Foto: Cooperative Music

Pigeon Detectives, The

Emergency [Rock / Alternative]

RELEASE: 30.05.2008

LABEL: Cooperative Music

VERTRIEB: Universal

The Pigeon Detectives land with their first much-anticipated long-player, ‘Wait For Me’ on 25th May, released through Leeds Indie label Dance To The Radio.

‘Wait For Me’ follows the band’s success over the last year, building up a fanatical fanbase up and down the country. ‘Romantic Type’, their last single, hit number 19 in the charts and established them as one of the hottest acts around right now. Raw, powerful and soulful, ‘Wait For Me’ is one of the most exciting releases of the year and is set to catapult The Pigeon Detectives to the top.

“We’ve always wanted to be as big as The Beatles,” boasts Oli Main, The Pigeon Detectives’ lead guitarist and songwriter-in-chief. “I’m sure it’d do our heads in, yeah, but I’d rather be that big than be no one. We want to get as big as we possibly can.”
“Anyone in a band who says they’re not bothered about any of that is a liar,” agrees singer Matt Bowman. “It totally matters.”
“We just want to be rich and famous,’ Oli continues. “It’s not about the music at all.”

The Pigeon Detectives are, of course, joking… at least about that last bit. After all, you can’t fake the sort of rabid energy that fuels their million-miles-an-hour live shows, and you certainly don’t write as many songs that so perfectly encapsulate what it feels like to be an 18-year-old whose world revolves almost solely around attractive members of the opposite sex and getting drunk as they have without living exactly that sort of life 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Songs like ridiculously infectious first proper single ‘I Found Out’. Or the first-of-what-will-surely-be-many Top 20 hits ‘Romantic Type’. Or, in fact, any of the 12 wall-to-wall bellow-along classics that make up their debut album ‘Wait For Me’. ‘Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye’ is about getting upset after parting ways with that girl you met five minutes ago; ‘I’m Not Sorry’ features a screamed refrain of, “I’ll never take you back! I’ll never take you back!”; ‘Take Her Back’ is… well, you get the picture.

See, like all the finest, most frighteningly young bands, The Pigeon Detectives rely on pure, unadulterated passion rather than any pretensions towards any kind of innovation. They are gloriously straightforward and natural in every respect, right down to the way they met. No adverts were placed in the classifieds with this band – bassist Dave Best and rhythm guitarist Ryan Wilson met at nursery in Leeds, then at primary school they were in the same year as Jimmi Naylor (drums), Matt and Oli. “We all wanted to be footballers,” laughs Matt. “We used to go to the park together every night…”
“…but then I discovered The Beatles and bought a guitar,” continues Oli. “I taught Ryan and Dave how to play, then we just walked into this bar where Matt was working and told him, ‘You’re gonna be our singer’. He was the only person about who was suited to it, ’cos he’s such a cocky twat.”

A ‘cocky twat’ he may well be, but a more perfect focal point for The Pigeon Detectives songs of teenagerdom could not possibly exist. Matt Bowman means it, and that’s why so many people just like him are connecting with his band up and down the country. The Pigeon Detectives, make no mistake, are a band bringing up to date a classic British rock’n’roll tradition: one that stretches back (and beyond) to the earliest days of their beloved Fabs, one that takes in the adolescent thrills of the Buzzcocks and The Undertones along the way. A tradition of only writing singles, and a tradition of perfectly soundtracking the lives of anyone under the age of 20.
“We’re all young lads, so it’s no coincidence most of are songs are about trying to pull birds or not being able to pull birds, or just having a laugh with your mates,” shrugs Matt. “They’re all about what we did yesterday, or what we wanna do tomorrow. There’s no, like, cryptic themes in there – why should there be? That’s the way we are.”

Are teenage dreams still so hard to beat? When they sound as good as this, you beat your bleedin’ life they are.

The Pigeon Detectives are:

Matt Bowman – vocals
Oli Main – guitar
Ryan Wilson - guitar
Dave Best - bass
Jimmi Naylor - drums

(Quelle: Cooperative Music,2008)