When we found out PINS was releasing a track with Iggy Pop, our first thought was, “bloody hell!” Not because PINS aren’t good or anything — in fact, the band certainly is, quietly knocking out two albums worth of expertly crafted fuzz pop since its formation in 2011 — but just because it’s Iggy Pop. Actual Iggy Pop: the parrot owning, life modeling, forefather of all things punk, for goodness sake.
“I’ve got a session with a bunch of girls from Manchester called PINS,” he said of the track. “They sent me a good song and they’re looking for a narration in it, and I liked their music and their picture, so I’m doing that.”
The single, titled “Aggrophobe,” is being released as a now-sold out limited edition yellow 7″ at the end of this month. Although it’s yet to work its way online (don’t worry, we’ve heard it and it’s AMAZING) the band has released a special teaser trailer to get your ears around in the meantime. Have a listen and read our chat with vocalist Faith below.
Read: A look at Iggy Pop’s best cinematic moments.
Bloody hell, Iggy Pop!
That’s what everyone keeps saying!
How on Earth did it come about?
The short answer is that we just asked him and he said yes. It was just a bit of a joke really. “Oh, wouldn’t it be cool if Iggy Pop was the voice on this.” And we just asked! Obviously he was the number one choice. And we never had to ask anyone else.
Who knew it’d be so easy?
Well, you always assume that these things will be out of reach. It really restores your trust in people in the music industry because there are so many people who probably would be out of reach or would make themselves out of reach. If someone like Iggy Pop can say yes to a band like us then anything’s possible.
And how does one get in touch with Iggy Pop?
Presumably you don’t go round to his house and stick a cassette through the door. I guess you could try it! We went for the email approach. Our booking agent in the US is friends with Iggy’s manager so he said, ‘if you write an email out I’ll get it to him.’ And he did. And it worked.
What was it about Iggy Pop that you thought would make him good for the track?
Other than the fact that he’s Iggy Pop, well, he just has the best voice in the world and, as it was a spoken word track, it just made perfect sense. Anna our bass player, she did a take — and it sounds beautiful, it does — but we wanted a man’s voice. Really husky, low…
Poor Anna. How did she take being shunted off?
Well, she didn’t mind because we sent Iggy Pop the version with her doing the voiceover first as a guide and he made a comment — I can’t remember what his words were — but something really complementary to Anna so she was made up.
Have you been in contact with him since?
He passed on a message that said thank you for thinking of him and that he hopes to meet us one day. We sent him one back saying thank you for doing it and we hope to meet you too!
Lovely stuff. You have an EP coming out too, don’t you? What can you tell us about it?
It’s got five tracks. One of them’s a cover — “Dead Souls” by Joy Division. The next song that’s coming out is called “All Hail,” which we’ve been playing live a few times. And we’re doing a visual side to the entire thing. So we’ve done five music videos to go with the five tracks that are all linked to each other. One big story when you watch it all at once.
It’s like the indie Lemonade.
Yeah!
Nice one, Faith!
PINS is going on a tour. Why don’t you go and watch at one of these dates here.
Credits
Text Matthew Whitehouse