Chesca Umeno, the creator of mypilotis and a San Antonio native, sat with Radio UTD’s Summer Kulcsar for an exclusive interview. Interview has been edited for clarity.

Could you please introduce yourself and your music?

Hey, I’m Chesca. I go by mypilotis for my music. I basically do indie alt-rock. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. So, how did the band form?

mypilotis started mostly as a solo project. Anything recorded, released, or written was primarily just me. I do all the instruments, record everything, and then send it to a buddy to help with mixing and mastering. For live performances, that’s when my friends come in to help bring the music into a physical space. It gives me an opportunity to meet everyone, too. I met my bassist Sophie through climbing. We do like bouldering sometimes. I got introduced to her through my cousin, who’s in the San Antonio music scene, introduced me to more musicians. She’s in a band called Frog & Bandit, and through her, I met Joey, my guitarist, [and] Edgar, my drummer and sometimes our keyboardist. They’re in another band called Roshii, kind of like the Dragon Ball Z character.

I was doing a lot of one-man covers online, especially Japanese music, and they were doing covers for conventions here in town, like San Japan. They reached out and asked if I wanted to sing on a song for a convention, and I said yes. At the time, I wanted to say yes to a bunch of things just to see what came out of it. We became friends and started hanging out. I wasn’t actually supposed to start playing live; it was supposed to be my online alias thing, but I kind of got forced into playing live for my cousin’s band’s singer’s birthday show in December 2023. I didn’t have a full band at the time, but the Roshii guys and Sophie offered to learn my material. They learned it in three weeks, we had three rehearsals, and that was our first gig. After that, more show offers came in, and we just kept saying yes, and now we’re here.

Has performing live changed anything for you?

It’s definitely changed how I write and perform. I go to a lot of shows and watch how other bands interact with their audience, especially the ones I enjoy. I try to write parts that engage people so it’s a two-way experience, not just us playing while people listen. Whether that’s opening up a mini-mosh pit at an indie show, going into the crowd, or adding unexpected elements like crowd surfing. Just something that will make it engaging for the people in the show. 

The other part is that it’s changed how I write things. There are songs that are more touchy subjects, so that’s kind of- I’ve written this other song that’s super sad, and it changes when I bring out that song, depending on the vibe. I’ve also been told that when I perform live, I become a different person on stage, but when I go offstage to the merch table, people are like, “Wow, you’re actually different. You’re quieter and [more] timid than I imagined.”

I saw on your Instagram that there was an inflatable boat at one of your concerts. I looked at images and videos, and they look so fun. 

That kind of goes back to the two-way street I was talking about. That show where we had the boat out, we were the openers for our friends INOHA during their tour, and Pretoria was also up on that lineup, who’s from Chicago. It was actually just made up like maybe a few days before. We’ve done a couple of crowd surfing and just thought, How do I make it different this time? But yeah, it’s just a way to, I don’t know, get people to like, “Whoa, what the hell is that? What’s going on?” Like, “I didn’t expect it from this little group of goobers,” you know?

I see you have a couple of albums behind you on your wall. What inspires your sound?

When I started mypilotis, I was going from being an acoustic singer-songwriter to writing full-band covers around 2020. So that’s when I got into Daylow, who’s one of my biggest inspirations music-wise, where I got inspiration for my sound. Boy Pablo, too, is another. Dayglow is an artist I relate to a lot in the sense that he does everything, writes and records, everything in his own little home studio. Like, this is where I write all the stuff, too. He’s kind of like my aspiration. For live performances, I draw inspiration from the Japanese group Atarashii Gakko. 

Oh, I think I’ve heard of them. 

Yeah, they came out to Dallas, I think, like two years ago when they did a tour. Their recorded music is only part of the experience. Seeing them live is a whole different level. They’re high-energy and really focus on making performances interactive. That two-way connection between performer and audience is something I try to bring into my shows as well.

Do you have any goals or dreams for the future?

I try not to think too far ahead, but we do set smaller goals. We wanted to tour Texas, and we did. We wanted to open for Mini Trees and one of my favorite artists, INOHA, and we were able to do that. We even got to play a show in Japan this past February, which happened much sooner than I expected.

