The latest act to come exploding out of the hugely competitive and flourishing music scene in Leeds are Rothwell’s own PIGEON DETECTIVES. Publicly endorsed by the Kaiser Chiefs, the energetic guitar-slingers have followed up last summer’s festival appearances with a series of releases on progressive indie label Dance To The Radio. The rowdy appeal of their bouncing indie-pop songs has given their gigs a reputation for mayhem, with terrace-frenzied audiences spilling and surfing on to the stage in response to the surging pulse.
With a new single to promote, and a just-recorded debut album scheduled for release in May, the tour diary is crammed with dates for the forseeable future, the next road trip already taking shape as the busy band juxtapose the current Kaisers support slot with their own sell-out UK tour.
Backstage at Manchester’s Roadhouse, where the queue stretches ever further outside there’s just enough time for contemplation in the moments of calm before the storm. With every gig bar Norwich Waterfront sold out, is the current tour living up to chaotic expectations?
“Every gig on us own has been absolutely mental, crazy” states drummer Jimi.
“The capacities have ranged from 1000 to round about 400, this is probably the smallest one we’ve done” agrees Dave from his corner of the couch.
“We played Leeds Met a couple of days back and that were absolutely amazing” adds Ryan to unanimous agreement from the five.
Oliver gets the dubious task of describing the current single, as he’s been doing so all day:
“In a nutshell, it’s about people who don’t understand each other. Everyone seems to think it’s about a boy and a girl, but it’s got nothing to do with that whatsoever. Specifically, it’s about…we played this gig once, supporting another band from Leeds, a bit of an arty band….”
“….I think one of the quotes we got was ‘Twats in leather’” adds Dave. Sardonic grins all round from the West Yorkshire pop rat-race Olympic qualifiers here, who have acknowledged the little home-bred stabs of jealousy aimed at them before now.
“As though we’d deliberately set out to be some kind of marketed pop act” Ryan comments with a roll of the eyes. But the affirmative laughter is a little uneasy. Even with so much to contend with right now, it’s clear that The Pigeon Detectives are not ones to gloat.
My next question takes us from current single to forthcoming album with consummate ease, but thankfully the novelty value is still with the boys as well, which spares me a groan or three!
“Yeah, it’s been recorded – it’s being mixed right now” they all affirm, and the excitement is understated, but all the more tangible for it.
Called ‘Wait For Me’, it’s due for release on Dance To The Radio sometime in May, and by all satisfied accounts it should hit the shelves with some impact.
Jimi leads the approval from the group: “Obviously we haven’t heard the finished version, but in the recordings we’ve been really pleased with it” he states to nodding heads.
“If a song’s not going right, or it’s not got a good melody or whatever, then we just kill it off” states Ryan.
Oliver illustrates this point with this addtition: “A good example of the quality control (my phrase, not theirs) is that during the Xmas period, we had a month and a half off and I wrote 16 songs. But when we went into the practice room, only 2 survived”.
When conversation turns towards discussion of their choice of label, the personal touch that makes the independents appeal to rising stars-in-the-making is something that the band are quick to praise about DTTR.
“Well, we just wanted what was best for us basically. We just like the way that they work. We know the owners personally, and if we have any problems, we just ring them. We don’t have to speak to a receptionist who then puts us through to the A&R department”
“It was a gradual thing as well – initially they gave us studio time to see what we could make the songs sound like, and before we knew it, we were releasing an album with them”.
My comments on the plethora of artists and venues coming out of what is very ‘live’ scene indeed over in Leeds at the moment are a trigger for weighing up the pros and cons:
“There are loads of excellent bands coming outta Leeds, and so many different styles of bands, so there isn’t a defining sound” states Jimi positively, but Matt plays devil’s advocate with loaded cynicism:
“The thing about Leeds is that it can be too diluted” he observed:
“There are loads of great bands out there, but then that’s the catalyst for every man and his fucking dog to get in a band” he groans: “
So on any given Tuesday night, there might be ten gigs in Leeds, three bands on each bill. I’m not avin’ it that there are 30 great bands playing on that Tuesday night” he states categorically, before adding: “I wouldn’t like to be one of the smaller bands at this point”
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“Rowdy”(Jimi)
“Lairy” (Matt)
-are two instant descriptions of a tyical night when the Pigeon Detectives are on the bill.
