With their confident and cohesive sound, Pistol Youth have all the hallmarks of a group who have played together for years.
It's remarkable, then, that before meeting in Los Angeles to record their debut album, My Own Private Amsterdam, the band members - apart from singer Bradley Hanan Carter, who
knew everyone from his youth - had never met face-to-face.
Hanan Carter came up with the idea of starting a long-distance project years earlier while on the road with his band Steriogram. The LA-based singer then called on a few friends - bassist Anders Borgh in Goteborg, Sweden, guitarist Michael Guy Chislett in Chicago and drummer Gavin Kerr in Tauranga - to help.
"Anders had lived with me in Whangarei as an exchange student and we always said we'd be in a band one day. And basically as I brought each member in, the dynamic started to get more and more interesting."
The EP came together so smoothly that Hanan Carter invited everyone to the US to make a full-length album. "The seven weeks we spent together in LA were magical. We became like a family so quickly."
The band strived to make a "real album" that could be listened to from start to end and took inspiration from artists they'd listened to growing up. "My favourite bands were Oasis, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer. We wanted to make an album around that era, and I think we did."
Pistol Youth's My Own Private Amsterdam is out now. They are supporting General Fiasco at the Powerstation in Auckland on August 13.
