Pillar - Where do they go from here?
By Lee Haley
The music industry is in a very volatile state right now. With a plethora of lawsuits ranging from peer to peer file sharing, to copyright infringement, and a daily changing paradigm, its safe to say that the brass ring that most of us try to grab at least at some point in our lifetime, may or may not be that attainable anymore. It is also becoming very apparent that the days of sending in your demo tape to a label, or bumping in to that A&R guy in the airport and handing him your demo so he can discover you as the next rising star may be long gone as well. It seems all you have to do nowadays is show up at the nearest hotel lobby of a major metropolis such as: Nashville, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin… take your pick. Simply stand in line for hours to audition and possibly advance to have your beautiful little mug showcased across millions of television screens across the nation so America’s finest couch potatoes can dial in to either catapult you to the glitz and glamour you’ve always dreamed of, or seal your fate with the assistance of AT& T. via a push of a button. Heck, you don’t even have to have any talent at all anymore and you can have hundreds of fan clubs and websites dedicated to you! It’s fairly obvious that a very small percentage of people actually make it to a level that can even be considered close to being successful. Those odds are even narrower if you are competing in the CBA market (Christian). To add more confusion to the mix, you can count the non-pop (Rock) acts in the CBA market on one hand or less! So how did a group of guys from all places Oklahoma break through this otherwise impenetrable barrier? Enter Pillar:
Pillar is Rob Beckley (V) Kalel (B) Noah Henson (G) and Lester White (D). Pillar was formed from a group of friends who met in Hays, Kansas in early 1998, when several original members were enrolled in Ft. Hays State University. They soon met up with singer Rob Beckley who had just returned from the service and that formed the beginnings of Pillar. After the band released and self-produced two CDs, they signed with rock label Flicker Records, which released Pillar’s debut album Above in September 2000. The success of its debut single “Open Your Eyes” led to more than 60,000 in album sales. Soon afterwards their popularity grew and they inked a deal with Flicker/MCA (now Geffen Records) Their latest release, Fireproof, to date has shipped more than 350,000 copies. As is usually the story, Geffen Records made the inevitable corporate changes within the label, and the band found themselves without their supportative A&R man, and asked to be released from their contract with MCA Records. Now back in the studio recording “Where do we go from here” their follow-up to Fireproof with legendary producer, Travis Wyrick. the band just confirmed Chris Lord-Alge (No Doubt, Everclear, Orgy, Barenaked Ladies, and Foo Fighters, among others) to mix two new songs for their new record. Pillar also co-wrote a song with Megadeth front man Dave Mustaine, who also played guitar on the song. On top of that the band recently inked a deal with Microsoft along with Sting, Ludacris, Peter Gabriel, Sheryl Crow and others for the new 5.1 Surround Sound for Windows Media 9 Series.
I spoke to bassist Kalel about the highs and lows of the past year and what all they had experienced.
“Man, yeah, this last year was crazy, dude. I mean Fireproof was still kicking butt. I mean, it exceeded all of our expectations. You know, we had hoped to sell at least 100,000, but never thought it would happen, and then it sold 200,000 and it’s still climbing. It blew us away, you know. We kept touring our butt off this last year. The label deal, you know, it basically turned our lives around. We were mainstream. We did a lot of great stuff. You know, we played with Korn, we did a show with Sevendust, a lot of big, huge festivals, and we got a lot of radio play. We were just in Hit Parader Magazine last month and even in Rolling Stone Magazine. You know, it was like a whirlwind. Then, this label change happened and we were back on Flicker and, it’s like, it all just worked out for the best. We are set up for this album to go out of the solar system.” “MCA had spent 500 to ½ million dollars on us, and weren’t working the record, and they were used to working with these new bands coming out of nowhere who wanted to be signed. It’s like, dude, we’re in our prime right now, we don’t need you guys. We even told that to the president and we had our lawyer say, basically, these guys don’t need you. If you’re not going to work them, let them off so they can go get on with their careers. They let us go. We were completely free and clear, which was actually amazing. You know, at the time, we were like, this kind of sucks, you know” Kalel states.
The band according to Kalel has always had 100% support from Flicker Records even from the beginning, which is why Pillar stayed with them. ” Flicker has always loved us and supported us and they loved our music. They are a great label, and that’s why, when we were free, we took offers from a handful of labels, mainstream and Christian, and decided to go back with Flicker, because they offered basically the best record deal that anybody could get, and they had a passion for our music. They also have a new CEO, named Troy Vest. He is a marketing mastermind”
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Comments
saving the Mustaine song for the re-release what a crock
"saving the Mustaine song for the re-release what a crock" What is up with that? That is total crap. Why can't there just be one release of the record? Everything should be released at the same time. I love Megadeth and want to hear the song on June 15th when the album is supposed to come out.
i love pillar!
The song with Dave Mustaine was never finished. Currently only drums and guitar are finished while bass and lyrics have never been written. When asked on the pillar message boards where i am the administrator, Kalel said, "we honestly dont know when the mustaine song will get finished or if ever. we also dont know if a mainstream label will pick up this new album. we dont know if there will be a re-release. now at some point we would like to release a new 1-to-multi hour DVD. but no plans right now. just a lot of footage collected." He also mentioned that he was dissapointed with the fact that in the magazine PILLAR was spelt PILLER at the top of the article.
Why does Pillar do this to us? How many times do we have to buy your album Mr. Kalel? And the Musicians wonder why Peer to Peer is making such headway.
I heard a few of the trax....MAN this is the best stuff they have ever done. Ther eis a song called Underneath it all that has the tightest guitar groov I have ever heard.
Pillar is terrible........
whoa, how can you say pillar is terrible! i know all of the guys on a personal basis and they are great guys, on stage and off. their music has changed my life like no one else could, God has used them in awesome ways to really help me through alot of mess. i love them and they will always be my favorite band
The new pillar rocks. It would rock even better if it had Dave's song on it.
I love Megadeth and that Dave is doing Jesus type material now. If Pillar understood Megadeth fans and how loyal they are to dave, they would have made extra effort to make sure it was on the release.
The Dave song would have been the first "new dave" material in over two years and the first material any fans had heard since he injured his arm. I guarantee that a large number of the 15,000+ fans on the megadeth.com forums would have bought and therefore been exposed to the new pillar just because it had Dave's song.
In my opinion they blew a huge marketing opportunity to get a bigger audience.
Still, I hope us Dave fans get to hear the song eventually. And if Pillar understands dave fans, the song will have dave's vocals on it.
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