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Pigeon Detectives to headline for 2008 Live Stage

Dates 20th Sept 2008

The Pigeon Detectives are: Matt Bowman, vocals; Oliver Main, guitar; Ryan Wilson; rhythm guitar; Dave Best; bass; Jimmi Naylor, drums

In a perfect world, rock groups would meet at junior school, share rites of passage at teenage parties, then become a best-selling band after five years rehearsing in bedrooms and back-rooms. They would then release brilliant, life-affirming pop records and refuse all offers from major labels biz, preferring to stay on a trusted independent (the peerless Dance To the Radio).

Impossible? Clearly, you haven’t met The Pigeon Detectives. Two years ago, this most principled of groups could have been mistaken for any other post-Libertines guitar band, were it not for their gang-like swagger and knack of making gloriously infectious guitar-pop. Now, with Top Three album ‘Wait For Me’ still selling by the lorry-load, they’re major league pop stars, genuine rivals to fellow New Yorkshire alumni Kaiser Chiefs and The Arctic Monkeys.

“We’ve grown up a lot in the last two years” says singer Matt, owner of the best corkscrew locks since Marc Bolan. ‘We’re not five lads from Rothwell who work in call centers anymore. We’re five lads from Rothwell who struggle to go for a beer in Leeds without somebody coming up to us and wanting to chat all night.”

For this newly famous five, 2007 passed in the sort of blur which they readily acknowledge they’ll never see again. In twelve short months they played everywhere from Glastonbury to Tokyo, brushed shoulders with Macca at The Q Awards and ended the year gate-crashing the nation’s front-room on the Christmas Top Of The Pops.

Matt: “It’s been mad. But at the same time, those experiences have brought the five of us closer together. We’ve got our own Fortress Pigeon Detectives no one can else break into.”

In a reaction to such a meteoric rise, critics cast the net wide to crack their code. By the time the band had released top twenty hits 'Romantic Type’, 'I’m Not Sorry’ and ‘Take Her Back’ they'd been, erm, pigeon-holed as being simply sonic heirs to either The Undertones or The Buzzcocks. Which seems a little odd when an hour in their company finds them enthusing knowledgably about everyone from Rufus Wainwright (Ryan) to Kanye West (Jimmi) to The Strokes (Dave) to Joni Mitchell (Matt) and Jonathan Richman (Oliver).

“We take influences from all manner of things” says Matt. “But as a band we all started off listening to the Beatles, then we grew up as teenagers with Oasis. But it was only when The Strokes and The Libertines came along that it suddenly seemed possible for us to actually make it as a band."

Fast forward to mid-2008 and The Pigeon’s are about to release their brand new album ‘Emergency’. Confident, intelligently arranged and choc-a-bloc with killer tunes, it’s the sound of a band eager not to slash the ropes anchoring them to the past.

“We didn’t want to make a second album full of songs about going to America and feeling really homesick” explains Jimmi. “We wanted to write an album people could associate with. People warmed to ‘Wait For Me’ because they could relate to it. I like the fact people can hear a song once and get the sentiment straight away.”

Oliver, the band’s songwriter, puts it even more succinctly: “I always think that if you try too hard with the lyrics, you put people off.”

It's no coincidence that an album full of such clarity and purpose came together in the tranquil surroundings of South Wales. Written and recorded in a three week blitz in the residential seclusion of Monnow Valley with uber-producer Stephen Street (Smiths/Blur) it’s a vindication for those who see The Pigeon’s as the most natural song-smiths of the entire Britpop boom.

From blazing first single ’This Is An Emergency’ to the final ‘Everybody Wants Me’ - ‘Emergency’ sees the band exhaustively explore emotional fragmentation, joy and minor madness over serrated riffs and explosive rhythms. 'Keep On Your Dress' is a heart-wrenching companion song to ‘Wait For Me’s’ ‘You Know I Love You’; 'Don’t You Wanna Find Out’ a poignant pop exocet; ‘She’s Gone’ is a revved up romp while acoustic break-up tune 'Nothing To Do With You’ and ‘Love You For A Day (Hate You For A Week)’ will resonate with anyone who’d ever found their personal lives unraveling in front of their eyes.

“We’re fans of catchy three minute pop songs which tell stories” says Matt. “We make the sort of music we’d want to listen to at home. If I wasn’t in this band I’d want to sit at home and listen to this record on my hi-fi. That’s the only criteria we can have. If we like what we’re doing, we know we’re ok.”

