Pinback Do It Themselves

BY Cam LindsayPublished Jan 1, 2006

Pinback is a home-recorded collaboration between two men: Armistead Burwell Smith IV (aka Absiv; aka Zach) and Rob Crow. Having never had much of a concrete life before, things are looking more promising than ever these days for Pinback. After signing with Touch & Go last year, the band has finally released a self-produced gem in Summer In Abbadon, their third and strongest full-length album to date.

While both have trekked these scenes for years — Zach with Three Mile Pilot and Rob with Heavy Vegetable and Thingy — Pinback has become their common ground for laconic guitar licks and bass lines, complex rhythms and beautiful melodies.

Summer In Abbadon has a surplus of rich pop hooks and tense pulsations — all thanks to bedroom-recorded inspiration. "I think studios are great, but that's sort of how Pinback became what Pinback is," Zack says. "I was blown away by the amount of money offered when I was on Geffen with Three Mile Pilot," admits Zach. "It was like, ‘What do you mean you're spending $150,000 on a recording? You guys are nuts! It doesn't need to cost that much.' We were going to them saying, ‘C'mon just give us not even a third of that money and we'll record it ourselves. We don't know what we're doing, but we have ears and we've been in studios; we think we could pull it off.' But that was completely shot down."

With studio technology, a pro sound can be captured just by a laptop, but Zach remains true to his roots and the band's original vision. Not that you'd suspect, given Abbadon's slick production. "That's kind of what Pinback is: me going, ‘I want to do it at home and do it by myself,'" he says. "I think when it comes down to recording, if the song sucks it doesn't matter where it's recorded. If you like the song it could be recorded on a four-track shitty tape recorder and it can come out great."

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