With this growing appreciation for their Flock and release of new music, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong hit the road headed West to tour the entire West Coast for their second time. Traditions on tour spanned from watching kung fu movies synced up with other bands’ funk music (think Dark Side of the Moon with Wizard of Oz) to their consistent show riders that include tequila, hummus, and of course, cheese. Tour continued with exciting days off jet skiing in San Diego with their original drummer Dan and many other highlights. But what was a rememberable twist of events was accidentally leaving the merch guy in Idaho – rephrased – the merch guy was having too much fun to get back on the bus in Idaho. (Spoiler alert, he made it to the next show date in time.) In all seriousness, Alex Petropulos, PPPP’s drummer, shared his highlight from tour: “Having the support so far from home… still having shows we do just as well, if not better, to our close to home shows, is amazing.”

With the Pigeons back on the East Coast, we chatted with them about their appreciation for their fan base and upcoming festival plans in the green room of New York’s Brooklyn Steel before they played an incredible, powerful show.

Jam and funk music attracts a like-minded, easy going crowd that falls in love with the environment, community, and world it creates. The PPPP’s community takes that a step further and have formed an online community of true jam heads in a private group called The Flock on Facebook. “It’s a very positive group,” lead singer and guitarist Scrambled Greg says proudly, “And it’s pretty selective. Yet it still has grown to what I used to hope our band – with the amount of likes it has and members it has – would ever get. There are 10,000 people, which is pretty wild.” The Flock not only lives online, sharing Memes, recordings of live shows, polls, and photos, but it is a “tangible group of core fans that like putting the fun in funk”, which includes meet-ups at festivals and shows. There’s even a separate Facebook group to exchange, find, and sell Pigeons Playing Ping Pong merchandise, The Pigeon Coop Marketplace, that keeps the good stuff within the family.