Interview - The Pigeon Detectives (Portsmouth Pyramids)

Oh dear, back again. The Pigeon Detectives were by now sufficiently famous enough for the managing director of Native.tv to say 'Get another interview with them.' Not a bribe of rum in sight.

Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in November 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd

THE PIGEON DETECTIVES @ PORTSMOUTH PYRAMIDS CENTRE

The Pigeon Detectives have gone swimming. Tour tedium is being broken up at Portsmouth’s Pyramids Centre, which handily has a large number of fun pools and exciting flumes right next door to where hundreds of music lovers will gather later on for the band's gig.

With no real desire to see a bunch of chlorine-smelling, Yorkshire boys in their trunks, I wander off to sit on a bench overlooking the dusk falling across the Solent and have a think before heading to the interview in the band’s brightly lit dressing room. The squishy sofa is dangerously close to becoming one of those man-eating ones; you daren’t sit too far back in case you’re lost forever. Bassist Dave Best is quietly sat next to me. I think he's tired. I don’t deliberately have my back to him, but the layout of the room is a bit awkward. Singer Matt Bowman has his own comfy chair, giving him a lovely view of the bottled water on their rider. Oliver Main and Ryan Wilson are sitting opposite me on the sofa clearly reserved for guitarists. Drummer Jimmi Naylor is nowhere in sight.

Last time we spoke to the Pigeon Detectives, they were about to play their biggest headlining show yet at Leeds Town Hall. Two nights, both sold out. The next day, their debut album was released. From being poised on the edge of successful indie, ‘that band with the funny name’ were propelled onto the Radio 1 A list, onto more festival appearances, television appearances, autograph signings and more riotous gigs. There aren’t many bands who have played three tours plus festivals and European dates this year. My boss decided they were big enough to warrant a second interview in the space of a few months, and didn’t even bribe me with a bottle of rum this time.

“Is it ready?” asks Ryan, eyeing the dictaphone. Yep. “I’m Ryan.”

“I’m Dave.”

“I’m Matt.”

“I’m… Jimmi,” says Oli. Thanks for that.

Frontman Matt is brave enough to take a question card first. Fame and recognition, something they’ve been seeing a bit more of recently. “Good job no-one else got this one,” he says with a deliberate grin. His bandmates jeer. Are you the only one that gets recognised a lot then?

“We all get recognised, but he’s the only one who’s famous,” says Oli.

“Oli’s answered the question for me then I suppose. We mostly get recognised when we’re walking out as a group. I think individually we just look like any other indie kids, but when we’re in a pack, especially in Leeds, we get recognised quite a lot," says Matt.

"But not many people have the balls to come up and be polite and say ‘Hey, how are you doing? Good luck with everything.’ Either they just grab you and then slur the word ‘PHOTOGRAPH’ at you or just kind of point and stare, which is quite rude, you know.” I saw them play before and a girl said to Oli ‘You’re hot and I want to have your children’, and he looked terrified. Dave sniggers.

”Was that that crazy girl by any chance? Who was going insane with everyone?” asks Ryan with interest.

“She were going proper mental.” Oli thinks for a moment. “Seemed like a really nice girl though, if she ever reads this.”

Ryan picks tour. At the time of this interview, there was roughly one week remaining. So far there have been about seven weeks of sold out gigs. How's it going? “It’s going really well. We’ve played various venues from 200 capacity ones to 2,000 ones all over the UK and I think every one’s been pretty good so far.”

The support acts are enjoying it, particularly the Wallbirds. Ryan trips over his tongue and calls them the Wallbergs.

”Icebergs,” says Oli.

“They’re just like three best mates on quite a big tour with us,” says Ryan. “They’re from Doncaster. They’re a bit like us when we got on tour with Dirty Pretty Things, we were just so happy to be on a good tour, and they’re just loving themselves.” The rest of the band have dirty minds, and they let out snorts of laughter.

The tour manager walks in and asks Dave to sign an acoustic guitar, which is covered in scrawls already. He does. “We’re trying to do an interview here,” jokes Ryan.

Who’s your best crowd so far? “I think Dundee, for sheer volume anyway,” says Oli.

