Sonic Youth and Ecstatic Peace founder, Thurston Moore, first met Michael Pitt while composing music for the Larry Clark movie, "Bully" but it was a reintroduction through researching a role for the movie, "Last Days" (van Sant's impressionistic take on Kurt Cobain's final hours) where the young songwriter and Moore connected musically. At Moore's apartment, van Sant prodded Pitt to play for Moore. "All I had lying around the apartment was crummy electric guitar Michael took it and began to belt out a solo rendition of "Lesson Learned" (the first track on the Pagoda CD.) I was taken back." From that meeting sparked the journey for Moore and Pitt, which culminates with the album, Pagoda. After the release of Last Days, Pitt brought Pagoda to Italy to spend a solid month in Luca Amendolara's studio to record most of what has become their premier CD. Over 40 songs were recorded as well as a handful more back in Pagoda's hometown of Brooklyn. By the end of 2004 the tracks had been whittled down to songs which exist on this first disc. Since this time Pagoda has changed radically as a band with almost all new members in place of the recording unit but the intense musical mind of Michael Pitt remains constant. The current line up is a blazing trio with Reese Carr on drums and Willy Paredes on bass.