Pillow Queens
‘I don’t wanna ruin my life, but I wanna go home with you’ chants lead singer, Pamela Connolly, of indie rockers Pillow Queens on their third album, Name Your Sorrow.
Released in April, Name Your Sorrow instantly feels like a culmination of patience, maturity, and a deep sense of self wrapped in a beautiful bow. Laced in between the intricate guitar lines, the band delves into what the human experience is: an emotional roller coaster.
While their sound has matured since their debut into this all-encompassing, sonically hazy indie rock, their themes feel equally as large. On ‘The Bar Is Closed’, Connolly rips into the sound, ‘Oh I’ve been watching you / lose your light / caught up in someone to / destroy your life’, while a wild guitar line lingers throughout - you feel almost gut punched. From queerness to grief to insecurities, the realness permeates from each line of lyrics. It’s a complete album that takes its time, you never feel rushed through a song or feeling left wanting more - by the end of the twelve tracks, you feel satiated. There are so many hidden pockets of brilliance on this album, oftentimes I would be daydreaming until a lyric registered in my brain and I was pulled back to reality.
GRRRL Music: Your newest album "Name Your Sorrow" is described as your most vulnerable yet self-assured project to date. How has the band's evolution influenced the writing and recording process for this album?
PILLOW QUEENS: We’ve been together and known each other for such a long time that perhaps the biggest influence to our evolution is being able to say we truly know each other on a deep level. There’s a comfort there that allows more and more for sonic experimentation and opinions as well as the ability to be truly vulnerable.
Photo Credit: Martyna Bannister
GM: With all of your literary influences like Eavan Boland and CS Lewis mentioned, could you share how these elements shaped the thematic and sonic direction of the album?
PQ: For us, I don’t think we knew what the themes of this album were going to be. We knew the general direction it was going to go subject wise but as we worked away at each song in our practice space and in the studio things kind of unveiled themselves to us. It felt like completing a jigsaw puzzle and putting the last one in and being like, “oh it’s a horse”.
GM: The music video for "Heavy Pour" draws inspiration from classic silent films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. What aspects of these films influenced the video, and how do you feel this visual style complements the song?
PQ: The amazing idea for the music video came from our director Kate Dolan who we’ve worked with so many times. She understands the music we send her and places it in worlds it makes sense in. "Heavy Pour" is quite an atmospheric and tense in parts kind of song with melodies that I thought sounded a bit macabre.
The visual style then just fits like a glove, I think.
GM: How do you balance personal storytelling with creating music that resonates universally?
PQ: Every song is always going to be particular to a very personal feeling or event gone through but essentially what we write are love songs. The good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to love and all the thousands of other feelings that go along with that. I think that’s kind of the most relatable thing in the world. Heartbreak can be very lonely and ostracizing, but it kind of also connects us all together.
GM: You're set to perform live across the UK and open for Snow Patrol before your largest show at Iveagh Gardens in Dublin. What does this progression in live shows mean to you as a band, and how do you prepare for these larger stages?
PQ: Over the years as stages got bigger, we did focus more and more on how we can improve our presence and stage, mostly sonically. Our aim is always to impact people and with a well-thought out live show, we have the opportunity to do that well. So far there’s been a lot of rehearsals but also a lot of ideas when it comes to what our show will look like and being creative with the space we have.
Name Your Sorrow is out on all platforms now, you can support the band by buying the album on Bandcamp or catch their tour through Europe this summer!