Right now, my main goal is to keep having fun with my bandmates and see where this goes. But, at least for this year, the more tangible goal is to release more frequently. In the past, I’ve only released about twice a year, so I’m trying to put out music more consistently. I also applied to South by Southwest just to see where that leads. We were really grateful to get an invitation. So we’ll be able to be an official artist for South by Southwest in, uh, next month actually. 

That’s great!

Yeah. We’re pretty stoked about that. We’re just taking things as they come, setting small, attainable goals in the meantime, and seeing where everything goes.

A little side question here. How the heck did you manage to go to Japan and do all that? 

Oh man. So, I travel to Japan a lot. I don’t know if you’ve seen my page or my story highlights on Instagram. I’m a huge fan of Atarashii Gakko. I go to a bunch of their shows around the world, and over the past few years, I’ve been going back and forth to Japan to see them. Over time, I’ve made many friends among Japanese fans and people in that community. At this point, people joke like, “Oh, Chesca’s in Japan again,” whenever they see my stories.

Last year, Social Cig, he’s from Milwaukee, toured through Texas. We were supposed to play together in San Antonio, but scheduling didn’t work out, so I helped him book with other local artists so his show could still go on. Through that, we became internet friends. And recently I saw that he announced he would be playing in Tokyo for his winter tour. I messaged him to congratulate him, and then he was like, “Yeah, I know that you go to Japan a lot.” So he’s like, “If you ever go back here again, I could introduce you and hook you up with the guy who’s doing the events here at Ruboom Shibuya.” Around that time, I was actually in Korea for an Atarashii Gakko show, so I told him I could make a quick stop in Japan if he needed support for his Tokyo date. That opened up talks and connections with Berlin Party Tokyo, who were organizing that stuff. Initially, it was just going to be me going solo with backtracks because the Japan trip wasn’t even planned for this year. It just kind of stumbled across.

Then I floated the idea to my drummer, Edgar, and asked if he’d want to come and said we could use our band funds to help cover expenses. He said yes, so I brought it up to the rest of the band and said we might have enough saved to cover flights and part of the accommodations. At that point, we were just like, “Yeah, let’s do it. We only get this opportunity once in a while.” So we ended up going as a full band.

We played two shows. One in Osaka and one in Tokyo. At the end of it, we were also able to see Atarashii Gakko because the timing was immaculate for some reason. We hope to be back again soon. It felt like more of a band trip to Japan, and the shows were like fun side quests. They also got to meet the friends I’ve made over the years there, so it was neat bringing everyone together. And honestly, huge thanks to Social Cig, Parker, for opening that door for us.

Do you have anything coming up that fans can look forward to?

Oh! Yes. We’re going on our “Howdy mypilotis Texas Tour.” We’re starting things off in Dallas, hint, hint, on March 7th with The Paisleys, Torched, and ForEach Loop. Then we’ll be in San Antonio on March 12th, and McAllen for RGV Loudfest on the 13th. We’ll be in Houston on the 14th, where we’ll reunite with Orion 224 and Camera Cult. Then we’ll be in Austin March 15th and 16th for South by Southwest, and we’re ending the tour in San Antonio on March 27th. So, lots of stuff coming up. It’s going to be a busy March, but we’re excited. If anyone in Dallas knows about mypilotis please say hi! We like to meet people there. 

Where can people find mypilotis online?

It’s spelled like “my-pilot-is.” It’s funny, there’s a shirt merch we had that has all the different pronunciations that I’ve heard, and we collected it and put it on the back of a shirt. You can search M-Y-P-I-L-O-T-I-S, mypilotis, on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. All of our music is on Bandcamp and all digital streaming platforms. We don’t have anything physical yet, but you can find us anywhere you listen to music digitally.

Final question. Do you have any final message for readers?

Yes, um. Oh no, I got put on the spot. Ah. Oh, you can include that too if you want. But, um, well, I guess the final message is live your life to the fullest. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true. We don’t know how long we have, so we might as well enjoy it and be unapologetically ourselves. That’s what keeps life interesting. And don’t be afraid to be a goober.

Very wise words. Well, thank you for meeting with me. 

Thank you. I’m excited to meet you in person at the show next week.

mypilotis will be playing live at Three Links on Saturday, March 7. You can buy tickets here. Interested in listening to their music? Check them out below, or find their music on Bandcamp/all other digital streaming platforms.