Second Flight

Even before they released their first single, Oh Hebe, earlier this year, Brisbane-based five-piece Pigeon found themselves leaping straight from indie clubs into the nation's major festivals. They recently released their second EP, Fortunes, and accompanying second single, All That Bad, which debuted at #2 on the triple j Unearthed chart. Their first EP, last year's Parallels, debuted at #6 on the Australian iTunes Electronic Album charts.

“It's definitely been an eye-opener,” admits an obviously surprised Danny Harley, Pigeon singer and guitarist. “Music is presenting itself more as a career option, which is great. We've all done music for a while, though we hadn't been in bands for a year or so. We started a bit of a jam band and it was working pretty well so we thought, 'Why don't we put some weird stuff together?' It was a little bit of a studio project as well. So we got the jam aspect and the studio aspect, put it together in the studio and created this strange music and just sort of released it.

“I mean, live has always been a really important aspect for all of us, so we made sure we had a decent live show before doing any gigs, and we got really good responses. I think one of our first shows, the promoter from Parklife was there and we got booked for Parklife. Then we won one of the spots at Splendour, and then the festivals kept coming in,” he laughs. “It was fantastic. I think the studio is very important for us because a couple of us come from production backgrounds, so we like to have things happen in the studio as well – it's a comfort thing. It's a big part of the compositional process and then it gestates in a jam and grows there.”

As well as Splendour in the Grass and Parklife, Pigeon have chalked up spots on the Peats Ridge Festival, Fat As Butter and Festival of the Sun, as well as Red Deer Festival 2012, showcasing at Brisbane's BIGSOUND and joining Tijuana Cartel and Van She on tour.

“In terms of writing for this EP,” Harley continues, “we wanted to write, say, ten to twelve songs and then whittle it down to six or so. But just because of our, some would say, poor time management,” he laughs, “we ended up with eight songs and then just ditched two. And when we ditch them, we abandon them completely.”

Each member has a variety of other projects in which they're involved – Harley works in the singer/songwriter vein, where the “keyboards player is really into funk and hip hop at the moment; the saxophonist is a jazz-head and the bass player [Chris Paget] is just a complete rock sorta guy. The drummer [Nick Kirk] does house, real dancey sort of stuff; he has his own project for that.” But they meet not only within Pigeon music, but also in their penchant for remixes of their tunes, of which there are many.

“That's the electronic side in us coming out,” Harley admits. “We all love getting on our laptops and getting involved in the music programs coming out. There are so many good music programs and so much you can do with them. Some people think there is less creation when a computer gets involved, but that's a complete myth to me – I think it's as valid as any instrument. Though I have reflected at certain stages on how good it is to be creative with boundaries, like after having a deeply creative period on a laptop and then coming back to playing a riff on a guitar and going, 'Wow, this is pretty sweet actually,'” he laughs.

Pigeon will be playing the following shows:

Thursday 13 December - Rocket Bar, Adelaide SA
Friday 14 December - Platform One, Melbourne VIC