PEL Presents NEM#256: Bruce Soord (Pineapple Thief): Heartbreaking Prog by Ear
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Who is Bruce Soord and how did Pineapple Thief begin?
You are listening to Nickedly Examined Music, a podcast about songs and songwriters. My name is Mark Linzenmeyer. My guest for episode 256 is Bruce Sword, best known as the singer and guitarist for the British Neo-Prog group Pineapple Thief. You're right now listening to Private Paradise, the opening track to the first Pineapple Thief album, Abducting the Unicorn, in 1999, later retitled Abducted at Birth. As we'll discuss, he was In a band called Volgar Unicorn before this point, Pineapple Thief started as a solo project, but quickly became a full band. There have now been 16 studio albums under that name, plus four solo albums by Bruce. We'll be discussing pillars from his latest solo album, Ghosts in the Park, and the title track to It Leads to This, the last released album by the Pineapple Thief, 2024.
And looking back to Claphem from the Pineapple Thief album Ten Stories Down from 2005 and ending with Alone at Sea from the Pineapple Thief 2014 album Magnolia. For more information, see Bruce Sword.com and Pineappletief.com. For more about this podcast, see NakedlyExamined Music.com. To support the effort, go to patreon.com slash nakedly examined music. I will have played a little bit of Private Paradise by Pineapple Thief from Abducted at Birth, 1999. The album was originally called Abducting the Unicorn. I know in our communications before this, I had said I was going to use an actual vulgar unicorn track, 1995, House at Fudge Corner, but I sort of chickened out after listening to those three albums.
Is there a reason that those three are are not republished? Is it just a matter of who owns the rights and that kind of stuff, or is it actually Actually like no, this is how you want to represent yourself sort of as birthing.
The Vogue Unicorn days, we were a bunch of kids basically learning. This was the days when you used to go in the recording studios. It cost kids a lot of money back in those days, you know, sixteen track local recording studios. And we'd go in for a day and try and record and mix three songs, and it sounds like it. That's the thing. So those albums, you know, I'm proud of them. They're part of the process. But no, there's no reason that we shouldn't put them back out. I'd love to remix them, but they're all on tape somewhere in the country, maybe buried in landfill somewhere. But you know, I one day I'd like to do those Volume Corn albums justice. But yeah, I for what certainly for me it began in nineteen ninety nine with abducting.
That was when it really started.
A number of things are labeled a remix. So it seems like you care about your uh you're curating your older stuff. I don't know, are advances in AI such that, oh, now I can take these four track things or whatever and actually soup them up in a ridiculous ways that were not po like, is that an exciting prospect in terms of returning to some of these old things?
Yeah, it's something quite recent that, you know, they they call it stem splitting or, you know, whatever, but it's come a long, long way, even in the last couple of years, to the point now where anybody can go out there and strip the drums out, strip the vocals out. It doesn't sound as good as if you've got the tapes. Sure. If you can really split it out yourself. But yeah, actually, maybe we could go back to the stereophile. and just when I listen back to them you're thinking, My goodness, this really is, you know, kids. We were like seventeen, you know, and these studios, they were pretty cheap studios, but they were still expensive for us. All right. So
So sixteen or so pineapple tree albums later, plus some live albums, four solo albums, plus a uh one you did with Jonas Rensky in twenty thirteen. We're gonna play something from the new solo album, the song Pillars from new albums called Ghosts in the Park. Can you catch us up? Where you're at now, why this solo album now? The solo
And the pineapple thief kind of exist side by side. The solo thing, I have to admit, is very, very personal. I've made a decision that is 100%. I'm just gonna put it all out there.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Bruce Soord and how did Pineapple Thief begin?
0:15–9:00
2
What inspired the solo album *Ghosts in the Park* and the song “Pillars”?
9:00–15:51
3
How did the tragedy behind “Clapham” shape its lyrics and sound?
15:51–23:18
4
What is Bruce’s songwriting process – from open tunings to lyrical rhythm?
23:18–32:49
5
How did Gavin Harrison’s drumming change the band’s collaborative approach?
32:49–40:48
6
What recording‑vs‑live decisions shaped the *It Leads to This* album?
40:48–50:55
7
Why is “Alone at Sea” a pivotal love song on *Magnolia*?
50:55–58:37
8
What’s next for Pineapple Thief and how can listeners stay updated?
58:37–1:09:34
Speakers
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