PINS have been labelled almost everything under the sun. Shambling C86 evangelists. Indie pop darlings. Glam-stomping, leather-clad post-punks. New album 'Wild Nights' though, doesn't fit any of these categories – if anything, it's a rock record, both in production and attitude.
Announced earlier this year, the first sign fans had of 'Wild Nights' was a bold, viciously-worded statement: "Fuck yesterday, fuck tomorrow, everything is transient, everyday is a new party."
On the phone, though, singer Faith Verns is rather more bashful. “I hate it when people read back these quotes!” she grimaces. “It's embarrassing!”
'Wild Nights' owes its origins to the band's rehearsal space in Manchester, but the record itself was recorded at Rancho De La Luna, a studio out in near the Joshua Tree in the Californian desert. “Well, we already knew about Rancho, just because it's a really famous studio, that was our number one choice,” she explains. “So we just thought, let's ask and see.”
“We didn't really expect to get in there, but it's worked out. We got chatting to Dave Catching (Eagles Of Death Metal, studio owner) and he seemed really happy to do it. He co-produced it.”
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The change in location had an immediate impact on the group. “None of us had ever been there before, so we were excited to get to the desert,” the singer recalls. “It's kind of like a retreat, a peaceful, holistic kind of place. There's something in the air there, that makes you feel good.”
The material was written in Manchester, and this core still remains, in spite of their adventures in the desert. “We demo'd it all in Manchester. We've got like a little space so we demo'd everything there. We started writing it immediately after the first record, we wanted to have a lot to choose from,” she explains. “I think you can hear it, though. It's demo'd in Manchester, so it's all written here, but then recorded over there so I feel like it's got the gloom and the rain and then it's got the sunshine of the desert as well.”
A spiky, ambitious statement of intent, the praise heaped upon PINS' debut album seems to have energised the group, fuelling their thirst to create. “I felt that we learned so much from doing the first album that we were really excited to go and write new music straight away,” she gushes. “We wanted to do more collaborative songs together in the practise room, just to get more sounds.”
“We always wanted the next one to be fuller, more instruments and even getting a keyboard player in. We always knew that we wanted to do that,” she continues. “I didn't feel any pressure, in terms of that second album thing. I felt more like with the second album we can get it right and do the things that we wanted to do with the first album.”
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…living in the moment and not worrying about tomorrow.
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The album title comes from the song 'Molly' and it's refrain of “wild nights with Molly”. It's a declaration of friendship, of the bonds which can only be spawned from swapping secrets in the wee small hours. “I think the quote came from Lois, because it's basically about summing up what wild nights means to us; which is, living in the moment and not worrying about tomorrow.”
'Molly' does, Clash offers, mean something quite different in the United States. “Yeah…” she says, before drifting into a lengthy, mortified pause. “It does. But again, that could be those wild nights, I guess!”
Disciplined in the studio, PINS were able to lay down 'Wild Nights' in seven compact days. “It was so much fun. We recorded 13 songs. We only planned to do ten, but we just got everything done really quick. Even though it was a short amount of time we ended up getting through it really quickly because everyone was really relaxed.”
Producer Dave Catching was able to offer subtle insights, with his collection of vintage equipment allowing the band to utilise fresh sounds. “They had so many vintage guitars and vintage amps and pedals and stuff that Dave would be like, let's try this one for this song. The actual sounds within the songs, Dave had a lot to do with that,” the singer explains. “There wasn't any structural changes or anything too drastic it was just more of a chance to experiment with the sounds using all of the equipment that he had in the studio.”
It seems a genuine friendship blossomed between American producer and British band. “He was definitely great at putting the band at ease,” Faith recalls. “When we arrived it was about 3am, we flew to LA and then drove to Joshua Tree and he just welcomed us with wine at his house. He would take us out at night time, we went to watch the Dandy Warhols. He'd take us to this trailer park and we'd go vintage shopping to loads of swap meets. It was just like a really relaxing experience where we recorded music at the same time.”
A stylish bunch, PINS were keen to throw themselves into America's vintage shopping scene. “It's great, over there, but there's a lot of shit as well – you've got to look through it. But then you can find really great clothes for like a dollar. We didn't find any good instruments – it seems like Dave's gone round picking them all up already.”
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Invited to support Sleater-Kinney on their recent UK tour, PINS were inspired by how the seminal American group conducted themselves. Able to try out their new material, the live experience underlines much of their new impetus. “We definitely wanted a bigger sound. We wanted to explore the songs a little bit more,” she says. “We were thinking about it being a live experience as well, so rather than just playing a two minute noisey pop song it's like, how we can play around with it, change the timings, the volume. How we could build it so it would be more exciting to listen to live and to watch?”
“It's really cool to have something that's on the record and then have something which is for the live experience. Like two separate versions of the song, almost. It probably comes from us watching live music all of the time: we play with loads of bands and listen to loads of music in the van so we just steal loads of little ideas and apply it to our songs.”
In the run up to the release of 'Wild Nights' the band received another bonus – YSL agreed to style their new video. “Well, that was another one of those things where we were like: wouldn't it be great if YSL let us wear their clothes? So we just emailed them and asked them and they said yeah!” “It was a bit of fun just to wear some really expensive clothes and the night before the video we were all trying them on in my flat. It was fun to wear something that you can't afford,” she sighs. “Unfortunately you have to give them back!”
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'Wild Nights' is out now.
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