Video Interview – The Pile Talk “The Crab”

Posted: 1st June, 2022 by The Editor

I come across a lot of music in various formats on the internet, from YouTube links texted to me by friends to The Alternative’s own playlists. But it’s not often that I find as instantly intriguing a song on the world wide web as the one recently DM’d to me by William Caldwell, one half of cross-country rock duo The Pile.  Technically it’s two songs, one called “Whatever You Say,” the other called “I Might Have Known,” both part of a single release titled The Crab.

They had me by the titles alone—I’m a big fan of crabs, being a Cancer moon—but the songs themselves ended up being delightful dance-rock nuggets, channeling ’00s indie sleaze and ’70s funk, with cheeky, theatrical vocals to boot. Needless to say, I simply had to talk to Caldwell and bandmate Dylan Waite about the crustacean inspiration behind the tunes for a new episode of The Alt’s music talk show Get Involved. We discussed the process of collaborating on music remotely, the art of slap bass, and the unique creative consequences of mishearing a line of Shakespeare.