Rey Pila

Rey Pila is a Mexican rock band formed in Mexico City in 2010. The band consists of Diego Solórzano, Andrés Velasco and Rodrigo Blanco, though it started as Solórzano's solo project. The name "Rey Pila" is Spanish for "King Battery", a phrase Diego saw in a painting by the late graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Rey Pila was created as the solo project of Diego Solórzano, former frontman for Los Dynamite. After splitting from Los Dynamite in 2008, Diego immediately began work on material for his solo project. Rey Pila released their first self-titled album in 2010, which was recorded in New York and co-produced by Diego and Paul Mahajan. The album contains songs in both English and Spanish. Vice magazine said, "The record belongs in the long and storied lineage of Mexican garage bands, from the garden path acid rock of Los Ovnis to the Beatles-esque jams of Los Locos." Solórzano enlisted long-time friends Andrés Velasco, Rodrigo Blanco and Miguel Hernández to play the first album live, and they ended up as full-time members of the band. By the end of 2011, Rey Pila had formally become a quartet.

In 2012, the band entered DFA Studios in New York City to begin work on their second album with producer Chris Coady. With this new material, Rey Pila caught the attention of Julian Casablancas. Casablancas described how he first came across Rey Pila's music in an interview with NME:

"I was in our office in New York – the Cult Records office when it was above the famous Strand book store – and I heard this song blasting out of a car radio from the street below, and I thought, ‘Wow what a cool sound, this sounds like some modern hit, but if pop music was actually cool.’ I was actually genuinely distraught and bummed that I might never know what this magical song was… So as I walk out of Cult a minute later, in tears probably, I realized to my amazement that the song was actually playing across the hall. It was a different office than ours and when I went to ask what the song was, it turns out it was an unsigned band looking for a label. Song was ‘Alexander’, band was Rey Pila.”

Rey Pila signed to Julian Casablancas's label Cult Records, which released double-sided single "Alexander/Lady in Red" in October 2013. The band embarked on their first European tour at the end of 2013, opening for labelmate Albert Hammond Jr., and then supported Interpol on their 2014 North American tour.

In March 2015, Rey Pila announced their second studio album, The Future Sugar, which was originally set to be released on May 5 of that same year. Soon after, they released a new single "What a Nice Surprise", which Spin magazine described as "a glittering build-up of reverberating synths and ’80s-inspired guitar licks". The band then embarked on a US tour with The Rentals.

After hearing some new demos Rey Pila was working on, Julian Casablancas urged the band to add three of these new songs to the album, which he co-produced himself. The lengthy process delayed the record's release. "Fire Away", one of the new Julian Casablancas produced tracks, was released as a single on July 16, 2015, and the new release date for The Future Sugar was finally announced for September 25, 2015. Rey Pila then embarked on a tour with Brandon Flowers to support the release of the new album.

According to the band, the album title was inspired by a phrase from David Lynch's movie Wild at Heart. Noisey called Rey Pila's "most excellent new album's" sound as "a little new wave, a little Cars, a little bit of a Bowie quaver, a pinch of Q Lazzarus, a lot of switchblade cool".