Best of What's Next 2009: Blind Pilot [Musicians]

Photo by Jay Blakesburg

Hometown: Portland, Ore.

Album: 3 Rounds and a Sound

Band Members: Kati Claborn (dulcimer, banjo, vocals), Ryan Dubrowki (drums), Dave Jorgenson (keyboard, trumpet), Ian Krist (vibraphone), Israel Nebeker (vocals, guitar), Luke Ydstie (upright bass, vocals).

For Fans Of: The Decemberists,The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie

In the winter of 2005, Israel Nebeker and Ryan Dobrowski packed up their instruments, waved a brief farewell to their inland college town of Eugene, Ore., and headed to the Pacific coast. They crashed in the barnlike Big Red studios in Astoria, a fisherman’s net loft Nebeker’s father had converted into an artists’ workspace in the middle the Columbia River. There, as waves lapped around them and Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea drifted through the studio, they began writing songs for their 2008 debut, 3 Rounds and a Sound, a recording soaked in seaside imagery and guitar melodies that swell into accordion solos. Now a six-piece, they’ve opened for Gomez and joined The Decemberists for a cross-country tour this summer.

What's Next? “We formed Blind Pilot to get away from goals, so it’s hard for me to talk about our ultimate goals,” Nebeker says. Still, the band will embark on a headlining tour this September, and hopes to record another album year. It would also like to invest a bit of its hard-earned touring money in real estate. “There’s a petting zoo in Kansas called Prairie Dog Farm,” Nebeker says. “We’d like to buy the property, keep all the animals on and host a music festival there.”

Listen to Blind Pilot's "The Story I Heard" on the PasteStation.

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