Photo by Amanda Penlington - https://www.flickr.com/photos/mandapen/
Dog Is Dead are a young Nottingham band on the up and up. Currently in the middle of their first UK headlining tour and with a new single imminent, we grabbed them and asked to give us the lowdown on their story so far.
(((o))): How long has the band been together and how did you all meet?
The founding members of Dog Is Dead all met at school. Dog Is Dead didn’t properly form until a few years on when we met our guitarist Paul. We have been going for about 4 years now
(((o))): Where did you get your name from & what does it mean?
The name Dog Is Dead is a strange one. It’s really just a stupid private joke that me, Rob and Joss used to share when we were at school. It really means nothing at all, we were forced to name ourselves Dog Is Dead to enter a school talent show.
(((o))): Describe your sound for us & who would you say were your biggest musical influences?
The sound we make can be described as big pop songs wrapped up in a blanket of the unusual. Our musical influences range from bands such as the Flaming Lips to Deftones, though we all have our own musical tastes so it’s hard to put this answer into words.
(((o))): And what about non-musical influences?
I can’t speak for the entire band but I would have to say one of my non musical influences would have to be Rowan Atkinson. Don’t ask me why I can’t say!
(((o))): Music can be a fickle mistress, what is your biggest high & low as a band so far?
I’d say one of our highest moments early on would be when we stepped on stage at Glasto 2010. We’d never been to Glastonbury before never mind play it and there were actually people there to watch us as well which was a lot more than we expected.
It’s hard to say what our lowest point was but it was pretty difficult saying good bye to our ex drummer as he has been a friend of mine since we were both very young.
(((o))): What one fact about the band do you most want to share with the world?
The one fact about Dog Is Dead that I most want to share with the world is that our next single Two Devils is out on the 4th of March on iTunes and all good record shops.
(((o))): The old model of record demo-do gigs-get signed-make millions is pretty broken these days, what’s your plan to deal with this?
Our way to combat this is to hit the road as much as possible over the next few years. Keep relationships with fans as strong as possible and carry on writing new material.
(((o))): We journalists like to use easy labels to describe bands, what’s the worst thing you’ve seen yourselves described as?
We’ve been labelled as satanic dog sacrificing popsters before and I think that takes the prize as worst/laziest description.
(((o))): We’re loving what you do but who’s floating your boat right now?
I’ve been getting into a band called Friends. We saw them in Amsterdam they got around 40 odd members of the audience on stage and got them all dancing.
(((o))): What’s up next for you guys?
We’re on our largest headline tour to date right now but when we finish that it’ll be lots of time in the studio just to finish off the remaining 30% of our debut album which is set for release sometime around late summer.
