy grail” what would they be and what is it they do?
If it’s for Pipeline, it would have to be the 3 pedals I just mentioned. However, if just in general, my Palisades, Big Sky and Timeline would be just perfect for my simple set-up. The Palisades by Earthquaker Devices is an absolute beast of an overdrive pedal. It’s multiple Tubescreamer mods in a single pedal and can go from a simple blues crunch to a crushing distorted tone and a huge solo boost, it covers so many grounds. The Big Sky and Timeline by Strymon are in my opinion, one of the best reverbs and delays on the market and they can do absolutely anything I need them to. With 12 fully customisable reverb and delay functions on each pedal, and multiple voices for each one, I can cover every genre from simple pop to a huge ambient expanse. I honestly just enjoy putting a lot of reverb and delay on a distorted tone and improvising for hours, it allows me to drift away and it sounds perfect.
What is the creative process of the band? Do you all contribute towards writing songs?
Yeah, I’m very lucky with the fact that everyone contributes towards our writing process, even if it’s just one part, every song has a little bit from someone. In terms of the writing process itself, there are 3 main ways that we come up with a song. The first is simple, someone brings a part of a full song into rehearsal, we each make adjustments and go from there. The second is the classic way. You’re jamming randomly, someone comes up with something that sounds good, you all join in and then suddenly you give each other the look and smash that record button before you forget what you’re doing. The third way, which sounds stupid as well, is by me messing up a pedal and making a weird noise, then I recreate it and we all join in, simple as that. That’s actually how I came up with the verse for Work It Out. I remember trying out the SL-20, putting it on the wrong setting, changing it and making the sounds, so I recorded it and sent it off to the boys, easy job.
Which song of yours is your favourite to perform and why?
It used to be Work It Out because of the pure energy from the ending, but now, I get so excited when I hear Nick start the high hats for Tessellate. I don’t know what it is, but the simplicity of the riff and how simple the instrumentation is, it sounds so heavy and it gives me the chance to go completely mental on stage and watching the crowd go crazy and mosh to this makes me feel so energised. Add a ridiculously heavy, half time and computerised breakdown at the end, it tops off one of my favourite songs we’ve ever written. Plus I get to play a weird, shreddy and noisy solo halfway through and that’s always a fun way to change things around.
Do you have any upcoming shows?
Unfortunately, we don’t as of yet. We don’t know why but we’re finding it really hard to get gigs, we always have. To be fair, we’ve had a gig a month since we emerged onto the scene in June, but the trouble for us is finding bands that want to play with us because we’re such a weird genre. On that note, if there are any promoters or heavy bands that are looking for people, Pipeline are willing to play anywhere.
You recently released “Work It Out” do you have plans for any releases in the near future?
We actually do as it turns out, we’ve just been very quiet recently and only really gigging because we’ve been busy. I can’t say much in terms of that because we’re trying to keep things on the down-low, but keep your eyes peeled on our social media platforms because we’ll be dropping hints here and there.
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Listen to Pipeline of Spotify