360°Sound recently had a chance to speak with Vanessa Briscoe Hay, lead singer of Pylon Reenactment Society. Briscoe Hay formerly fronted Pylon, a highly influential new wave/post-punk band from Athens, Georgia. Pylon released a couple of acclaimed albums in the early 1980s.
Briscoe Hay formed Pylon Reenactment Society in 2014 as the sole original Pylon member. In 2020, New West Records released a CD and a vinyl box set of Pylon’s back catalog. In February 2024, Pylon Reenactment Society, a.k.a. PRS, released their debut album, Magnet Factory. PRS is currently supporting the album with an East Coast tour. In this exclusive interview, Briscoe Hay discusses standout tracks from Magnet Factory, songwriting, and more.
Editor’s Note: This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. The full video interview can be viewed at the bottom of this article.
360°Sound editor-in-chief Chris Bisha and I had the pleasure of catching one of Pylon Reenactment Society’s sets at SXSW last month. You originally played SXSW in 1990 as Pylon. How was your 2024 SXSW experience?
Vanessa Briscoe Hay: It was great. We played four shows in three days and just met a lot of really cool people. There was something interesting about every show. We weren’t thrust into some huge venue. They were all intimate venues so that we could actually meet people if they wanted to meet us.
Please give us some background on PRS. How did the band come to be?
We initially got together 10 years ago, so I guess it’s like a 10-year overnight success story. When we got started, we were just going to play a one-off show. It was for Art Rocks Athens, which showed the connection between music and art in the Athens, Georgia scene from 1975 to 1985. Before that, I’d worked with Jason NeSmith, the guitarist for PRS, and [bassist] Kay Stanton in Supercluster. We did play some live shows, but the major emphasis [of Supercluster] was being in a recording project.
In 2014, Jason came to me and said, “I’m in charge of putting music together for this show. Would you consider coming to play something?” I said, “Yes, I will if you help me put a band together.” I said, “I want to do some Pylon material.” And the thing is, when our guitarist, Randy Bewley died in 2009, we had disbanded, and there was to be no Pylon without all four members. But I felt like Randy shouldn’t be forgotten, and I felt like this particular period that they were showing was the foundation of Pylon, and we needed to be represented. So he helped me put together a band, which was basically his band Casper & the Cookies. They had a history of backing people up, like Daniel Johnston, for instance. They did a whole set with him at the 40 Watt and only got an afternoon’s practice. These are some crackerjack musicians.
Jason learned Randy’s alternate tuning, and we had a great time. People were just over the moon that they were seeing this stuff performed live again. The next year, he came back and said they were doing it again and asked if I’d consider performing again as Pylon Reenactment Society, but this time, we’d have more time. In the interim, our drummer for PRS, Gregory [Sanders] had injured his shoulder and had to have surgery. So that’s when we brought in another drummer, Joe Rowe, from the Glands. And because I’m wanting to do some material from Chomp, which used some keyboards, I brought in pianist/keyboardist Damon Denton.
At that show people just went bananas. We were opening for Fred Schneider and the Superions, and Dressy Bessy heard about this show. They said, “Would you come and play four shows with us?” And I was like, “People will pay to see this?” So we went and played with them in North Carolina, Athens, and Atlanta. And from that point, we just started getting requests to play.
You get creative people together in a room, you can’t help but jam, and so we started writing new material. We were about to go into the studio, and the pandemic hit, and we couldn’t record. In 2020, I was working on Pylon Box [CD and vinyl box set] with Jason NeSmith. In the process of that time, two members that we had added, Joe Rowe and Damon Denton, fell away to do their own projects. So, when we came back after the pandemic, original drummer Gregory Sanders was all healed. And of course, we had to relearn all this material we wrote. We wrote some more, and then we started recording [Magnet Factory].
Has your approach to songwriting changed from how it was in the Pylon day?
Well, I like to think I’ve learned a few things, but I don’t want to get too focused on any one thing. The song usually always suggests to me what it’s going to be. And I am always constantly writing. I write lyrics and little stories and whatnot, most of which will never see the light of day, but they’re good exercises. When we have rehearsal, I try to do what I did with Pylon and that’s completely empty any preconceptions.
We write all together as a unit. A lot of times Kay, the bassist, will start off with the riff, and it’ll just start, suggesting things to me. And it’s different every time. Sometimes it happens all at once. It’s just amazing. And sometimes we have to start at the different parts that we like and arrange them together. And in the process of all that, we have to rehearse our older Pylon material that people have come to expect to hear us play live.
Kate Pierson from the B-52’s is on the song “Fix It” on the new album. What made you think that she’d be perfect for that song?
There was something that just struck me; I was watching her on stage – like a eureka moment. But we had just finished recording and doing all the premixing for our songs so that are fresh in my head. She started singing and for some reason, I just went, “Wow, she’d be great on this one.” And I think I was right, don’t you?
Oh yeah, she’s great on it. Another song, “3 x 3”, began as a Pylon song but didn’t make the cut on the album, Gyrate. However, it stayed in your live setlist. Why did you decide to formally record that song for the new album?
The third time Pylon were together, it continued to be in our set. We were in the process of doing some writing when Randy passed away. And I’ve got some amazing cassettes of jams going on. There’s nothing finished about it. But it’s just like cathedrals of sound. I was like, “Guys, we need to record this, we never recorded it in studio.” When Gyrate was done in 1980, we had so much material that we had to get rid of some things, which is a good spot to be in when you’re recording an album. And then when we toured behind Gyrate, it kind of fell by the wayside. Then when we got back together it reappeared in our setlist. When we were together the first time for Chomp, it just didn’t fit the vibe. I’ve always loved this song. There’s something so joyous about it and kind of silly, too. I talked PRS into learning it. We’ve been playing it in our set for a while. People just love it.
What are your goals and hopes for PRS in the coming months and years?
Well, you know, I don’t know. I’m still somebody that’s not really made any long-range plans. And I think that’s maybe why I don’t become disappointed or disillusioned. I accept the process of doing the work and also having fun. But as to what I’m going to be doing in five years, well, I just hope I’m still here because I’m 68. But I would like to continue making music and art and writing. So those are pretty lofty yet kind of small goals. I’ve never had any vision of world conquest or whatever.
You can still catch Vanessa and Pylon Reenactment Society on the remaining dates of their east coast tour:
4/24/2024 Ottobar – Baltimore, MD
4/25/2024 Cat’s Cradle Haw River Ballroom, Saxapahaw, NC
4/27/2024 Snug Harbor – Charlotte, NC
Check in with PRS on their website to see when the band will be coming to your area, pylonreenactmentsociety.com
