When sounds of the past meet the instrumental equipment today not only does a band form, but an entirely new music genre in itself. Birds Unltd. is a band started by Pierce Robbins who is the guitarist/bassist and Tyler Riggle who plays the synth and is the drummer. Pierce and Tyler classify their music as psychedelic disco, but tell listeners in their Spotify bio that the music is meant to be “truly limitless.” Birds Unltd.’s strength resides heavily in their original production and mixing where they include sounds from the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s whilst giving it a fresh sound with a lo-fi tone combined with a melody led by vocals or a guitar. While both Tyler and Pierce are originally from Greensburg, they will  be moving to Pittsburgh for greater opportunities such as concerts.

The meaning behind the name.

“We went through a couple things- elastic leopard was one that was around for a while. We liked the animal idea for the name,” said Pierce.

“It also came from a store, Wild Birds Unlimited,” Tyler added.

“I would always joke with my friend from Florida that there is a store of birds unlimited- no limits on it,” Pierce said, “Somehow, along the way, Tyler was the one that actually brought it up out of nowhere and I liked it. It’s just one of those silly things that comes out from just throwing ideas around.”

The formation of Birds Unltd., and prior projects

“Around 2018 and 2019 Tyler had a few tracks he had been working on that were uncompleted, and I had the same situation. At some point we thought ‘why not bring these all together?,’” Pierce said.

“We’ve been playing together for over a decade before Birds Unltd.. We were in a couple bands together, but more recently we both had some tracks laying around and decided to put them together, and release it. This next song we’re releasing [Still Holding on to You] is the first song we wrote together for this new project- not even knowing it was going to be a new project,” Tyler said.

“Everything that has been released so far has been from the past year or two,” Pierce added.

The reason for psychedelic disco

“We didn’t really want to do anything that was already done. We definitely pull inspiration from other things, but on the other side of it I don’t like slapping labels on it. At the heart of it I just want to make people dance and feel something. That is where the disco part of it comes from, not necessarily we’re playing strict disco tracks, but we do have some that may sound kind of like that coming out,” Tyler said.

“I think we wrote most of the songs first, and then after we had to put some kind of name on it. We didn’t set out to make a specific kind of music, it was just what we  like and the music we wanted to hear. Though you can definitely hear the inspiration from different kinds of genres and artists,” Pierce said.

Artististic inspiration

“The newer stuff definitely draws inspirations from 60’s and 70’s disco,” Pierce said. “One thing we’re trying to avoid is that a lot of people compare our stuff to Tame Impala (another psychedelic project), which we like, and there are definitely influences no doubt, but personally I see it completely different.”

Success so far

“We definitely have been building some steam on Instagram and social media. One of my good friends from school basically took over our social media and she’s been doing the posts, the reels. She has really been helping out with us getting exposure, and I think that’s our biggest thing so far,” Pierce said. “Also, Tyler’s plan of releasing songs on a monthly schedule has really helped because we get everybody coming back which increases the plays on all of our songs.”

The challenges

“For me, it is the workload itself because we do everything. We write it. We record it. We produce it. We mix it, and now Pierce has been getting into some mastering as well. Luckily we have some good friends who can do the artwork. We both have day jobs, and girlfriends too, we obviously want to give them the time of day so it can be a lot to manage,” Tyler said.

The production process

“What tends to happen a lot is that one of us takes the lead on a song, like if I had a hook or something I liked it would determine the direction a lot of times and the same thing for him,” Tyler said.

“We both have our own home set ups and whatever I don’t have, Tyler has. It goes back and forth. There is definitely strength in botch places. We usually end up writing the songs on our own kind of how we used to do it, but then what will happen is that I’ll take the drums out and Tyler will put his version of the drums in- same thing with the guitar and bass. He’ll maybe have a song with some demo guitar and bass to get the idea, and I’ll play the final track of it,” Pierce said. “On these songs we’ve released they’re all live drums so most of the drum parts on the songs I wrote I had written the drum part maybe on my computer, and Tyler would just play them all live for the final take. There is definitely a difference between writing, I think we both write all the parts, but as far as playing that is usually how it ends up breaking down. There are no strict positions, but it is challenging because my strengths are guitar, and Tyler’s is totally drums.”

The artwork

“Our guy Eoin [Guidas], he does all our work. All the bird artwork and such is all done by him. He has helped us out a ton,” said Pierce.

Eoin Guidas’ social media: @m.t.press on Instagram.com

The collaboration with Layne Lazor, Greater Latrobe C ’18 

“She is a friend of mine, and I knew that she could sing. She isn’t necessarily a full-time artist, but she has expressed more interest in making a whole brand out of it, but she was basically just someone I knew who could sing and I wanted to do something a little bit different,” Tyler said.

Birds Unltd. Plans to continue releasing a new song monthly on spotify. Their flexibility and musical talent allows them to blend the lines between genre as seen in songs such as “Still Holding on to You” where Tyler and Pierce maintain their unique psychedelic sound with an indie rock tone while also maintaining the ability to make a heavy psychedelic mix seen with their song “Finally I Love You.”