“I will say, it is really fun to take a space that feels like a jazz club and just fucking tear it up,” jokes Lomes Oleander, frontwoman of Olympia-based country/punk band Pigeon Pit, who were supposed to play the Music Hall at World Café Live this coming Friday, June 27th. However, those of you who have been up on local music news know that the posh-y University City venue seems to be currently in the midst of being torn up from the inside… Fortunately, Pigeon Pit’s June 27th show was relocated to the First Unitarian Church, a venue that seems to be at least a bit more along the lines of the spaces Pigeon Pit most like playing, according to my May phone chat with Oleander: “Definitely my favorite types of shows are playing places where we’re not supposed to play, like a living room or on the beach… There’s an energy that we’re doing things together that are weird and that we’re sort of not supposed to be doing, even if the family that lives there is super supportive [laughs].”
“I’m really excited for the Philly show with The Taxpayers and Paper Bee. Those bands are all homies,” Oleander tells me. Pigeon Pit’s June 27th show will have them providing direct support for The Taxpayers, with Paper Bee handling opening duties, the only date on their current run to boast that particular lineup of homies. This past Wednesday, Pigeon Pit hit the road in support of their most recent full-length, Crazy Arms, which dropped this January on Ernest Jenning Record Co. Those who listened to the June edition of Philthy Radio – my monthly show for Y-Not Radio – heard Crazy Arms’ “hot shower winter morning,” which apparently produced Oleander’s favorite reaction to the LP: “There was this one fan, and they were stationed at a research base in Antarctica at the South Pole, working in a remote greenhouse, and they told me they remember crying to ‘hot shower winter morning.’”
Ernest Jenning Record Co.’s Pete D’Angelo found Pigeon Pit on Bandcamp before signing them, which Oleander tells me has made for quite a different process from previous releases: “It’s just kind of wild. For a very long time, it’s just been me making everything myself. Well, not all by myself, I have friends at tape distros or friends with access to recording equipment recording me for free, but you know what I mean.” And while Lomes Oleander has been releasing music as Pigeon Pit since 2015 debut LP Shut In (which turned 10 last month), Crazy Arms is also the first album to drop since the band started touring as a 6-piece in 2022, and Oleander admits that that relatively short period of time has produced a lot of highlights…
“We’ve done some really crazy, fun stuff, just playing these really incredible house shows where there’s people crowd surfing in a living room… and playing places like New Zealand and Australia and just getting to know punks everywhere. I’d done some touring before, but it would be on my own or as part of a band, but being on the road with these people who are my best friends and getting into fucking trouble in random ass places is incredible… We’re booking Europe, we’ve got a Pitchfork review, we did a Tiny Desk… It feels like a fluke, but I’m sure that’s just imposter syndrome.”
Oleander confesses that her writing process hasn’t changed much over the past decade (“I write a lot as I’m riding my bike, hearing little bits of music in my head… Writing works in a journaling kind of way.”), but she tells me that working with Pigeon Pit’s current lineup has changed the process of developing the songs kind of a lot: “I spend a lot more time arranging it now and learning to play with more people, which is a lot more fun.” She also says that she’s very much enjoying the band’s current live show: “We try to pack a lot of songs into a short period of time, and it’s a lot heavier than the albums. I play electric guitar, which is super fun.” And she tells me that the audiences Pigeon Pit sees also play a big role in the joy she’s been experiencing.
“I think it brings a lot of people who haven’t experienced DIY music… People coming with their parents to shows and parents telling me that they really bond with their kids over it, especially when they’re trans kids, that’s incredible to me and really fucking moving. One of the hardest things about being trans is your relationship with your parents.”
*Get your tickets here.
