Pins

The Manchester ladies introduced their brand of hazy indie/garage rock with their first album Girls Like Us in 2013. Their second album, released earlier this month, was recorded over seven days in the Joshua Tree desert studio of Queens of the Stone Age’s Dave Catching, and features much of his large collection of vintage instruments.

“He’s got guitars from the past 50 years, things that he picks up here, there and everywhere,” says Holgate. “A lot of that made it onto the record, a lot of vintage guitars and pedals. It was like being kids in a toy shop.”

Catching’s contributions aren’t the only new sound for Pins on Wild Nights. “There’s more in the way of vocal melodies and harmonies,” Holgate says. “It’s got keyboard, which is new, and there are other layers of percussion – all the little details we didn’t do on the first album. We’ve also added more of a psych edge. Just tried to be a bit more open, a bit more creative. But we still have the two-minute noisy pop songs.”

As the title suggests, Girls Like Us took inspiration from the experiences of the band’s all-female lineup, and this new album follows on from that. “Overall, there’s a theme of coming of age,” says Holgate. “Being older and being able to look back on experiences rather than always being in the experience – looking back at the idea of teenagers and how I felt at the time.”

Of course, Pins don’t want the gender of their members to be the defining factor of the band.

“It used to be every single question was about being in an all-girl band,” says Holgate. “Now, it does still come up but we’re proud to be an all-female band. We’re happy to fight the fight for women, we just don’t want it to be the only focus. We don’t want it to overshadow the music – we’re just trying to do it in the sense of being equal to male bands. But now people do ask more about the music and the instruments and the sound rather than just what we look like or what sex we are.”

However, Holgate is always happy to appreciate the female musicians around her.

“I went to watch Courtney Barnett in Manchester about a month ago – she’s very cool. I like her garage rock element of her music and the way that she delivers the melody. Warpaint – Sophie [Galpin], our drummer, is a very big fan of them; she looks up to their drummer quite a lot.

“I always find it very flattering when people say they want to start a band because they’d come to see our band,” Holgate adds. “And when there’s younger girls at the shows and they say they feel inspired to do something – not just music, just something creative.”