Bloc Party Guitarist Readies Album With Side Project Pin Me Down

Posted on Mar 4th 2010 2:00PM by Jolie Lash
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Guitarist Russell Lissack isn't taking it easy while his London four-piece Bloc Party take a break. Along with New York-based vocalist Milena Mipres, the floppy-haired axeman has been polishing off the 10 or 11 tracks the duo handpicked -- from around 50 -- for their debut album under the moniker Pin Me Down, due out April 19.

"The two songs that we've put out so far are quite representative of our sound," Russell tells Spinner about the group's first two offerings, one of which was recently released as a free download. "It is quite a lot of upbeat stuff. It's a party, but there's a comedown at the end."

The release date for the effort will depend on Mipres' college schedule, which the two have been working to build recording studio time around. And when the release does come, it won't follow a traditional path.

"We're keeping it quite DIY, doing things ourselves rather than the kind of old record company route," Lissack says. "Hopefully we'll get some people to help us out, some friends."

Lissack and Mipres have been collaborating mostly online, with the guitarist writing the music and the singer handling lyrics and vocal melodies.

"I've always had melodies in my head that I need to kind of get out," he says. "It's another outlet for me to do that because I'm not the kind of person that can sit around for several months not doing anything. We've just got tons and tons of songs that we [were] never gonna quite finish. Now, having a break from Bloc Party gave us the opportunity to try and finish the things we're working on."

The two hope to take Pin Me Down on the road for a tour or possibly some festival appearances this year, something Lissack is looking forward to.

"It started quite innocently and evolved from that," he says. "It wasn't really like a game plan or anything, but playing live is something that I really enjoy as well. It's nice to be involved in something that you can then perform. That's something that I find quite rewarding."

How much time Pin Me Down have to tour, however, will likely be impacted by Bloc Party's return.

"We'd written quite a lot of new stuff when we were touring all last year, so we've got quite a lot of songs in the pipeline still, so I think it's just when everyone is kind of chilled out [we'll get back together]," he says. "We were all quite exhausted from touring so long that everyone needs a bit of sleep and home time, but once everyone's ready I'm sure someone will kind of say 'Hey, let's do some stuff."