Interview: The Pigeon Detectives
Published on April 25th, 2013 | Jonny Abrams
Leeds rockers The Pigeon Detectives release their fourth album We Met at Sea on Monday, so Rocksucker enjoyed a quick natter with guitarist Ryan Wilson to find out a little bit more about it…
What can you tell us about the new album?
We worked really hard on this record. We wanted an album that would transfer well live; we think our best asset as a band is being a good live band, so we didn’t want to write songs that you couldn’t replicate live or that would sound boring live. There’s a lot more spark and energy in this record compared to maybe the last few records, to be fair, and from what people have heard already it seems to be going down well. They like the two singles that we’ve released off it.
We’re looking forward to playing the news songs live, going out and touring it. I think Pigeons fans will like the record, but if you’re not a Pigeons fan you might quite like it as well. I just hope people give it a chance and listen to it.
Were all the songs written in the time since your last album Up, Guards and At ‘Em!, or do some date back further than others?
All the songs were written after Guards. We released Guards in 2011 and toured it around Europe and the UK a couple of times, then we started writing the new record as soon as we’d finished touring, really. We have our own rehearsal studio so we got stuck in there three or four times a week for four or five hours at a time, knuckled down and started writing the tracks. Then we went into the studio last year and recorded it.
We wrote a lot of songs and a lot of them didn’t make the cut because we felt they weren’t good enough, so we weren’t going to waste our time with them.
How many booklets did you have to sign in all?
Elbow deep in #WeMetAtSea booklets, signing them for all you nice people who pre ordered the album, thanks and enjoy twitter.com/RYAN_PIGEONS/s…
— Ryan Wilson (@RYAN_PIGEONS) April 17, 2013
Two thousand. My hand nearly fell off! It took me a period of four days or so, sat at my dining table with some music on. We don’t mind doing it, to be fair, because it’s giving something back to the fans. It’s a good way of promoting physical copies, too, because not many people buy those anymore. Touch wood they’ll like it.
Finally, what music have you been enjoying in 2013 so far, or is there anything not yet out that you’re particularly looking forward to?
I’m a big fan of The Strokes and they just released a new album, so I’ve been listening to that a lot recently. It’s not the best work they’ve ever done but it’s got some good songs on it. David Bowie’s new album, too; I think it might be his best album since the ’70s. Daft Punk are coming out with some new music, I like them so I look forward to that. It’s looking like being a good year for music.
Ryan Wilson, thank you.
The Pigeon Detectives’ fourth album We Met at Sea will be released on Monday through Cooking Vinyl – you can preorder it on iTunes and on Amazon. For more information, please visit The Pigeon Detectives’ official website.