Interview by Jo Peplow-Revell.
Since forming in 2004, Yorkshire born band The Pigeon Detectives have gone from strength to strength. Following the release of their fourth studio album “We Met At Sea” earlier this year, they’re now in the middle of their new tour. The Linc caught up with singer Matt Bowman before they took to The Platform’s stage.
How’s the new tour going?
It’s going splendidly. It’s been a little bit of a wet tour; the weather’s been horrendous. We started in Scotland, which is always a pleasure. It’s always a good place to start your gigs, simply for morale. The Scottish crowds are always up for a night out and I don’t really think it would matter if you were good or not, they are quite appreciative.
So it’s your fourth album, but how has touring changed since you first started?
So at the beginning you kind of lose your marbles a bit, you take advantage of every opportunity and usually end up in a mess. You usually end up hungover 9 times out of 10. But nowadays we pick our bottles a bit more.
Do you have any pre-gig routines?
We have a routine before we go on stage, we’ll always be banging out The Strokes, or a bit of Oasis to get us going. Jimmy (our drummer) has an insane stretching routine, kinda like yoga to get his muscles warmed up.
You’ve been to Lincoln before, what do you think of the city?
We’ve been to Lincoln loads and loads of times. I love the city, its pretty aesthetically pleasing. It’s got your churches and cathedrals, it’s nice. As a place, I do enjoy coming here and we’ve played quite a few venues here before.
Where did the band name come from?
A drunken Australian. True story. We were at Leeds festival and we made friends with an Aussie bloke and he had nowhere to sleep so we let him sleep in our tent and he turned out to be the nicest bloke I’d ever met, to say I’d only just met him. We kept in touch; we still keep in touch to this day. He’s married and had kids, and he’s a really top bloke.
We were just sat around the camp fire coming up with random band names, because we had a band but we didn’t really have a name and we’d not played a show. The Pigeon Detectives was one that just made everybody crack up and it was just a really fond memory.
Did anyone ever think about changing the name?
We all thought that! It was always meant to be a one off tribute kind of thing to him and the Leeds festival and we obviously thought we would change it. But things moved a lot quicker than we thought they would for the band. We got a bit too big too quick to then turn around and think ‘no no no, we are not called that any more!’ So we are stuck with it.
“We Met At Sea” is available to buy now as the tour continues.