Founder of Edinburgh band Pilot unveils new album

Pilot had big hits in 1974-75 with Just A Smile, Magic and of course their big chart topper January, the first record played on Radio Forth. David went on to session with Kate Bush and Rick Wakeman, become part of The Alan Parsons Project and Elton John’s touring band including Live Aid at Wembley in 1985.

A Pilot Collection and autobiography in recent years brings us up to date with his new album Communication and a very sound this time around. Opening with Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! inspired by drummer Martin Wykes this could easily have been a singalong favourite on radio, but the new single is All I Need. Recorded during a regular session with Kenny Herbert & Rab Howat, members of The Applebeggars at the Davie Valentine Heartbeat studio in Gorebridge, this is a real band collaboration with various inputs, harmonies and a happy sound.

Collaborations from Japan are evident too in songs like Madelyn a jazzy connection with Jinko Minobe on violin and David on an upright bass. Raindrops is a stripped back McCartney like ballad with ukelele as lead instrument and Tadashi Horio on electric guitar while Heartbeat, featuring Tommy Allan on drums and David on everything else has a message of sorrow following the death of his long-term guitarist Ian Bairnson in 2023. He was an early member of Pilot and Alan Parsons Project and played guitar for Kate Bush on Wuthering Heights.

Rab Howat, Davie Valentine, David Paton, Martin Wykes & Kenny Herbert

The new album has 11 unreleased songs and comes as a download or CD from the David Paton website. The CD artwork has photos of David in Abbey Road as commissioned by advertisers in the US who currently use a version of the song Magic on coast to coast television as a newly recorded jingle.