“Dundee from the front to the back and all out to the sides was just mental,” adds Matt. “Nottingham was good but we were fucking tired. We’d had to go to London to do TV then come back again, go onstage 20 minutes later without a soundcheck so we were pretty tired, but the crowd kind of dragged us through the gig. Manchester was good, but I hurt myself halfway through.” He broke - or fractured, depending where you read it - his ankle after leaping off a speaker stack. “It’s still not right really, but it’s getting there.” Still jumping round? “Yeah. Just about.”

Dave’s plucking two strings on the guitar – high, low, high, low - in the sort of tune which evokes a funny walk. Tell me about Millennium Square. “It’s in Leeds,” says Matt. The Pigeon Detectives have sold out their first May date there and recently announced a second night there.

“Is it sold out?” asks Oli. Yesterday’s press release said Yes. “Well there you go. Someone on our forum was saying it would take months to sell out.” He pauses. “You were wrong.”

They’re looking forward to the show, which will be their biggest headlining one so far. The Square holds roughly 7,000, which they double to work out how many should attend the whole weekend. “14,000’s quite a lot,” says Matt. “It would be good to do 14,000 on one night rather than spreading it over two, that would be impressive.” Think how many of your mates you could fit in there. “Exactly.”

Dave quietly apologises. Soundcheck is going on, and one by one the band will have to leave and do some work. It’s his turn to go. The door creaks open and closes again.

“I mean we’ve watched bands there like Snow Patrol, Editors, Embrace, Kaiser Chiefs, so to finally play it in our own right…” says Matt. Have you played it before with another band?

“Yeah, we played it with Snow Patrol. That was good, but again everything with the Pigeon Detectives seems to be rushed, so we kind of walked off stage, jumped straight in a Transit van and went and played at Sheffield, so we didn’t really get to enjoy the whole Millennium Square experience.”

“You should have said limousine. We jumped into our limousine,” corrects Oli.

“I’d have been telling lies though,” says Matt. I wouldn’t have known. I’m not going to check. “All right. It was a limousine.”

The Pigeon Detectives have been playing a few different songs while on tour. A couple of b-sides, a couple of new ones. “We have, yeah,” says Ryan. The dressing room door shuts again with a noisy crash. “Played two new ones. Kind of the first half of the tour we played one called ‘Making Up Numbers’ and that seemed to go down all right. And then the second half of the tour we’ve been playing one called ‘This Is An Emergency’ and that’s been going down quite well. We’ve got a few new tracks for our new album next year, and we do kind of prefer these two more to the rest of them. I think these are the two we’ve got properly finished as well, so that’s why we decided to play them. Like I said, they’ve gone down all right.”

‘Is This An Emergency’ sounds a bit heavier. Is the new stuff a little bit darker?

“Yeah,” says Oli. “No it isn’t!” says Matt.

“Not ridiculously,” says Ryan. “'Emergency' is the darkest one definitely. The second album’s not going to be exactly the same as the first album.”

Have you started recording yet? “Not yet,” says Oli.

“Demoed a few of them, just in a studio. Spent a day doing about four songs,” says Matt. “We’re going to start recording in a studio in Wales in January.”

Why Wales and not Leeds? “We just fancied getting out of Leeds. Just somewhere to go and get away from it all and focus on the Pigeon Detectives for four weeks without interruptions and record labels and management and stuff like that. And it’s got white water rafting, quad biking…”

“Tractors,” says Oli. Tractors? “Apparently the local farmer said we could have a go on his tractor.” I hope he knows what he’s letting himself in for. The image of an indie rocker fiendishly racing farm machinery is a frightening one.

Because Dave’s busy, Matt picks his card. What bands are you listening to? “We’re listening to a lot of The Wallbirds and One Night Only, seeing as how we’re on tour with them. Love the Kings Of Leon third album. I went and watched Rufus Wainwright recently in Harrogate, I sold all my mates out and didn’t bother sorting them out guestlist. But I went, selfishly. It was really good. We’ve had the Beatles on the iPod in the dressing room a hell of a lot recently. Still love the View record.”

Any CDs that you bought recently that you can recommend? “I bought a DVD,” says Oli. That’s not a CD. “A music one. The Elvis 1968 comeback. Recommend that.”

