PART 1: THE INTERVIEW
1 - What was your earliest musical memory and what inspired you towards persuing a career in music?
"There comes a point in every musician's life at which one must confess, 'I doubt there's a future for me in sport' and subsequently, buy a guitar."
2 - Had you been involved with any other bands prior to The Tin Pigeons?
"There was a band which consisted of 3/4 of the Tin Pigeons - George, Douglas, Thomas plus another fella and an irregular drummer. Unfortunately, the band's tenure culminated in a rather ugly spectacle at the Uppingham Flower and Produce Show, during which a moody suicide song and a desperate rendition of Stayin' Alive by the Bee-Gees spelt the end for Tawny And The Owls."
3 - How did The Tin Pigeons begin?
"After aforesaid disastrous gig, two of us, George and Douglas, went to France. We quickly found that we still wanted to do band stuff, decided Thomas would be a danger unto himself if we didn't keep him and his groovy bass lines and also realised that George had a perfectly good brother at home, from whom we could extract some vocals and a rhythm guitar."
4 - Where did the name The Tin Pigeons come from?
"We apologise for the sheer dullness of this story: In France, I [Douglas] bought my brother a souvenir tin panda. The name, The Tin Pandas, was floated, but we felt a panda didn't quite suit our rural English aesthetic, so thought an animal from closer to home might do nicely. Pigeons seemed the best choice and here we are, enthralling readers and listeners alike with the exquisitely fascinating story of our band name."
5 - How would you describe the sound of The Tin Pigeons?
"The sound seems to come from a combination of three things. Firstly, the banjo riffs, along with the strumming guitar and mandolin make for quite a skiffly/scrappy/folky-dokey sound akin to that one might expect to hear on the back step of a moonshine distillery, or at a barn dance. Under that, there's Thomas' one man rhythm section of kick drum and bass, which is no doubt owing to his aptitude for various strains of electronic music - incredibly tight, creating a rather nice contrast with our scrappier instruments and tying it all down to a slightly more poppy groove. Added to the broth and to top it off, I think there's a certain soulful sound that comes from our vocals - particularly the harmonies - which tend to be rather soft, in comparison with what one might expect from a rag-tag acoustic band. We've also got the delightful range between Fraser's rather gruff, yet lovely vocals and George's softer, more melodic ones."
6 - You recently shot a video for your song 'Old Rosie'. What is this song about and who influenced it?
"I [Fraser] wrote the song after we played at a beer festival around a year ago where we (some of us more than others) sampled an awfully strong cider by the same name, the inspiration really came from the almost romanticised idea of good old "dutch courage"."
7 - Who would be your dream collaboration?
"We often get heckled by awfully witty folks saying 'One Direction!', so that's probably a sign that we should team up."
8 - Any new songs in the pipeline?
"Individually, we always have new songs of some kind in the pipeline, which are then worked on and when experimented together, can take a form of some kind! A case in point is that we're still kind of working on/working out the latest addition to our set-list, which is rather a foot stomping tune called All's Spent."
9 - When can fans be expecting a new single, EP or album?
"Alas, we're being ripped asunder by university and school terms, but we should no doubt be getting back into the groove of things in time for a hit Christmas single..."
10 - Any live dates coming up?
"We are very close to finishing up all bookings we have taken for this summer. Our next planned dates will be Christmas time, however it's Summer that we love to fill up with gigs! The last on the books is Saturday 14th of September at the Little Bytham beer festival, which is coincidently where we played our very first gig nearly two years ago."
11 - Who would be in your dream supergroup?
"Thomas Quemby. The group would just be him. Maybe George Waite from the Crookes too. Essentially, the group would be two handsome bass players, which would be super."
PART 2: THE QUICKFIRE ROUND
1 - Favourite Beatle?
Douglas: "I'll say George, although if I'm honest, it's probably John."
Thomas: "Harry Styles."
2 - Favourite band?
Douglas: "(At the moment) Pere Ubu, or Magazine."
3 - Favourite new band?
Douglas: "We all love the Crookes!"
4 - Favourite song?
Douglas: "Definitive Gaze by Magazine."
5 - Favourite album?
Douglas: "London Calling."
6 - Vinyl, CD or download?
Douglas: "Usually settle for a CD. Vinyl's great. Download is annoying.
George would probably say vinyl. Fraser can often be heard listening to downloaded stuff on his iphone while he's on the loo, singing along...Thomas walks with music wherever he may be and therefore, does not require any means of audio storage."
7 - Style icon?
Douglas: "The Fantastic Mr. Fox."
8 - Favourite clothing brand?
Douglas: "I like a good freeze brand. Less painful. Why's it just me answering all of these anyway?"
9 - Favourite film?
Douglas: "The Fantastic Mr. Fox, again."
10 - Favourite TV show?
Douglas: "People are probably bored with just hearing what my favourite things are. We should hear from someone else..."
11 - Who would play you in a film of your life?
Douglas: "Looks-wise, Steve Buscemi."
12 - Favourite food?
Fraser: "Grapes."
Thomas: "Harry Styles."
Douglas: "Oh, hi guys. Just in time."
13 - Football team?
Douglas: "Miami Dolphins."
Hope you enjoyed this feature on The Tin Pigeons! Check out our previous feature on Last Of The Light Brigade!
Watch the video for "Old Rosie" here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDP43ZkpwZo
You can also like our Facebook page to keep up to date with all future interviews at the following link - https://www.facebook.com/aldorabritainrecords
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