INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Fiction Plane

Back in 2002, Bloomington-born drummer Pete Wilhoit was looking for a new gig. Not that things hadn’t gone well with his previous band The Cutters, a prog-rock-influenced four-piece that spent some time on a major label in the mid ’90s (CMC, a BMG subsidiary with a stable of hair rock). And he could still find work as a session player and in other settings around town: He had previously backed local singer-songwriters (Krista Detor, Janice Jaffe) and played in a jazz trio called The Third Man. But when he heard from a former teacher that the British band Fiction Plane was auditioning, he leapt at the opportunity, driving 13 hours to New York. The band was primarily looking for a drummer for their U.S. tour, but they were also open to finding a permanent band member — Fiction Plane’s debut was recorded with a session player.
“For me, the way I approached it was I just wanted to play the music the way it was on the album and just try to nail it,” Wilhoit remembers. “But also, I had extra things, and threw in a few fills. I think the interaction between us, and if we hit it off as people, was just as important as if we hit it off as musicians. The first song, everybody’s eyes kind of lit up when we started playing up.”
Wilhoit joined the band for a gig at CBGB three days later, and then set out on the road, jumping in a van for an eight-month tour. Lead singer and bassist Joe Sumner said it was clear that Wilhoit was passionate about being in a band. “He wanted to be in a band and he wanted to make it special and put everything into it and sacrifice his life and everything to go into it. That kind of commitment just makes a real difference to all of us.”
Wilhoit has been with Fiction Plane ever since that audition, through arena tours, major-label struggles and band downsizing from a quartet to a trio; a marriage and a child on the way; and becoming a more “well-rounded” person by seeing the world.
On their latest, Left Side of the Brain, Fiction Plane sounds like an amalgamation of the greatest hits of ’90s alt-rock (Nirvana, Rage against the Machine, Chili Peppers) with a bedrock U2 influence. But one tune, “Two Sisters,” ventures into slightly lighter territory, recalling reggae and ska-influenced work by The Police or Clash. It seems a more promising palette to work with, but it’s a sound the band may have resisted, particularly because singer, songwriter and bassist Joe Sumner happens to be the first-born son of Sting.
It’s the latest in a string of tortured decisions for Sumner: He resisted becoming a musician, forming a band, revealing his lineage in press materials for the first album. And then there was his dad’s offer for Fiction Plane to open tours by Sting and The Police.
Wilhoit remembers when Sumner approached the band about the opportunity. “I said, ‘Well it’s up to you. It’s kind of a step in the opposite direction that you’ve been wanting to take, and I know you feel like you’ll be selling a certain part of your soul to the devil.’ And he said, ‘It’s a chance to play, and I think that’s important.’”
Regardless of the conditions, Fiction Plane played to much wider audiences than ever before. And Wilhoit got the chance to play with Sting’s band and The Police, and meet a childhood idol: Police drummer Stewart Copeland. “The first time I met him, he was kind of quiet and a little stand-offish and I thought, ‘This guy’s a dick.’ But the more I got to know him, when we actually started touring, he’s very charismatic, he’s very intelligent and very funny, and he’s got endless energy.” At least two members of the band heard a lot of The Police growing up. “I steal a lot of his licks, and he always laughed about that,” Wilhoit says about Copeland. “He’s like, ‘You guys always take my licks, and then you take it to another level. God, you young fuckers.’”