“New Interpol album’s really good,” says Ryan. “Bought that about three weeks ago.”

The door flies open and in walks a member of their stage crew, who booms for the ginger one to come and soundcheck. “That hurt,” says Ryan in mock sadness, and he takes his leave.

“DOOR!” hisses Oli as the other guitarist exits. “And then there were two…”

The next card is ‘Wait For Me’. Last time I interviewed the band, their debut album (“12 beautiful tracks, all catchy,” Jimmi told us) was due to come out a couple of days later. Now it’s gone gold, having leapt into the album chart at number 3. They confirm this.

“It’s on its way to platinum,” says Matt. “It should be there by Christmas.” Have you got one of those big gold discs in a frame? “We have. Got them last week. They’re quite impressive but then you get them and you think, I’ve got nowhere to put this, so I might as well give it to my mum and she’ll put it on the wall.” The door creaks and slams again. It’s a bit what some people would refer to as Waterloo Station in here.

“I’m not really bothered with mine. I think my mum would really appreciate it,” says Oli. Has it surprised you how popular 'Wait For Me' is? “No,” says Oli decisively. They laugh.

“It surprised me that we got to where we got with certain things that conspired against us at one time or another. It’s not surprised me in terms of the hard work we’ve put in. There’s not many bands that have played as many gigs as we have in the last 12 months, so if it’s testament to that then we’re not surprised ‘cause we put the hard work in. I suppose it,” Matt pauses to think, “it is a little surprising. When you’re writing these songs in a rehearsal room in Leeds, you never expect them to be on a platinum-selling record.”

He's interrupted when the door swings open and in rustles an unfeasibly tall man with some carrier bags. “Fuck’s sake, next person that comes in’s dead.”

“Shut the fuck up, it’s my dressing room,” says drummer Jimmi, putting the bags down with a smile. “And I’ve got washing as well.” Oli and Matt both remind him to shut the fucking door.

“Cheers, Jim. How much do I owe you? Six quid?” asks Matt. “That’s a pound a sock.”

I was going to ask what each member of the band would put into Room 101, but sadly there’s only Matt and Oli left. They can still do it though, and it sounds like a few regular tour features are getting them down. Matt goes for ham and cheese sandwiches. “For some reason promoters are only capable of buying ham and cheese…” he complains, walking over to the table and picking up the offending foodstuffs.

Are you not capable of bringing your own sandwich fillings? “They’d go off after eight weeks,” points out Oli.

“When you wake up and you’ve got to go and do loads of press and radio and then you get to your dressing room and think ‘oh, I’ll have a sandwich,’ there’s only ever ham and cheese, and I’ve just about had enough.” In the background, through the open door comes the strains of the band on stage playing the riff to ‘Stop Or Go.’

”FOR FUCK’S SAKE!” yells Matt. One of their crew members has strolled in, barefoot, and balanced a pair of his socks in the middle of the rider as he prepares a ham and cheese sandwich. “Have they been on your feet?” asks Oli with a grin. Thankfully, they're clean and they haven’t.

Oli, meanwhile, is currently unimpressed with acoustic sessions. “Fucking hell,” he mutters. Have you just been made to do some? “Two a day or summat,” says Matt, and has a brief rant against ‘crappy’ local radio stations. Their tour manager points out there is a different local radio crew waiting outside the dressing room right now.

“Do we have to do an acoustic session?” asks Oli suspiciously. No, they don’t. They look relieved.

The Pigeon Detectives are running late. They were before I got in here, and they certainly are now. Doors open in about an hour and a half and there’s soundchecking to be done as well as a couple more interviews. The Pyramids that night is full of raucous lads and crowdsurfers. I actually get the breath knocked out of me a few times after being crushed on the barrier, which I don’t think has happened before at one of their gigs. Afterwards the band members are rounded up and sent to DJ in Southsea. Rumour has it they don’t actually get to sleep again until some time after their Bournemouth show the next night: no rest for the wicked.

2007 has shown the Pigeon Detectives' hard work is paying off. 2008 is even more likely to keep their diaries fully booked. Providing they don't overdo the ham and cheese, they'll surely be enjoying themselves a while longer yet.