The History of PINBOYS

PINBOYS is a Danish rock quartet, which has existed since September 2002. The band members share their passion for music, energetic live shows and catchy tunes. The band is from Aarhus, but actually it all began somewhere else...

Grindsted Gymnasium (grammar school) was where Jakob, vocalist and bass player, and Anders, drum player, met. They were both sons of two teachers at the school and soon they began working on what later turned out to be PINBOYS.

They began to write their own songs and at their first concerts these were supplemented with the covers of Foo Fighter, Weezer and Green Day, which were the most important sources of inspiration for the band.

Gradually, as their grammar school days had come to an end, they moved to Aarhus. Two new guitarists, Simon and Bo, and a new vocalist, Anne, became members of the band and the first EP ”One In The Gutter” was released soon after, but it did not become a success among the audience. However, through Garageband.com PINBOYS succeeded in getting an American recording contract and arranged a tour of 10 shows in the USA. The record company, however, was not able to fulfil the contract made, so to the great delight of the band they were released form the contract shortly after.

After this experience the band chose to focus on Europe instead. From 2004 PINBOYS intensified their touring in Germany and the Benelux countries. These efforts managed to provide the band with a firm foothold in especially Hamburg and the Northern part of Germany. The tours were arranged and booked by the band itself. This DIY attitude still characterises the band today. At the same time the band produced the EPs ”No Control” (2004) and ”Somewhere in Between” (2005) together with Ziggy. Again this became a success on Garageband.com. Especially the song ”Nothing Left to Lose” was praised and was no. 1 in the Pop/Punk Charts. To this very point in time the song is still no. 2 in the All Time Charts.

Having proved successful with the EP’s the band went on the lookout for a record company, and after having flirted with several German companies, they managed to get contact with Iceberg Records. What made Iceberg Records particularly attractive to the band was their international orientation. Manfred Zähringer, the manager of Iceberg Records, braved a vigorous snowstorm in order to see the band play in Herning and he became convinced about the band’s ability to interact with the audience who also attended the concert despite the curfew due to the storm.

After three EPs the band felt that they were ready to make a full-length CD. Together with the three producers, Florian Nowak, Jeff Collier and Michael Ebers, the band spent most of the summer of 2006 on pre-production and recordings in Berlin. The ultimate result was ”Teenage Wasteland”, which was released in Scandinavia, Germany and Japan in 2007. The release gave PINBOYS good coverage and airplay along with several support shows for among others Fall Out Boy, Billy Talent and Millencolin, but the ultimate break-through failed to come. However, in Japan things went quite well, which culminated in a 10-day tour later in 2007.

Already in the summer of 2007 the band began the pre-production of their latest album ”Simple Art”. However, it soon turned out that this was going to be a much more prolonged and difficult process than expected, which virtually brought the band on the brink of break-up. Shortly after the recordings of the first album Bo had left the band and during 2008 they had to part with Anders, who immediately had to stop as the band drummer due to his suffering from tinnitus. So the question was where the band was going from that point? As a result they had a severe crisis during which all relevant issues were brought up and several important choices were made. Auditions were organized in order to replace Anders as the band drummer, and funnily enough, Emil Johnsen, Anders’ brother, was chosen as the new band member. A new style appeared along with the new drummer. The focus on energy and good tunes was maintained, but in terms of sound and genre new areas were to be explored.

The summer of 2008 was spent on yet another pre-production far out in the country in the west of Jutland before it was time to work in the recording studio. The band’s wish for another sound resulted in the need for new producers, which was why they chose Jacob Bredahl (Last Mile, Barcode, ex-Hatesphere) to produce the instruments, whereas Dan Hougesen (Dúné, The Blue Van) was left in charge of the vocal production, an unholy alliance between Jacob’s roots in the Metal genre and Dan’s roots in pop music.

The result is PINBOYS’ melodious and energetic rock album: The music is a mix of rocking, dirty instruments, male and female vocals added to it, and finally it is generously spiced with catchy tunes.

Their dream is still to get their music abroad and experience new adventures out there, but right now they hope that with this album the Danes will really be aware of the qualities of the band!