“We get stage invasions a lot, and it’s becoming a bit of a nightmare – equipment fucking up and allsorts. On the last tour it was traditional for the crowd to be on the stage by the end”
We played Sheffield on Saturday night, and there were four bouncers at the front. From the word go, they got absolutely tortured by crowd surfers. Two songs before the end, they had to split up a massive fight. Then we played Leeds on Sunday night, and our manager was watching from a balcony, and he said that at no point were there anything less than three crowd surfers jumping over the top. I think the best thing about our crowds is that it ranges from your 13 year old girls to 40 year old football louts, chanting Leeds United all night long. It’s a good mix”, he grins.
“The future’s bright, the future’s Pigeon!” laughs Matt!
Oliver explains: “We’ve got the current tour to finish, and there’s talk of us going abroad, to Japan as well as a European tour. We’ve just confirmed as well some of the venues for the next UK tour after this one, The Astoria and Leeds Town Hall, which is another step up”.
They brought with them another Rothwell group too! THE YA YA’S laid into their set with vitriolic energy, pumping out a succession of pop hits that they fair leathered out in bent-double garage mode.
Big-hitting percussion and scorching guitar blazed indie’s melodic trail as the beer puddles grew stage front. Heads craned around a huge chipboard-fattened pillar that cut off a huge view of the stage, but at least created breathing space in an ankle deep venue that was packed to capacity.
‘Go Away’ and ‘On The Buses’ both had singalong choruses and an infectious gain-heavy bounce drenched in relentlessly melodic tunes that loosened up the assembled masses in no time. ‘Time’ funnily enough followed up this thought, leaving an acid-scorch burn mark skidding across my shit for brains approval of such split second timing or instantaneous appeal.
They ended with a song called ‘The Last’ as well! Such ironies aren’t lost on me y’know! This ode to the speed of the 4th dimension was cunningly clad as a handclapping attempt to slow down the world, a guise only cast aside when the stomping shenanigans reached fever pitch.
THE PIGEON DETECTIVES followed swiftly, with the first pint-chucking frenzy sending drenched bodies surging towards the monitors at head height, and I realise that the chipboard barrier is protecting equipment, either from drowning or destruction.
“You know I L-urrrve youuu” sings Matt as he dangles from a pipe on the ceiling to chants of “Yorkshire” from the audience below. It’s good-natured stuff though, and the pogo-ing bodies grin along as the band belt out ‘I Found Out’, their curly-top singer now throwing shapes in time with the staccatto assault.
Much banter with the audience brings an extra intimacy to an already small and full venue, but the mic. swinging front man has soon joined the surf , and that woodchip barrier’s the only board in sight.
‘Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye’ was brilliant, a tightened/speeded-up rendition that heightened the rock n’roll element as it crashed along, all descending interludes and messy drop-outs beneath the choppy barre chord pulse.
It was always going to be a good ‘un due to the sardine-tin cellar atmospherics in this brilliant venue, but this lot know how to work a crowd, and with material that’s geared like this is to pop appeal and chaos generally. ‘Can’t Control Myself’ was met with fever-pitched cheers, and the singalong chant-styled ‘Romantic Type’ got the same sort of dizzy approval that has sent it to the toppermost of the indie poppermost.
‘I’m not sorry’ brings matters to a blistering end all too soon, leaving the exhilerated to gaze happily at each other, the numbers drifting away to reveal a bombsite of a room behind them. Not bad at all for a Tuesday night!
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