Pillow Queens Tickets

After forming in 2016, the band released a series of singles, honing their craft and working towards their first album, In Waiting (2020). Along the way there have been acclaim from UK and American press, many sold-out gigs and an appearance on James Corden’s US TV show. After signing with Canada’s Royal Mountain Records, they released a follow-up album, Leave the Light On in 2022, touring the UK, US and Europe extensively.

Three albums in three years indicate a serious work ethic, for Name Your Sorrow they stuck to a strict schedule. Cathy McGuinness explains that they showed up every day from 9-5, in a windowless Dublin room to just play, swap instruments and experiment. From there, they decamped to a rural Co. Clare retreat to immerse themselves further. “We got on this very non-verbal kind of wavelength, where you just kind of picked up your instruments. It was very instinctive and the most the communal experience we’d ever had of working.”

The palpable shift in sound and tone is possibly the result of working with a new producer, Collin Pastore from Nashville, who has produced boygenius, Lucy Dacus and Illuminati Hotties. The band holed up for three weeks at Analogue Catalogue studio in Newry, and quickly noticed that the change of scene and personnel impacted the record. In the past, they knew exactly how a song would sound before they’d recorded it. “With Collin, we’d record something, listen back and think, ‘that’s not how I thought it would sound’, but it’s better”, admits Rachel Lyons. Before Pastore’s arrival, and thanks to the 9-5 process and the retreat, by the time the band got to the studio, the songs were fully developed and ready to Record.

The result of combining new experimentation, heartfelt lyrics and a sound that pinballs from quiet and loud offers a kind of catharsis. Of picking through the shrapnel to find slivers of hope.

Previously, the band have road-tested new tracks live, playing them to an audience and reworking them based on the crowd’s reaction. They haven’t done that this time, because the songs already feel fully formed. The band also had to unlearn the process of questioning whether a song sounded like “a Pillow Queens song”.