by Sebastian Ulloa
photo by Brad Miller

Formed during a hiatus in both of Armistead Burwell Smith IV (Zach) and Rob Crow's primary musical projects, Pinback was a beautiful accident. With their third and latest release "Summer in Abbadon," their ultra melodic brand of pop perfection continues to get the recognition that it deserves. Now in their 30's, Zach and Rob are a couple of San Diego's indie rock Heavyweights. Rob's got Heavy Vegetable, Optiganally Yours, and Thingy, among others, to add onto the list of acts under his belt. Not only does Zach still have Systems Officer going, but he was in Three Mile Pilot for crissakes. You were afraid Geffen had killed both of your favorite bands in 1995, but Three Mile Pilot is working on a new album to be released on Touch and Go later this year. Don't you worry about Geffen, they've recovered since their loss of two legends. In part we owe thanks to Geffen for Pinback and Jets to Brazil. Now that they don't have to worry about Jawbreaker and Three Mile Pilot, they can concentrate on Ashley Simpson. Hooray! With all of Pinback's recent success, Zach still remains one of the most easy going and modest indie rock icons. He is so unassuming when he talks about his music, it's charming. I recently spoke with him after Pinback's return from their U.S. and European tours.

How long have you been playing with Rob?
We've been doing stuff since about ’97, so I guess that's closing in on 8 years.

Had you worked with him before Pinback?
No, we were friends. I had other bands… well I have a band, now that we're doing another record, called Three Mile Pilot. He was in a band called Heavy Vegetable. We met just playing a lot together. We just knew each other through shows.

At what point did Pinback become your primary music project? Was that the intention from the beginning?
No, not at all. Actually, I was just taking a break from Three Mile Pilot. He had some time and I asked him to cruise over and hang out and just play music for fun, because music at the time was turning into not what it's supposed to be for me. So, I just wanted to do music for fun. It was just right when you could start to kind of record on your own on a computer and get away with it. So we started messing around with that and we were never intending to put an album out or anything, it just kind of happened.

It's all done out of your home right?
Yeah, I have a studio that we record in. but it's pretty much like a separate room from my house. It's pretty low key, but we just do everything
ourselves. It's nice to be able to do it at your own pace and not have to
pay somebody.

So have you pretty much abandoned the idea of recording in a "traditional" or "professional" studio?
No, it actually sounds fun at this point. We've put three albums out and a couple of EPs that way, all by ourselves, recording ourselves. So, at this point it might be fun to go out and not have to crawl behind the board and plug in chords and go "what the hell is wrong with this computer..." you know, all that stuff.

Why did you switch from Ace Fu to Touch and Go for the last album?
It was a label we always admired. It was a label I wanted to be on when I was like 17. They always had bands that we loved when we were growing up. They really treat you like a human being. The way they deal with you, with the no contract policy and everything, it's just very like "let's just get together and make a record." If they just like the music, they're going to get behind it. Nothing against Ace Fu, I think it was just that we had done two with them, and we were curious about what else was out there. Touch and Go was always a favorite of ours, so it just worked out.

Who designed the cover? Did one of you two do the photography for it?
I did pretty much all of the artwork. I did a lot of photography, actually the very front cover, Rob took that of himself. That's his shadow. I took
the one on the back. The ones of staircases in the booklet I took. I think we used a couple of slides. We had done that before, where we took slides from this old batch of slides from the 40's and 50's that we got from a thrift store. A couple went across the country and just took pictures, these kind of gorgeous pictures. They just had a good sense to them and seemed to relate to our music, so we used them for the first couple of albums. But they kind of ran dry by this one, so we started taking our own pictures and used a few leftovers.

What was the deal with the first label, Tim/Kerr, that was supposed to have put out the first album?
Oh we're not really supposed to talk about it... some stupid legal thing. Basically they weren't there for us. We had given them a record and they just sat on it. Eric used to work at Tim/Kerr. He's the guy who started Ace Fu records. He was like "I love it and I'm going to New York and I'm starting Ace Fu. Are you guys into doing it over there?" So, we just sort of said "Sure." At the time we were really just like "Ugh, we just want to get this out now, it's been like a year." That album didn't come out until like a year after we had done it and the songs had already been a year old. It was practically two years from the time we started writing to the time it came out. We didn't have any expectations. We weren't planning on making a record, so it was just like "Sure, Ok, you want to do it? Cool."

Are you both currently involved in other projects at the moment?
I'm working on a band called Three Mile Pilot. We are recording again. That's kind of like the start of everything for me. I have a solo thing that I've been doing for a little bit now. I just started it up. It’s called Systems Officer. I'm actually really excited about it. I have a lot of fun doing that. I'm going to be making a full album for that.

Someone once tried to tell me that Rob used to be straight edge. Is there any truth to that?
No, not that I know of (laughs). Maybe he was in the very beginning. I don't know.

Were you ever?
No, I've kind of got that mentality a bit, but not really. I rarely drink. I've never even touched a cigarette to my mouth, let alone pot, even though everyone I know does. I'm a jock at heart, so whatever's good for my body. I’ve got to go play soccer... I mean aren't you supposed to get on the floor and crawl around when there's smoke in the air? That makes more sense to me. Whatever anyone else wants to do, go for it. A lot of straight edge people I knew were always like, they think you suck if you do that stuff, and you know, I don't care. Heheh. I don't like having no control.

www.pinback.com

2004 “Summer In Abaddon” (Touch & Go)
2003 “Offcell” (Absolutely Kosher)
2002 “Some Voices” (Absolutely Kosher)
2001 “Blue Screen Life” (Ace Fu)
1999 “Self-Titled” (Ace Fu)