The Tab Meets: The Pigeon Detectives

How are you guys feeling about the new album and what was your main goal with it in comparison to Up, Guards And At ‘Em! ?

Ryan Wilson: We’re really happy with the new album. Obviously, we’ve been working very hard on it for the last couple of years and we went a bit back to our roots really, just writing songs we want to play live and what we think will go down well live and I think we’ve achieved that.

The Pigeon Detectives’ last album, ‘Up, Guards and at ‘Em!’

Some of the songs, namely ‘I Wont Come Back’, sound a lot more ‘’raw’’ and rocky. Was this a conscience decision or did it just happen when jamming? 

Oliver Main: We just kind of approach each song as its own thing really, we don’t think too much about it. That song specifically we tried to give a Queens of the Stone Age-y vibe with all the crazy bends. We’ve got one that people think sounds quite like Daft Punk. We just try to find whatever direction the song should go in and take it that way.

If you could play at one venue again where do you think you’d go back to?

Oliver: I don’t really remember playing Alexandra Palace so that would probably be quite useful. That was in my lost weekend.

Ryan: Lost two years more like… Mine would probably be Glasgow Barrowlands. We’ve played there a couple of times and when you sell that out, the atmosphere’s like nothing I’ve ever played at before. It’s just incredible and it’s got a lot of rich history well.

What guilty music pleasure, if any, do you have?

Ryan: Wham is my guilty music pleasure. It genuinely is. Or Duran Duran. I just like that cheesy 80s stuff.

Like Tears for Fears and that kind of stuff? (I’m a definite fan…)

Ryan: Yeah definitely (that’s us bonding right there).

Oliver: I don’t feel guilty for anything I like. I like Taylor Swift and Girls Aloud and just pop music in general. But I’m not ashamed of that.

If you could see one band or artist, past or present, at any venue, who would it be and where?

Ryan: Probably Led Zeppelin with Bonham back on drums. Or The Beatles at The Cavern as that’s where it all started for them.

Oliver: Probably Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival as that was such an iconic performance.

Now for some of the weirder questions. What’s the worst question you’ve been asked in an interview? And what’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told?

Ryan: The most annoying question is ‘Why are you called The Pigeon Detectives?’ which I could tolerate for the first year we came out but we must have been asked it like seven million times. That also leads seamlessly onto your second question – we got asked it so much we just started making lies up about it. Things like we found the name in a Christmas cracker or that a giant pigeon lives in a shed down our garden that writes all the songs.

Pippa or Kate?

Oliver: Put your hands together.

This won’t make much sense so just go with your instincts: do you prefer Lola’s or Fez and The Tab or Varsity?

Oliver: Fez as we’ve got a mate called Fez and I’m a big fan of hats. And The Tab. Varsity sounds like it’s for posh kids (how accurate he was…)

It seems only right to end on this note. Check out The Pigeon Detectives’ new album ‘We Met at Sea’ for more of these “Queens of the Stone Age-y vibes”.