American Dreamin’: An Interview with Jack Edwards of Piston
On the Radar Jack Edwards of Piston: An Insightful Chat with A Guitar Guru
I recently had the honor of interviewing Jack Edwards of up and coming U.K. rock sensation Piston. For being a fresh new rock formation, this bunch has some pretty eye catching acknowledgments in the books already. Piston’s ‘Rainmaker’ was ‘A’ listed on Planet Rock (UK’s #1 rock station). ‘Rainmaker’ was exclusively premiered online by Classic Rock Magazine and Louder Sound. Aside from being featured in Total Guitar’s ‘Ones To Watch,’ Music Radar nominated Jack Edwards and Luke Allatt of Piston for ‘Best New Guitarist’ 2019. The duo were even recently voted #3 in Music Radar’s ‘Best New Guitarists In The World Right Now’.
My main goal was to delve into Edwards’ musical roots & where he aspires to be with the band in the near future (once the world opens back up that is) as a possible introduction to U.S. audiences. This band truly seems as though they would be up for the challenge of going global with their already musically well rounded, rich & deeply Rock ‘N’ Roll tracks. This interviewer’s goal was obviously to gain more insight into the foundation & expectations of it all, but actually ended up uncovering quite a down-to-earth rocker in Piston guitarist Jack Edwards.
Roctavia: I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for answering a few questions with me Jack, I really appreciate your time. Let’s start things off with diving into where it all began for you. What inspired you to turn towards music, & what moved you to pick up your first guitar?
Jack Edwards: I have grown up in a house surrounded by rock music. My parents are huge fans of rock so we would always have that blasting throughout. My dad would often work on his Harley Davidson blasting Mötley Crüe records, I remember that! There was an old guitar lying around my grandparents house and I picked it up and started making noise, then it all picked up from there!
Roctavia: Wow. That sounds like a pretty great house to grow up in!
Roctavia: Do you recall your first gig? Can you tell us what it was like?
Jack Edwards: I remember my first gig really well. I was in high school and it was the first time I had played in front of an audience properly. I had been so nervous that I couldn’t eat for two days! Anyway, I remember the feeling of adrenaline like no other, and how well we went down. I mean, we were just kids playing in a school hall to lunch packers but I definitely felt like a rockstar (for three minutes).
Roctavia: If you had one message for all of the young musicians out there, what would you say to them?
Jack Edwards: Stick with it, keep going and stay true to yourself.
Roctavia: On that note, what has been your biggest gig so far?
Jack Edwards: Definitely when we were on tour with The Cult. We played Manchester Apollo which held 3500 people that night. It was a wild experience being on that stage that many legends have graced.
Roctavia: Wow! That sounds like a pretty electrifying experience.
Roctavia: So I’m curious as to what the writing process looks like for Piston & are there any current projects in the works?
Jack Edwards: We have just set up our own studio, which we now use to write all of our tracks. We send the tracks to Rob, our singer and he lays his vocals down and then we perform them together. I mean, these are demos and we have nearly wrote album 2.
Roctavia: Your song “Rainmaker” packs quite the punch! Where did you draw the inspiration for it musically?
Jack Edwards: Oh thanks! Well I think Luke originally had the riff. It come from an AC/DC style thing he had going on, and we refined it from there! AC/DC meets Black Sabbath!
Roctavia: That’s awesome! It really does make an impact on the first listen!
Roctavia: Where do you see Piston headed 5 years from now?
Jack Edwards: Well, that’s hard to answer giving the current pandemic. Will we be playing shows? Who knows! We hope to! We plan on making albums up until we can’t do it anymore. 2019 was a hell of a year from us, so we will pick it up from there and keep going!
Roctavia: So how would you feel about touring the US? What would you look forward to most about crossing the pond?
Jack Edwards: We would LOVE to tour the US. I want to play in the obvious places in LA, but I think with us going to America it could get messy… one of us will probably die for sure! Ha!
Roctavia: Haha! Yeah, we do know how to have a lot of fun over here…you gotta be careful haha.
Roctavia: If you could collaborate with any one of your musical heroes, who would you choose & why?
Jack Edwards: That’s a tough question. I’d love to write a track with Axl Rose, personally. I have always loved his vocals and his lyrics.
Roctavia: I always love to end interviews on a fun or off the cuff question, so if you could choose one song to play every time you walked into a room for the rest of your life, what song would you choose and why?
Jack Edwards: “Kickstart My Heart” by Mötley Crüe because it just makes me want to take my clothes off and go crazy!
Roctavia: Hahaha! Great answer! Thank you so much for taking the time out to interview with us today! We look forward to hearing all of the new music in the works from Piston.
Piston are:
Rob Angelico (Vocals)
Jack Edwards (Guitar)
Luke Allatt (Guitar)
Brad Newlands (Drums)
Stuart Egan (Bass)
For merch and tour dates visit.
https://www.pistonuk.com
https://www.facebook.com/PistonUK/
@PistonMusic
 | Love & Rockets ~ Roctavia |
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