Singer-songwriter Wyatt Pike has found his love for music again.
After his appearance on “American Idol” and moving to Los Angeles to fulfill his dream, he is back in Park City, and has released a new song, “Airplane Effect.”
Furthermore, he has an upcoming gig with the song’s co-writer, Theo Kandel, on March 28 at Kilby Court in Salt Lake City.
“It’s good to be back in action,” said Pike, who was a judges’ favorite during his Season 18 run on “American Idol.” “And it’s good to be back in Park City.”
“Airplane Effect,” which was released on Feb. 3 and is now streaming on all music platforms, started with a budding relationship, according to the songwriter.
“I was in a situation where this girl and I were just starting to see each other,” he said. “I had to drive to Anapolis with my dad, and when I flew back to L.A., I was met with nothing. She was totally gone. I was ghosted.”
Pike had seen this happen with his friends, and he has seen his own friends do this.
“It seems like a thing,” he said. “You start a relationship and then there’s no more relationship after one of you goes out of town and comes back.”
While Pike tossed around the idea in his head, a friend of his from Utah put him in contact with Kandel’s manager who lives in New York.
“It was fun that we went a roundabout way for me to get in touch with Kandel, who lives in L.A.,” he said.
The two, along with engineer and producer Beep (Ben Pleasant), decided to set up a songwriting session at Kandel’s place.
“I didn’t know if we were going to write for him, Beep or whoever,” Pike said. “But I brought the ‘Airplane Effect’ idea up. I wanted to write about the whole arc of the flying experience in the song.”
Pike enjoyed the sessions, and said everyone was able to add their own things to the song.
“Theo is very folky, think James Taylor with greater range,” he said. “His songs can keep up with the pop mentality, because he’s good at language and telling a story and adding details.”
Pike utilized Kandel’s crafting and Beep’s production sense and they came up with a rough cut of the song.
“It was fun, because I’ll kind of go with the first thing that comes out,” he said “So, it was fun for me to spitball stuff and Theo would kind of hone things in.”
After recording a demo, Pike sat on the song for eight months.
“By then I had started talking to another girl and getting along but then I flew to Mexico for a family vacation,” Pike said. “While I was in the air I thought, ‘Oh. No. Airplane effect.”
So he texted his high-school friend, producer Peter Hanaman, and said he wanted to finish the recording.
“I knew Peter was going to hate me because he was going to Hawaii in a week,” Pike said with a laugh. “But I sent him the stems of the original recordings, and said, if we can get this out I would be thrilled.”
Sure enough, Hanaman cranked it out.
“So, the next day we did the drums, and the next day after that Peter added a little monologue of a pilot,” he said.
Hanaman also added a slide guitar solo, Pike said.
“I got the final version on Christmas Eve and Peter flew to Hawaii on Dec. 26,” he said.
All through the process, Pike was playing around with ideas for the song’s lyric video.
“I was in my flow state and had gone a little crazy in Mexico filming all kinds of things for the song,” he said.
After the vacation Pike reached out to his former Park City High School classmate Liam Occon, an animator and filmmaker.
“He was in the film class, and I always knew he was good, especially with animation,” Pike said. “He popped up on my Instagram, so I texted him, and asked if we could do a lyric video in a month.”
Pike gave Occon a couple of ideas, which included an image of a cartoon man shoving his heart into a suitcase.
“We had a couple of connects and he just got to work,” Pike said. “Animation is insanely time consuming, especially if you are going to school. So it was awesome that he dedicated some time to do this.”
Pike enjoyed the process of getting “Airplane Effect” from idea to a recording to a video in less than a year.
“It was really fun, because I missed the fire-from-the-hip nature of songwriting and recording,” he said. “Before ‘American Idol,’ it was all like, ‘Let’s just see what happens.’ It was all about the song. After ‘Idol’ it felt like I was bound to do all of these steps, like post 18 TikTok videos every day, and do them perfectly. So it was fun to go back to the DIY thing.”
Still, Pike doesn’t regret his “American Idol” experience.
“It was amazing to feel I was set for the rest of my life, but it was also important for me to remember why I started writing and singing songs,” he said.
That’s why he returned to Park City in November.
“I was really starting to hate L.A., and it got to the point where even looking at a guitar started to stress me out,” he said.
While Pike helped a friend move to Austin, Texas, he called his family for advice.
“I was in a Target parking lot, and I got on the phone with my mom and some others and decided to move back,” he said. “I texted my landlord, who was really kind, and she shortened my lease.”
Pike knew he made the right decision as he was driving up Provo Canyon on Nov. 3, the day of the first big snowstorm of the season.
“That was a lovely welcome back, and it doesn’t hurt that the skiing has been good,” he said.
Since that wintry homecoming, Pike has done some local gigs in and around Park City — Versante and the Lodge in Deer Valley. And he is excited to perform with Kandel next Tuesday at Kilby Court.
“Theo and I had done two tours last year — one along the West Coast and one on the East Coast,” Pike said. “We became really good friends through that, because you will either become good friends or want to kill each other while sitting in a car for 67 hours together. But we would have become good friends regardless.”
Kandel planned the Kilby Court date as part of this season’s West Coast tour and asked Pike to come along.
“So I’m flying out to Denver for some shows, and we’re coming back to Kilby Court for the 28th,” Pike said. “It will be great to play ‘Airplane Effect’ with Theo, because he knows all the guitar parts.”
The two plan to stick around the venue after the show to meet people and sell merchandise, Pike said.
“That way we can pay for gas when we head to San Diego and L.A.,” he said.