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| When pop musicians knew how
to dress to look truly ridiculous |
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Pilot? Weren't they that Scottish
pop band that were around at the same time as the
Well, yes they were, and
therein lies the problem. Guilt by association.
The essential difference,
however, between Pilot and the twee, tartan-trousered twits
that were the Rollers was that Pilot actually had some talent.
But, caught up in the terrifying
teenybop frenzy of the mid-seventies, talent never stood a
chance. Pilot were just unfortunate that they appeared on
the scene at the wrong time.
Granted, we're not talking
about unbridled musical genius here, but at least they played
their own instruments and wrote their own songs. And damned
good little pop tunes they were too, "Magic", "January",
"Call Me Round" and "Just a Smile" being
the pick of the bunch from the 12 singles they released between
1974 and 1977.
David Paton, the group's
songwriter, singer and bass guitarist, first met Billy Lyall
(keyboards, flute and vocals) when he joined a pre-tartan
line-up of the Bay City Rollers in late 1969.
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| Just in case they forgot who
they were, the fetching t-shirts were a visual prompt
for the less intelligent members of the group |
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To their eternal credit,
both had quit the Rollers by 1971 (Paton actually left in
1970 after less than a year), presumably because they refused
to wear silly tartan outfits with trousers that finished halfway
up the shin and wanted no part of the Frankenstein monster
that svengali Tam Paton (no relation) was creating.
Indeed, it may be some
measure of just how awful Lyall believed the Rollers were
becoming that he left the soon-to-be-pop-idols for a job as
a junior in an Edinburgh recording studio, a move that ironically
would be instrumental in Pilot taking off (pardon the pun).
By 1973 the Edinburgh pair
had teamed up with guitarist Ian Bairnson from the Shetland
Islands and drummer Stuart Tosh from Aberdeen to produce several
demos (recorded, presumably for free, in the aforementioned
Craighall Studios where Billy was now a sound engineer) and
it was these which eventually caught the ear of EMI and put
Pilot on the runway to success.
After securing a Top 20
hit with "Magic", the group reached the No.1 spot
in January 1975 with "January", a lightweight and
uncomplicated but nevertheless beautifully crafted pop song.
Unfortunately, circumstances,
and poor management, conspired against the band and by 1977
Pilot had crashed and burned after a flight to stardom that
was more short-hop than long-haul in its duration.
It is testimony to their
ability, however, that both Paton and Bairnson are now highly
respected session musicians with impressive CV's to their
name.
Bairnson has played or
recorded with a diverse range of performers from Kate Bush,
Beverley Craven and Kenny Rodgers to Stanley Clarke, Sting,
Michael McDonald and Alan Parsons.
Paton has sung and played
with The Alan Parsons Project, Camel, Elton John, Rick Wakeman
and Jimmy Page, amongst many others.
Tosh went on to join 10cc.
Tragically, after a spell with icky pop band Dollar, Billy
Lyall died in December 1989, a victim of an AIDS-related illness.
PILOT TRIVIA
FOOTNOTE
PiLoT could just as easily
have been called PLoT, PeLT, PLaTe, sPoiLT, sPLiT, sPLaT or
even imPLanT.
The name PiLoT came, during
the recording of the first album, from using the first letters
of the surnames Paton, Lyall and Tosh.
The reason that Bairnson
isn't included, although he did of course ultimately play
guitar on the album, is because Ian at the time was not "officially"
a member of the band, because he was still considering an
offer to join Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel.
Just as well, really, otherwise
we might now be writing about a group called PiLeBoT.
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