story and photo by Leslie Bateman
Editor’s Note: This is a special piece from new Inside of Knoxville owner and Pilot Light board member Leslie Bateman. Check out insideofknoxville.com to keep up with what’s happening in the downtown area and beyond.
For 25 years, Pilot Light has been a home for the unexpected.
Tucked into the heart of the Old City, the unassuming nonprofit venue at 106 E. Jackson Ave. has hosted everything from blistering punk sets and cerebral jazz to big synth, art-school noise, rock operas and all the uncategorizable moments in between. It’s long been a launching pad, a proving ground and a refuge for musicians who might not otherwise have a stage.
Now, as the venue marks its quarter-century anniversary, it’s entering a new era. Pilot Light founder and longtime director Jason Boardman will officially step down at the end of 2025. In his place, the nonprofit venue has named not one but two new leaders: Kat Brock as executive director and George Rutsyamuka as artistic director.
Rutsyamuka is taking over programming and curation. Brock will focus on infrastructure, development and sustainability. Together, they’re tasked with guiding the venue into its next era without losing the spirit that’s kept it alive. The dual-role structure acknowledges the vast scope of what Boardman has handled himself for the past two and a half decades.
“Jason had to use both sides of his brain to do this position,” Rutsyamuka says. “No one can be Jason. No one’s insane enough to be Jason. This dual position only strengthens the possibilities of what can be done.”
Meet artistic director George Rutsyamuka
Rutsyamuka first encountered Pilot Light in 2019. A veteran of the DIY touring circuit, he moved to Knoxville with his band after a friend offered him a spot on a nine-acre property in East Knox. He wasn’t expecting to find a venue that felt like home.
“I’m not a big drinker or partier,” he says. “By my mid-to-late 20s, I was kind of over that. Pilot Light was a place where I could just focus on the music and the performance and the community. It was also an education. It taught me what’s possible onstage, what can grab your attention without needing a commercial pitch behind it. My taste in music and art has really grown because of this place.”
He quickly became involved in the day-to-day: running the door, booking shows, managing social media, whatever needed to be done. But in 2023, a housing crisis threw a wrench in the plan.
“My rent doubled overnight,” Rutsyamuka says. “I was scrambling. And then I had this opportunity to move to Brooklyn, and it was something I’d always wanted to do. So I left.”
On New Year’s Eve 2024, he returned to Knoxville to play a Pilot Light benefit show organized by Brock and hosted by its larger neighbor, Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria. He hung around a while, and it was around then that Boardman quietly let the staff know he’d be stepping away at the end of 2025.
“The next day, I had dinner with Jason,” Rutsyamuka says. “I told him, ‘Someone’s going to have to do this, and I’m willing to change my whole life to make sure it’s done by someone who really cares.’”
By mid-spring, Rutsyamuka had moved back and began working with Boardman to learn the ropes.
Meet executive director Kat Brock
For Brock, the return to Pilot Light was a return to her roots.
“My band Subbluecollar started playing here right when it opened,” she says. “We were doing nothing but house shows and the Longbranch [Saloon, formerly on Cumberland Avenue] until Jason started this place. We grew up in this venue.”
Over the years, she became a staple of the scene, fronting local-legend bands like Dixie Dirt and Bad Lights before eventually moving to Nashville, where she raised a son and built a career as an attorney while doing art and music on the side.
She moved back to Knoxville in 2024 and within 10 days of returning was onstage at Pilot Light again. She started playing in the band Super Bachelor with Boardman, and when he began talking about stepping back, the future of the venue quickly became personal. Brock wanted to help but didn’t want to be at the venue every night running the bar or the soundboard like Boardman had been.
“We are both very passionate about how much we want this place to survive and thrive,” Brock says. “My goal is to secure funding through refining and amplifying our mission, support George and his vision, take care of the incredible staff and do whatever else I can do to make sure this beloved place grows and continues on for generations.
“I think our personalities and strengths really complement each other. We’re both deeply passionate about this place surviving and thriving. I know there’s support from the board, from the staff, from the community. I don’t think it can fail.”
Membership and momentum
The leadership transition comes at a time of rare stability for Pilot Light. Since reincorporating as a 501(c)3 nonprofit in 2017, the venue has slowly built a more sustainable framework, finishing 2024 in the black for the first time in its history. But as Boardman is quick to point out, that doesn’t mean things are easy.
“It’s amazing that at the end of 2024 we’re in the strongest position we’ve ever been in institutionally,” he says. “But Pilot Light has never operated with a safety net. We’ve made it this far thanks to volunteers and community support.”
Boardman never took a salary in his 25 years of running the venue. Staff has always been minimal, and revenue relies almost entirely on the door and sales of cheap beer. In a space as small as Pilot Light, where audience capacity is limited and artistic risk is built into the mission, making the numbers work has never been a given.
So on May 22, 2025, precisely 25 years to the day after its first show, Pilot Light launched its first-ever membership drive. For a $10/month or $120/year donation, supporters can become card-carrying members of the venue. Within days, the campaign raised over $10,000 and sits at more than $15,000 as of press time.
But the real goal is long-term sustainability. Memberships are a financial tool but also proof of concept, a way to show city officials and grantmakers that Pilot Light is a vital public resource.
“To some of our younger patrons, there’s never been a time that Pilot Light didn’t exist,” says Boardman. “But it’s not a given that it will stay that way. We depend on community support to continue our mission of being Knoxville’s home for new ideas.”
That mission has driven more than 5,000 shows over the past quarter-century. Last year, the venue hosted 296 shows and paid out $88,850 (44% of its operating budget) directly to artists. There is frequent free programming, including its 43-band What For? Festival earlier this year. Pilot Light has supported countless bands, inspired unlikely collaborations and given space to ideas that might otherwise never leave the basement.
“There’s no better time to do this,” Boardman says. “The past 25 years were incredible. And now we get to ask, ‘What can Pilot Light become in the next 25?’”
For more information on Pilot Light visit thepilotlight.com.
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