“We Need More Venues [Like The Leadmill]”: An Interview with The Pigeon Detectives

Written and Edited by Eve Moat
Interview Questions by Eve Moat
Photography by Eve Moat

Big, small, local or worldwide? I caught up with the immense Leeds band The Pigeon Detectives at Tramlines Festival 2024 to talk about festival crowds, grassroots venues, and how it feels to have your music played in your local pub…

Answers by Dave Best (bass and backing vocals) and Ryan Wilson (guitar).

I saw you at Y Not Festival last year and you were moved from a tent to the main stage. The crowd was the biggest I had seen the whole weekend. How did it feel to have that kind of crowd response?

Dave: Oh it’s amazing. The same thing happened yesterday actually. We were at Truck Festival down in Oxfordshire. We were supposed to be doing a smaller one, then they moved us up to main stage. Yeah, when you’ve been doing it this long you don’t know what reception you’re gonna get or how many people are gonna turn up, or if people even know you still exist, but when we got out there, the crowd were absolutely amazing and its a brilliant feeling. If the crowd’s there, we know we’ll be able to win them over at a festival. We love it.

Ryan: The band formed back in 2004 and the first album was 2007, so having people still enjoying the music now is really good. It’s weird ‘cos you don’t really know what to expect sometimes. We live in our own bubble in a way. We released an album last year and it actually did well. It charted in the top 40, and its our best selling album since the one in 2010. You stop and think, “oh so people actually like us”. Getting bumped up from a tent ‘cos the demand was so high, I think the promoters need to put their ear to the ground a little bit more. In a couple years time, it’ll be 20 years since our first album, which is a long, long time. If I had a child 20 years ago, it’d be a full on adult, it’s mad. We’re quite humbled by it and I think at this stage of our careers, we appreciate it more.

That’s great to hear! As a paper from Leeds, as you are yourselves, our readers would love to know how Leeds has influenced you over the years. Does your music still connect to the city or do your influences have changed?

Dave: Well we all live in Leeds and the music revolves around our shared life experience. Leeds has influenced everything we’ve done, ‘cos we’re from the city, we still live in the city, we love the city. The first album was written about debauched nights in the city. the last few albums were not exactly that sort of thing but we were still influenced by our environment. We love Leeds. We go to the Leeds football. Go watch local Leeds bands, and the scene’s always flourishing. We were never one of them bands that wanted to migrate down to London. We’re too tight northerners to go pay for the price of beer down there.

Ryan: No, we don’t wanna pay the price of a pint in London. Leeds is a really cool sort of city. Its our forever home is Leeds.

In terms of your lyrics, your songs have some very striking and memorable lyrics. How do you come up with these? What process makes for a hit track?

Dave: I don’t think there is a process that would definitely make a hit track. You never know what’s gonna land lyrically. If a listener can hear themself in a track, that’s always good ‘cos they relate to it more. A catchy lyric’s really important. Ollie, who writes most of our stuff, he’s got a really good eye and ear from melody and lyrics. For someone who’s quite antisocial, he makes quite widespread lyrics [laughs].

Ryan: The process is never, “oh I need to write about this subject to make this song cool or relevant”. A lot of lyrics are quite split between Matt and Ollie. Ollie will start the lyric and Matt will finish it. Matt therefore will interpret it in his way. The songs can then sometimes go in a slightly different direction to what Ollie probably first thought. Makes it quite unique two people working on it like that. Nothing is pre-empted. Just go with the flow really.

That’s interesting to know, ‘cos when you listen to a song you don’t think its disjointed or as if two people have written it. It all seems to flow together.

Band: Yeah.

I know many of our readers will have heard your music at Leeds club nights, namely Indie Thursdays at the Leeds O2 Academy. Have you ever heard your music played at a club night? How does it feel to know that people listen to your music up and down the country and even worldwide?

Ryan: Yeah we’ve definitely heard it a lot. Depends how many beers we’ve had to how we react. A lot of beers we might be dancing. If we haven’t, we kind of step away to the side. Obviously it’s really nice. We’ve known a few people over the years who’ve run club nights, and we’re friends with them. We also know a lot of DJs in Leeds and they say our songs always go down well. Even some of our newer music is enjoyed by the crowds at those nights ‘cos we’ve not moved away from indie music so they work in those indie club nights and indie environments. It is nice to hear your own songs. Bit weird at first but 15-17 years later you get used to it.

Dave: Yeah it’s funny when you go into a local pub and sometimes they’ll purposefully play songs ‘cos they know you’ve come in [laughter]. Like you go grab a beer and you hear one of your songs come on. We get that all the time when we go to The Coach. I think everyone from our town is really proud of us, so its nice to know that.

How did you deal with that at first? When did it stop being weird?

Ryan: I think one of the first of our songs that I heard played was one of the early singles and Steve Lamacq played it on his evening radio show. He’s a great guy. We were all in a car coming back from a rehearsal session and it was so surreal hearing that. It was really special. It is still nice to hear our tracks back now.

Who are you most looking forward to seeing today and why?

Dave: I wanna see a bit of Yard Act. I’m old these days so I don’t get to go to many gigs so festivals are always a really good excuse to catch bands you’ve hear a lot about but not managed to see. They’re from Leeds as well so go and support them. Excited to seeing them, I’ve heard they’re really good. My mum really wants to see Snow Patrol so I’ll take her to see them too.

Ryan: I saw a bit of Yard Act yesterday at Truck, so I kinda got my fix last night. I’d quite like to catch The Human League, but we clash with them. 86TVs would be great to see. Felix, their frontman, used to be in The Maccabees, and we did a lot with them over the years. I even told him, “I was really sad when you guys split up”, so it would be nice to catch his new band.

Dave: They’re on now, so I think you’ve missed them.

Ryan: Okay, so I won’t be seeing them [laughs]. Maybe another time.

Eve: They’re on The Leadmill Stage.

Dave: Yeah, its quite close to here.

Ryan: Okay, so I might be able to run over and catch the last few songs. Maximo Park are a great band too, and they were good earlier.

Finally, what is your favourite thing about Sheffield?

Dave: The Leadmill. We love it. We’ve played it since we first started playing gigs and the people there have always looked after us. The atmosphere in there is always amazing. If we can, we’ll always go back to The Leadmill. I know that there’s talk of a takeover and stuff recently, but they’ve always been so good to us. They took up a section of the floor to replace it and they gave us and engraved section of the floor ‘cos we’ve played it so much. Every time we come and play The Leadmill it is always a special occasion.

Ryan: Them venues are a dying breed unfortunately. They are what help the grassroots bands come through and I know they’re fighting to survive at the moment and I hope that they do. We need more venues like them, and they’re the best thing for music in Sheffield in my opinion.

I think that’s a great point to end on, so thank you for speaking to me and good luck with the set later. I’ll be watching on from the crowd.

Band: Cheers. Thank you!

Thank you very much to Ryan and Dave of The Pigeon Detectives, and we wish you another happy 20 years of music making, and many more to come!