A Conversation With PilotKid

Photos by Jaxon Buzzell

modrNation: Where are you originally from?

Pilot Kid: Fresno, California

modrNation: What got you started in production?

Pilot Kid: It was this video of J. Cole making some beat on a tour bus. In the video he had a macbook, this midi keyboard and logic, so I went and bought all that. Ever since then I started working my way backwards and learning songs that I loved. 

modrNation: You began as a youtube producer?

Pilot Kid: Yeah I did, Fresnos’ mad small and doesn’t really have any music scene. Well really I’m from this small town outside of Fresno called Reedly, and it’s just like one small McDonalds and one high school type shit, so for me it was like ‘duh, of course I’m gonna make a youtube’. I was an artist first and produced an album for myself, but a lot of the beats I was making for myself didn’t fit myself so I put them on YouTube. Those started going crazy and within six months I got my first placement with Genius, three months later was Danny Towers, then I moved to LA and ever since then I’ve just been working. It hasn’t been that long really, I’ve been in LA for a year and a half and I got a deal in that time. 

modrNation: What was your first credit on a track that you were really proud of?

Pilot Kid: Probably this Tobi Lou interview he did with Acura that got on Genius, so that was the first time it all started feeling real for me, and obviously the Danny Towers track getting on Lyrical Lemonade. When I saw my name in a Lyrical Lemonade video, man that was crazy. It’s still crazy.

modrNation: Who are some of your biggest inspirations?

Pilot Kid: Kanye, Tyler, Travis, Childish Gambino and Tame Impala. Whatever all those together sound like, that’s my sound. It’s like the color purple.

modrNation: Who are some artists you’d want to collaborate with in the future?

Pilot Kid: Don Toliver for sure, I got so much stuff for Don Toliver bro. Cudi and Kanye would be dope, Baby Keem, redveil, I just got put on to him recently. But also like Bad Bunny and KAYTRANADA. Really just a little bit of everything. 

modrNation: Take me through your creative process when producing?

Pilot Kid: It used to be just making cool sounds for the sake of making cool sounds, but now it’s really refined to me asking ‘what do I feel like?’ Now I’m using my music as a compass to define how I feel, so that will decide how it sounds, what chords I use, and everything else. It’s all feeling, and that translates from what I listened to that day, what I’m wearing, what the weather is. Anything can affect the sounds I make, but mainly it’s just how I feel. 

modrNation: You’ve been able to get tracks with Danny Towers, Joey Bada$$, $NOT, and so many other artists, do you have any other big projects on the way?

Pilot Kid: Yeahhh, but I can’t talk about it because I signed an NDA. I will say that I have some stuff coming to a mainstream level, but that’s all I’m gonna say. 

modrNation: What would you say is the importance of breaking barriers as an artist and experimenting with new sounds?

Pilot Kid: That’s longevity bro. Every artist I listed has reinvented themselves over and over. Shit moves so fast on the internet that something is here but then it’s gone, and if you try to fit in with that then you’re constantly losing a battle. Whenever you’ve finally caught up to a trend, you’re already behind because there’s a new trend now. Just know that whatever I touch, I’m stirring it into a new direction. Finding the balance where it’s not too weird but it’s still something new. 

modrNation: Where do you see yourself five years from now?

Pilot Kid: It’s hard to say because I honestly have no idea because everything moves so fast. Ideally I want to be sitting on music that I’m proud of being bigger than just the music. Revealing myself on more of a personal level and I’ll create my own world. By that time people will know me for my world rather than my beats, whether it be clothes or something I designed.I just want to create my own world, and by that time I’ll have it, whatever that looks like. 

Check out the video for one of PilotKid’s most notables placements to date What To Do! by Danny Towers: