Pillow Queens: ‘We all grew up in a culturally Catholic country… that seeps into our music’

“I’ve been delivered,” Pillow Queens sing on their second album, Leave the Light On. At first listen, the reverential croons – over hushed percussion and moody thrums of bass – sound like a declaration of religious faith. But the Dublin-based quartet aren’t so literal as that.

Formed in 2016, the indie-rock band – co-lead vocalists/bassists Pamela Connolly and Sarah Corcoran, drummer Rachel Lyons and guitarist Cathy McGuinness – make a habit of intertwining Ireland’s deep-rooted Catholic beliefs with their experiences as four queer women. Early songs such as “Holy Show”, from their debut album In Waiting, are pulse-quickening vignettes of an intimate relationship: “I’m still a baby/ If you’re still waiting outside/ I’ve got your eyes and cheeks in front of me/ Filling the space between my thighs.” On recent single “Liffey” – which they performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden – the drone of an organ is drowned out by a maelstrom of guitars and thundering drums, as Connolly and Corcoran sing: “Oh, spread me over the Liffey/ And sing me off to sleep/ I wanna take you with me/ To wash and dry your feet.”

“We all grew up in a very culturally Catholic country… that seeps into our music,” Connolly says. We’re sitting (and sweating) in the main piazza of Castelbuono, where the band are performing at the boutique Sicilian festival Ypsigrock. Connolly, Lyons and McGuinness are hanging out ahead of their show on the main stage (Corcoran arrives later from a delayed flight). So far, Connolly feels that a lot of the media attention surrounding Pillow Queens has focused on their identities as queer women. “To be asked about our lyrics is refreshing, because a lot of the questions are about ‘what’s the most annoying thing about being a queer woman in a band’, and it’s like… I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s that question,” she says. “Our experiences of being a band are almost identical to anyone else. We write about [those experiences], but that doesn’t feel profound to us.”

Possibly the tendency to politicise the band (and their lyrics) stems from their growing up against a shifting landscape of LGBT+ rights. Lyons recalls door-knocking around her neighbourhood ahead of Ireland’s same-sex marriage vote in 2015. “That was hard,” she recalls. “It was a landslide vote in the end – it’s very exposing, though, you’re literally asking someone, ‘Can I get married?’ It wasn’t always positive. And a lot of things were bandied about by the opposition, like, ‘I don’t mind [what your sexuality is], I just don’t want them to have kids.’ It was upsetting, but things have changed a lot.” They all have relatively positive memories of coming out. “I think all of our parents were pro-gay,” Connolly says. Lyons wonders if their generation is one of the last where “coming out” is a common occurrence: “I know other, younger queer people who are like, ‘I didn’t come out, I just… was.’” McGuinness and Connolly caveat this by acknowledging the liberal leaning “bubble” they operate in. “Things have changed a lot,” Connolly says, “but there’s still a lot of work to do.”

Fortunately, Pillow Queens could never be accused of being work-shy. Until very recently, all four of them had day jobs – from local housing to education – that they’ve since quit in order to tour through summer. “We’ve had so many [new] experiences – even just this last year, a lot of things have been completely different,” Lyons says. “It’s only recently that we’ve been doing the band full-time.” In June, they supported Phoebe Bridgers – who has become a sort of doting godmother to younger female indie artists – for her sold-out shows at Barrowlands in Glasgow. “That was gas,” Connolly says, beaming. Bridgers was apparently thrilled to be a temporary member of the gang, and who wouldn’t be? They’re good craic: off-stage, their chemistry as friends makes for animated, joke-filled conversation. Onstage, it’s even more spectacular.

It helps that they’ve known each other for over a decade. Connolly and McGuinness first met aged 15, when the singer accepted McGuinness’s invitation to play a charity gig she’d organised in her neighbourhood. Corcoran, meanwhile, bumped into Connolly while she was busking in Temple Bar and later messaged her over MySpace. Yet it took years before they got around to forming their own band. It’s understandable, then, that when the pandemic arrived, they didn’t want to wait before releasing their debut. “We’d be so bored [if we’d waited],” Lyons says. And while releasing your debut album during a pandemic isn’t ideal, McGuinness believes it did give them “a certain level of momentum. It felt quite focused, and created some interest for us and the few [other] artists who did release new music.” “The fact people were like, ‘That really helped me, it was my soundtrack to this absolutely mental time.’ That’s just as good,” Connolly adds. “We could be selfish and [moan] that we didn’t get to go to the parties and debut but… I think that made it a lot more special.”

With Leave the Light On, Pillow Queens continue to build on that momentum. It opens on “Be By Your Side” in an autumnal haze of wistful guitars and Fleet Foxes-indebted melodies. “House That Sailed Away” deploys a Fifties doo-wop style (think “Earth Angel” by The Penguins), with its lush electric guitar twangs and Corcoran’s bittersweet farewell to an ex. The lyrics dabble in surrealism when the subject is more personal; other songs, such as the Greek myth-inspired “No Good Woman”, paint vivid pictures of beleaguered characters. Their music is far from pious, but there’s certainly something sacred about it.

Pillow Queens tour Ireland and the UK from 1 October