MEET THE ARTIST: PINK SHIRTS FOR PALE PEOPLE

We are excited to be joined by Will Hughes of local Wigan band, Pink Shirts For Pale People. A lot of our readers will hopefully recognise you as you've played at The Old Courts a few times now but lets introduce you to those who aren't familiar with you and your band. We’re a 4 piece band from around Wigan. We’ve been going for about a year in this line-up, but me and the lead guitarist (Ben) have been writing songs for about 4 years now. We were in the same form at school and bonded over The Smiths at first and then we started writing, not for a specific purpose but just because it was fun at the time. Me and the bassist jimmy have been friends for over 14 years now so when he started playing bass it felt like a natural decision to bring him in. Frankie and I met through mutual friends and when I found out he was a drummer I asked him to come and drum for us for an upcoming gig at the old courts and he’s been with us ever since, that was over a year ago now. Lets talk about your music, what have you been up to? We have played loads of great gigs over the past year, I think as a band we have started taking it a bit more seriously. We want to just keep gigging and releasing music for as long as we can; we are patient with it and want to take our time but we have lots of songs we want people to hear so I think we’re just finding that balance. How would you describe Pink Shirts For Pale People's sound? Imagine Michael Jackson, Ian Curtis and David Byrne having a fight in a car, we’d be the song that was playing in the background. This is something I always say as a joke to people when they ask but I think it sums us quite well. Whether we’re fuelling the fight or calming it I think we’re still working that out. What are you currently listening to, does this influence your sound? We’re currently listening to: Everything Everything, Frankie Valli, Fickle Friends and David Bowie. We tend to listen to both old and new material just because there’s always something to be taken from the past but is still good to be progressive and look for something new. We like music that is bold and we tend to like lyrics that are conversational, I think that what’s what we’re looking to create as well. Have you got any exciting upcoming projects? We’re hoping to release our new single “In The Car Park" next week We recorded it with Gareth Nutall at The Lounge. We’re really excited to release after the response to our last single. It’s on the same vain maybe a little more chilled out, but I think it’s distinctly us. What does your usual Sunday look like? We tend to practise on a Sunday. This consists of us playing new songs or just playing the set through over and over; we want to be as tight as possible and sound the best we can. We like to look for different things we can incorporate into our live performance. If we‘re not doing that we’re probably just at a pub somewhere having a pint. Being part of the Wigan music scene what are your views on the music scene here in Wigan? From what we have seen the music scene in Wigan is good. We have played with loads of bands in Wigan and have never seen a poor performance. There’s always something going on which is great. It’s a pool of bubbling musical energy. What's your fondest memory of The Old Courts? We played our first gig at the Old Courts. I remember we thought we were playing tight but looking back we weren’t that good. It’s nice to see how we have progressed though. We started out just as 2 guitars a bass and drum but have started incorporating a lot more technology into our live performance, synths, pads backing tracks etc. We really want to just make each song sound as good as possible. We played The Old Courts on the 29th of November supporting Larkins which was fun, we thought we played really well. You keep yourselves very busy is there anything for our readers to look forward to from Pink Shirts For Pale People? We have 4 more singles set to be released over the next few months. We’re recording them all at The Lounge. Working with Gareth has really opened our eyes to the finer details in each song, it’s made us think of each song differently and think creatively. We really thrived off being in the studio environment and we’re all really excited to get the songs out there. Massive thank you to Will, we're excited to see more of Pink Shirts For Pale People and looking forward to the new material you've been working on