Best of all, ‘Emergency’ exists entirely within its own frame of reference. It’s a hyper-ventilated view of life as a star in the pop cosmos, as relevant to 2008 as ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ was to 1964. And if it sounds like a band in a hurry, that’s because it is.

“We told everyone we’d release our second album exactly a year after the first one, and we’re only two days out ” laughs Matt. “The title sums up our lives over the last year. Everything from getting the video’s done to playing festivals has been one big emergency.”

A classic album from a band with an indie ethic.

The Pigeon Detectives: here to solve pop’s problems.

Biography by Paul Moody, London, March 2008

www.thepigeondetectives.com

Myspace Links below:

confirmed

The Bees 2007 Headline

Paul Butler

Aaron Fletcher

Kris Birkin

Michael Clevett

Tim Parkin

Warren Hampshire

From Sun Records to Studio One, Meeksville to Kraftwerk's Kling Klang,some of the most visionary music of the last sixty years is linked forever with the specific studio in which it was recorded. There's a special alchemy associated with these places - more than just rooms full of mics recording sound, they breed a magic and myth of their own. Just the names alone are enough to send a shiver down the spine of most music fans.

So, then, to The Steamrooms. Being the well-informed pop scholars that they are, Isle Of Wight six-piece The Bees knew that before they could record their third album they first needed to build their own studio, somewhere they could find their own sound. Forsaking vocalist/producer Paul Butler's shed (where 2003's Mercury-nominated debut was hatched) and Abbey Road (where they made 2004's 'Free The Bees'), the band duly spent a year constructing their wood-lined sonic laboratory in the basement of Paul and fellow founding member Aaron Fletcher’s Isle of Wight home. With walls and floor of pine, it looks most like a Scandanavian sauna. They started jokingly referring to it as The Steamroom and the name stuck.Then the band set out equipping the place, filling it with vintage instruments, amps and recording equipment to get exactly the right sound. An early 1960s mixing desk was recovered from a Swedish radio station, while serious eBay habits were developed.

"Basically we've built our own budget version of Abbey Road at home" says Paul. "But the plan is to use it to get our own individual sound from whatever's recorded in there, so that any of our friends' bands from the island could come down there and record and it'll still sound like a Steamrooms production."

With the studio built, the band were ready to embark on their densest and most far-ranging record to date. Having their own studio within stumbling distance meant that the Bees could record whenever they wanted: transported from the time-is-money atmosphere of Abbey Road to the picturesque Victorian seaside town of Ventnor with a pub, the Crab And Lobster, over the road.

"Abbey Road was a song-a-day place" reckons drummer Michael Clevett."And listening back to 'Free The Bees' now it sounds rushed - all of the songs are at breakneck speed! With this it was recorded in a much more relaxing surrounding. The Steamroom is like our headquarters, really."

The product is an album that more than benefits from its relaxed homebirth.Dense and layered but simultaneously packed with pop grooves, 'Octopus' is the sound of The Bees refining what they do. Gone are the cover versions and wonky instrumentals, replaced by ten great Bees-shaped pop songs. Just check first single 'Who Cares What The Question Is', a confident blast of Beatlesy blues. Yes, from the spooked-sounding dub fumes of 'Left Foot Stepdown' to the Southern Soul stew of future single 'Listening Man' or 'Hot One''s Merseybeat, it's the final proof that there's no other band like them around in the world at the moment, and that's the way they intended it to be.

"Building the studio on the island was a big thing for us" explains Paul.

"We've isolated ourselves, hopefully in the same way that all the Jamaican music that we love was a product of being a long way from the mainland."

"Plus, this time we had no-one to disturb us" he continues. "On one side of the house is a Masonic lodge that only meets twice a week and on the other are some neighbours that are really into what we're doing. So we had plenty of time to listen back to stuff we'd been working on and remix it if we weren't totally happy with what we'd done."

In line with this approach to recording was a new spirit of egalitarianism between the band. Whereas The Bees' first album had been written almost entirely by Aaron and Paul, this time round the group were able to drop into the studio at whatever time of day they wanted, pick up an instrument and write something.

"We all play each other's instruments," says Tim Parkin. "No-one has an ego about whose is which. And because we have The Steamrooms we have plenty of time to jam together, listen to what we've recorded then go back and adjust stuff."

It's a process that could have gone on forever, of course, with endless tinkering and rerecording. But with this record band have been disciplined -and generous - enough to give us the first transmission from The Steamrooms.

Long may they continue.