Idiot Pilot's latest disc, Wolves, is a truly groundbreaking affair that incorporates electronic elements, post-rock ambience, and tinges of post-hardcore into a traditional pop context to create a unique amalgam of music that's just as innovative as it is accessible.

Friends since elementary school, Michael Harris and Daniel Anderson began to collaborate musically at age 12, forming your typical run-of-the-mill full-member bands. Eventually they settled into being a two-piece, recording acoustic demos at a local studio in their hometown of Bellingham, WA. The studio's staff took them under their wing and helped the boys learn the mechanics of production and engineering, which later proved to be key in the band's development as they spent the next several years conceptualizing and executing their vision. After compiling songs for about two years, the duo's debut full-length album was finished, the self-released Strange We Should Meet Here. Constructed in Anderson's bedroom on pirated software, and mixed and mastered at the same local studio, Seattle radio stations began spinning tracks from the album. This started a bidding war for the band which led Harris and Anderson to sign with Reprise Records, which re-released Strange We Should Meet Here in 2005.

Despite the album, a tour with Team Sleep, and a stint on Rockstar Taste Of Chaos being well-received, no one would have expected what the band would achieve with their second album, Wolves, which they recorded earlier this year with Ross Robinson (At The Drive-In, Glassjaw) and Mark Hoppus (bassist for +44 and Blink-182). Wolves takes Idiot Pilot's sound to previously unexplored cinematic levels. "What was important to me was that Ross was always very concerned about the spirit of the song," explains Harris, who paints Robinson more as a guru than a producer.

Wolves, as a recording project, represents many firsts for the band. Not only was it the first time they looked to outside sources for production and collaboration, it also marked the beginning of Harris contributing musically to the recordings by playing various instruments. The resulting balance is also being reproduced in the band's new live setup with Harris playing guitar onstage and a live drummer.

Indeed, in many ways Wolves marks a reinvention for Idiot Pilot, who have already garnered much attention from overseas. "I definitely feel like this album is a huge progression for us, and I'm just excited to see what happens next," Harris says, "Music is the one thing that I will always be working on no matter what financial state I'm in," he says. "If I go broke making music, I don't care. This is what I live for."