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Interview with For Sleeping or Jumping drummer Taylor Pile

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Taylor Pile, drummer for the band For Sleeping Or Jumping, about their new EP, Dead Languages. This is an unpredictable and super-technical disc with surprises lurking around every corner. Here’s what Pile had to say about the band, the EP and their extremely interesting name.

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Check out the song: “Bear Drops”


I recently had the opportunity to speak with Taylor Pile, drummer for the band For Sleeping Or Jumping, about their new EP, Dead Languages. This is an unpredictable and super-technical disc with surprises lurking around every corner. Here’s what Pile had to say about the band, the EP and their extremely interesting name.

Now that your new EP Dead Languages is complete, how do you feel about it and are you satisfied with the outcome?
Taylor: I am completely satisfied with the outcome. I couldn’t be happier with the way it sounds, I couldn’t be happier with who we worked with. Working with Ben Weinman was just such an honor for all of us. We came into the studio really excited about things, but working with Ben Weinman and Ryan Siegel really took things to the next level. Once we went into the studio to record with them we came out with a really, really polished product that we are very happy with.

How did you hook up with those guys?
Taylor: We actually started off as street team kids for The Dillinger Escape Plan stickering around Boston and handing out flyers. They were nice enough to let us hang out with them and check out their tour bus. We were practicing like eight hours a day trying to get our shit together and once we felt confident to approach them with it they were nice enough to work with us and we came out with Dead Languages.

Did you find it intimidating at all working with artists that you had been fans of?
Taylor: Not really because we got to a point that we felt confident enough to be working with those artists. We would have found it intimidating when we were working on the street team two years ago. It was more of an honor than an intimidation.

What is your writing process like?
Taylor: The writing process is mainly a collaborative effort, but our guitarist Tom kind of comes up with these really, really hard to understand parts and then we sit down, play them, arrange them and figure out how to put this crazy shit together and make a song out of it.

I know your stuff is really technical. That being said do you have difficulty translating the songs to the stage?
Taylor: Yeah absolutely, it definitely takes a lot of time to get them right. We want a lot of energy when we play them live; we don’t want to just be standing there playing our instruments so we will have the songs done three or four months before we play them live. We don’t want people to come see us live standing around trying not to fuck up a part.

Are there any tracks on the disc that are personal favorites or that have good stories behind them?
Taylor: I would say that my personal favorite is gonna have to be “Beardrops” mainly because the end was a very tough run for us and it took me a really long time to learn how to play it and now we can all really nail it live and it is like a celebration of how much it sucked that we just go apeshit.

Where did the name For Sleeping or Jumping come from?
Taylor: I was in English class at Berkeley College of Music bored shit and we were talking about literature during The Depression and apparently the reference is about a hotel clerk standing at the desk when someone comes in to rent out a room. The clerk asks him if it is for sleeping or jumping because if he was going to kill himself then the clerk would put him on a higher floor.

Check out the album: ‘Dead Languages’


Interesting! What about the title of the EP Dead Languages?
Taylor: To be completely honest with you the title is left up for interpretation and is kind of whatever you want it to be.

You guys have any touring plans?
Taylor: Yeah we are working on it and looking at something in June.

Any closing words at all?
Taylor: I am really excited that you guys are interested in the disc and I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. We are not looking for money out of this, all we want is for people to hear it.

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