harem pilots - the future's not bleak


• rhodri smith - drums
• leigh hayes - vocals/guitars
• phil m poole - vocals/guitars
• dave welch - bass


The founder members of harem pilots were introduced through a shared musical acquaintance with a debauched, hard smoking, bleeding fingered swinger.

Harem pilots are another guitar rock pop dirge band, spawned from the bowels of manchester...

except:
we are not another manchester band
we don't sound like a manchester band
none of us come from manchester

Though distance often hampered them, the weirdy one jacked in his high flying career in the city (leeds) to "move to manchester and become a rock star" (phil m poole, june 2002).

Despite tunes in abundance, band members were not so easy to find. after sifting through various numpties, beardy and weirdy found bongo and boffin hanging around a sixth form college admiring the ladies (but nobody saw them and nothing can be proved.).


After trading licks for a couple of months our four heroes found themselves at a gig at the land of cakes.

There were no cakes to be seen but there was plenty of ambrosia to be quaffed and a merry time was had by all.

Following said "happening", the intrepid four got down to some intense recording, resulting in the fine self produced "pilot" ep. though things were going swimmingly, a short break was required as boffin had a high seas adventure to attend (sailing around whitby, no less).

During the following months the gigs that took place flowed like fine wine at a keith floyd restaurant.


The night and day was the venue of choice for the warriors of rock and roll (as the pilots have become known...mainly to themselves) and that rainy tuesday night was illuminated like an idea spurned from the brain of jade goody.

The response was so magnanimous that the jammy bastards (as the pilots became known to everybody else) landed a prime slot at club fandango with minus, who apparently demanded pizza on their rider.

The pilots performed a fine and rocking set that was compared by manchester online to the pixies.

I would like to comment at this point that just because leigh's a fat bastard and phil looks a bit like a girl, this was for the musical qualities alone.

Despite a tight schedule of gigging, time for more recording was set aside. after frittering most of their cash on an orgy of boozing and gambling the pilots had enough left over (the cost of a bottle of scotch) to go into the studio to cut their fantastic first single "c"


The academy unsigned was new event that allowed the cream of manchester's (sorry boddingtons...really sorry actually) unsigned bands a chance to shine on stage graced by the likes of coldplay, placebo, the mighty country joe macdonald.

A band of the people was required, a band for which fables were created....they could get anyone like that.

The Pilots fizzed, whopped and bitched their way through an astonishing set that inspired a reaction from the crowd that was equivalent to sellafield mating with chernobyl...if nuclear power stations had sex that is.


Another venue that became almost like home to the pilots was the night and day's no less illustrious neighbour, the legendary dry bar. though they started downstairs the boys wormed their way into the promoters affections so efficiently they were offered a slot at the venue's "in the city" gig faster than you can say "who the hell are these cheeky mutherfuckers?"

As winter was approaching fast, the pilots followed up the success of this gig with shows at the retro bar and supporting campag velocet at jabez clegg. not content with settling for this the hard working men gave their fans a pre-christmas treat with a very special acoustic gig at the star and garter along with a full on rock n roll show at manchester academy three days later.


Though rave reviews were tossed around like confetti for the bands previous recordings. Beardy press-ganged the rest of the band into heading to the studio again.

After careful deliberation and not a little beer the Pilots trouped down to Airtight studios with Uncle Dan from Fat Northerner Records, who promised to 'Distort the fuck out of' anything he hadn't 'Compressed to fuck'.

Genius ensued.

So did their new EP BANG! Watch this space.


On the fateful night of Friday May 6th 2005 Harem Pilots bid farewell to not so much a bass player, but an institution.

Yes Boffin's need to finger his organ finally got the better of him as he left to form a folk band.

It was an emotional evening, the crowd begging for him to stay and Beardy dedicating Cunts to 'anyone who was leaving the band' Tearful hugs took place, but all the emotional blackmail didn't work.

He still left. The Bastard.


From the ashes rose the phoenix, his name is Dave Welch and is from the beautiful country of Ireland.

He looked upon the Pilots, saw that they were good and said 'Nice Band. I'll take it!'

His playing is dirty and filthy in the style of Dinosaur Jr. and he has added a grungier element to the Pilots already unique sound.

He was last seen at practice hitting his bass VERY hard and proclaiming 'I've got a hook for you guys, why don't we cover the CD's in sugar. The Kids'll love it!'



Fook me! It's like spinal fooking tap in our band!

Luckily Andy didn't explode, he left to join a cover band.

This may be a fate worse than exploding, though slightly better paid.








Lost a drummer on Thursday, got a new drummer on Friday.

That's how things work in the world of the Pilots. If we get a Scot in the band we'll have a complete set of Celts!

He is called Rhodri Smith and hales from Wales.

He hits the drums like Dave Grohl and Keith Moon's's bastard love child. A bit of eye candy for the ladies! (As if the rest of us weren't enough!)




The Plastic Surgery club night has gained a debauched reputation on the Manchester scene.

The filthy sexy fans of the Harem Pilots only added to the atmosphere of Rock and Roll bacchanalia.

An explosive headlining set culminated in a drunken freak-based stage invasion that can only be described as orgiastic.

Report back in 9 months for news of any Rock and Roll births.




How much beer can you consume in two hours?

Harem Pilots set about answering this question whilst appearing live on the "Suck My Sound" show (Oo er) for WFM 97.2.

The Pilots charmed the lady DJ's so much phone numbers (and maybe bodily fluids) were exchanged. They also strummed gentle acoustic versions of the fans favorites"Ballooning", "Tarts Boudoir" and "Cards", which went down very nicely (A fact which may,or may not, be the case with the DJ's)

Go to Suck My Sound to listen to a recording of the show.

Eight cans of Stella and ten bottles of budweiser if you were wondering.