The Pigeon Detectives – Exklusiv im Interview
The Pigeon Detectives – Exklusiv im Interview
Am 26.04 erschien das neue Studioalbum von The Pigeon Detectives, es wurde „We Met At Sea“ getauft und im Vorfeld hat sich das Soundkartell schon exklusiv mit den Engländern unterhalten. Das gesamte Interview auf Englisch lest ihr jetzt hier! Es war wirklich ein äußerst interessantes Gespräch mit den Jungs!
Two years after „Up Guards, And At ‚Em“ you release your fourth studio album „We Met At Sea“ In April. What can the fans/listeners expect when listening to it for the first time?
It is fairly instantaneous, it will grab you from the second you play it & doesn’t really give you a break until you have finished. It has a chameleon like sound which can change track to track; ranging from dirty garage like rock’n’roll to steady tempo dance to lo-fi ballad! There are a lot of hooks.
What is this album trying to tell us, what’s in it/what does it have that the first album didn’t?
This album lyrically investigates relationships from all angles, touching on the pretty side but also delving into the dark side. We experiment in different styles though out while i think it’s fair to say the 1st album was one dimensional sonically. You can expect some glass bottles filled with water been played at one point, I definitely don’t think you’d have got that on the 1st record!
How hard is it to maintain yourselves and stand out amongst the flood of already established British bands such as Two Door Cinema Club, The Wombats and newcomers such as The Heartbreaks?
It is not something we necessarily think about but I know that what we do we do very well. No matter what instrument we use on a particular track, no matter what the track is about it is always made to have a hook or many hooks vocally, & intrumentally, we are a band who are all killer no filler song wise. You can feel a certain energy in our work that stems from our live performance.
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You have the reputation of being one of the best live bands in the UK. What is it that makes one of your live performances so special?
We put blood, sweat & tears into every performance no matter what the city or venue is we’re playing. We enjoy every second of been on stage, we’re not a band who stands there going through the motions & I think our energy rubs off onto the audience. The stage can be a dangerous place but luckily we know what each other‘ s going to do next, we have been friends for a very long time.
What was the feeling like when you realised that you can live on your own music and when did this begin?
This all really began when we got offered to support ‚Dirty Pretty Things‘ & we had no choice but to quit our jobs as we had used all our holiday leave up. It was an exciting time, maybe a little nerve racking but a couple of months later we got signed & started to earn some money! I wouldn’t want to do anything else in the world.
Since your first release you haven’t changed your sound and it’s become somewhat of a trademark. Could you briefly describe what the Pigeon Detectives‘ trademark sound entails?
You can certainly hear a lot of influence from new york bands such as Blondie, Television & Interpol. We are all into a lot of different styles of musically but essentially a five piece rock’n’roll band writing pop songs who venture into anything ranging from punk to dance. There is always a pop element to it, we like the songs to be melodic.
Even if you haven’t significantly changed your sound, to what extent is the new album still further headway for you?
It mixes elements of what we have done before, the urgency & excitement that we had on our debut mixed with a maturity that we had on ‚Up, Guards & At ‚Em‘. But we have made headway as we are better players & introduced different recording techniques.
When comparing your debut album to your fourth album, where do you see yourselves in all those years?
We have been through a lot together through the years & between the 1st & 4th album we have travelled the world. A lot of this time seems like a haze as we have gone from city to city playing to & meeting lots of people & definitely enjoying ourselves in the process! We have grown as people & as musicians.
What has changed fundamentally since then for you?
I think I have more of a laid back approach when it comes to been in the band. We used to be very picky over everything from artwork to press shots & be heavily involved in it all but more recently I have just concentrated on making music & performing. It is less of headache & is really what been in a bands about, enjoying yourself!
In all the years you remained your hometown Leeds, always faithful. What does this city mean to you?
It is our home city & so we will always have love for leeds but also, we have been to London a lot & got caught up in all the industry bullshit & it’s not our thing. It has a lot going on & most importantly all my friends & family live here that is the main reason I have stood by it.
What do beer and football still mean to you today?
Haha, well we are all still avid Leeds United supporters & go to as many games as possible in between commitments to the band. Beer wise? I do enjoy a beer but all these years of drinking on tour takes it’s toll, I have started taking it easy!
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What expectations do you have for the new album and how high did you set the bar for it?
I think just to be able to tour around the world again playing the tracks we’ve enjoyed writing/recording will be fun but if it charts well, people are enjoying it & it gets out to a lot of people that will be a bonus. There are tracks that sound like hits on there so who knows what could happen.
How did you create the new ten tracks on your album? Has your songwriting process fundamentally changed over the years?
Broadly speaking Oliver will come into the rehearsal room with some chords, maybe some melody & we build the song up from there. That is pretty much how we have always done it but this time we kept in mind that we want the songs to be fun to play live & translate well on the stage while on our last record we spent a lot of time writing the songs by jamming in the studio & also going against our instincts melodically, being a little more subtle when it came to hooks.
What importance do fans bear to you? How important is it for you to have the biggest possible fan base? Or do you value getting recognised in the streets more?
It is nice to have a loyal fan-base, with people coming time & time again to our gigs…..that is more important to us than getting recognized whilst in town shopping or something. We want people to enjoy our music, it is exciting to also see new people coming to our gigs; for instance young fans who weren’t old enough to come to gigs when we released our 1st record. But he main thing is to enjoy what music we are making & have a big enough fan base to be able to do what we do career wise.
Thank you guys!