Biography
Three Mile Pilot emerged from San Diego around 1991 as a trio built around vocalist Pall A. Jenkins (also known as Paulo Zappoli), bassist Armistead Burwell Smith IV (credited variously as Zach or ABS#4), and drummer Tom Zinser, with occasional horn contributions from Jim French. Their early work on the local Headhunter imprint began with the 1992 full-length Na Vucca Do Lupu, followed by the 1993 EP Circumcised that marked Jenkins’s initial experiments with guitar. The 1994 album The Chief Assassin to the Sinister expanded the group’s palette when Smith added piano and cello; Geffen later licensed and reissued the record in 1995 with extra tracks, though the major-label association proved brief and contentious before the band returned to Headhunter.
Throughout the decade the San Diego outfit stood out locally for its brooding, bass-driven sound—initially guitar-free—and for an expansive prog-rock sensibility that favored lengthy, sectional compositions. Sudden changes in tonality, meter, and dynamics drew parallels to math-rock acts such as Slint and Don Caballero, while their more melodic passages evoked the Pixies or Nirvana. By 1997 pianist Tobias Nathaniel had joined full-time, appearing on Another Desert, Another Sea and on a subsequent self-titled five-song EP for Gravity as well as scattered 7-inch releases. Jenkins and Nathaniel soon launched the Nick Cave-influenced Black Heart Procession, whose Touch & Go contract from the second album onward generated wider underground attention than Three Mile Pilot itself ever received.
With Jenkins and Nathaniel still nominally part of Three Mile Pilot, the original lineup entered an extended pause. During that interval Smith and Zinser formed Pinback alongside Rob Crow of Heavy Vegetable and Thingy. Headhunter eventually collected stray singles, outtakes, and rarities on the 2000 double-CD Songs from an Old Town We Once Knew. Sporadic writing continued, yet the demands of the members’ other projects kept any reunion at bay until 2010, when Smith, Jenkins, and Zinser reconvened after a thirteen-year gap to record The Inevitable Past Is the Future Forgotten.
Throughout the decade the San Diego outfit stood out locally for its brooding, bass-driven sound—initially guitar-free—and for an expansive prog-rock sensibility that favored lengthy, sectional compositions. Sudden changes in tonality, meter, and dynamics drew parallels to math-rock acts such as Slint and Don Caballero, while their more melodic passages evoked the Pixies or Nirvana. By 1997 pianist Tobias Nathaniel had joined full-time, appearing on Another Desert, Another Sea and on a subsequent self-titled five-song EP for Gravity as well as scattered 7-inch releases. Jenkins and Nathaniel soon launched the Nick Cave-influenced Black Heart Procession, whose Touch & Go contract from the second album onward generated wider underground attention than Three Mile Pilot itself ever received.
With Jenkins and Nathaniel still nominally part of Three Mile Pilot, the original lineup entered an extended pause. During that interval Smith and Zinser formed Pinback alongside Rob Crow of Heavy Vegetable and Thingy. Headhunter eventually collected stray singles, outtakes, and rarities on the 2000 double-CD Songs from an Old Town We Once Knew. Sporadic writing continued, yet the demands of the members’ other projects kept any reunion at bay until 2010, when Smith, Jenkins, and Zinser reconvened after a thirteen-year gap to record The Inevitable Past Is the Future Forgotten.
Albums
Singles
