What's the meaning behind the band's name?
Songdog is another name for the coyote: there's a beautiful Navajo myth that says when the world ends the cry of the songdog will be the last sound people ever hear.
How did the band start?
Karl Woodward (guitar, mandolin, banjo) and Lyndon Morgans (vocals, acoustic guitar) were in a punk band together but always did prefer music that was more about real songs and light and shade rather than just the full-on energy and ramalama of punk. When proper songwriting and acoustic guitars came back into vogue they decided to form a new band --- Songdog --- that would sound nothing like the original band they'd started out in together. They found Dave Paterson (drums, accordion) through an ad they placed in a UK music paper, he'd come from a jazz and roots background and had studied at the LA Musicians Institute.
What's the message in your music?
The message is all in the songs: the lyrics are very important and very honest. Lyndon's view of the world is a very bleak one and so the songs tend to reflect the darker, seamier aspects of life, songs about broken hearts, disappointed hopes, meaningless one-night stands, passing time --- but with a sense of humour too. Life is full of sorrow but also very precious and beautiful. Songdog's music isn't for airheads just chasing a riff or a beat.
What's your method of writing a song?
Method: sometimes the lyrics come first but it's usually the melody and the mood. I'll just feel around the fretboard until a melody or an evocative chord sequence starts to take shape, then I'll try out whole lines of lyrics until a song is forming. I don't know what a song will be about until I've completed an entire first verse. The hardest part of all is often finishing the lyric: they're story songs and it's important that whatever scenario I've painted in the first verse is finished in an interesting and poetic way by the end.
What are your music influences?
My influences are all outstanding songwriters: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits.
What plans do you guys have for the future?
The only plan we have is take the music to the biggest audience we can. We're not after money, just finding an audience that cares about what we do musically. Anything else --- money, sex, thrills, quality drugs ---- is strictly a bonus: I'd travel the world playing for just the cost of the airfare if I knew there were people waiting to hear us play.
What was the funniest prank you guys have taken part in while on tour or after a show?
We once told our bass-player the wrong venue for a show we had booked -- we intended telling him the right venue before the show took place but no-one remembered, so he turned up at his venue to find some totally different band playing and we had to do our gig without a bassist. The joke kinda back-fired ......
If you guys were stranded in the middle of nowhere after a show or while on tour and help is 65 miles away from you, which of you would send to look for help? And if while the rest wait there's no food and the only way to feed yourself is by eating each other, who would you eat first?
I'd send Karl for help because he's got the stamina to make the hike. I'd eat Dave while I waited to be rescued because he's over six-feet tall, so there'd be more meat to keep me going .....
Which country you guys would love to play?
The United States.
With which bands would you guys love to share stage?
I'd love to go on with Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young, who is Karl's biggest hero - we'd love to be invited to do one those Bridge concerts he organises every year.
Are you guys OK with the direction the band is going in?
Musically, so far so good. The hardest part is keeping your nerve, not to fiddle too much with what you're doing just because a move sideways might be better commercially. You need the balls to stick with what you do even through those times when the world don't seem to give a fuck. And that's where Songdog's at, keeping the faith.
Songdog is another name for the coyote: there's a beautiful Navajo myth that says when the world ends the cry of the songdog will be the last sound people ever hear.
How did the band start?
Karl Woodward (guitar, mandolin, banjo) and Lyndon Morgans (vocals, acoustic guitar) were in a punk band together but always did prefer music that was more about real songs and light and shade rather than just the full-on energy and ramalama of punk. When proper songwriting and acoustic guitars came back into vogue they decided to form a new band --- Songdog --- that would sound nothing like the original band they'd started out in together. They found Dave Paterson (drums, accordion) through an ad they placed in a UK music paper, he'd come from a jazz and roots background and had studied at the LA Musicians Institute.
What's the message in your music?
The message is all in the songs: the lyrics are very important and very honest. Lyndon's view of the world is a very bleak one and so the songs tend to reflect the darker, seamier aspects of life, songs about broken hearts, disappointed hopes, meaningless one-night stands, passing time --- but with a sense of humour too. Life is full of sorrow but also very precious and beautiful. Songdog's music isn't for airheads just chasing a riff or a beat.
What's your method of writing a song?
Method: sometimes the lyrics come first but it's usually the melody and the mood. I'll just feel around the fretboard until a melody or an evocative chord sequence starts to take shape, then I'll try out whole lines of lyrics until a song is forming. I don't know what a song will be about until I've completed an entire first verse. The hardest part of all is often finishing the lyric: they're story songs and it's important that whatever scenario I've painted in the first verse is finished in an interesting and poetic way by the end.
What are your music influences?
My influences are all outstanding songwriters: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits.
What plans do you guys have for the future?
The only plan we have is take the music to the biggest audience we can. We're not after money, just finding an audience that cares about what we do musically. Anything else --- money, sex, thrills, quality drugs ---- is strictly a bonus: I'd travel the world playing for just the cost of the airfare if I knew there were people waiting to hear us play.
What was the funniest prank you guys have taken part in while on tour or after a show?
We once told our bass-player the wrong venue for a show we had booked -- we intended telling him the right venue before the show took place but no-one remembered, so he turned up at his venue to find some totally different band playing and we had to do our gig without a bassist. The joke kinda back-fired ......
If you guys were stranded in the middle of nowhere after a show or while on tour and help is 65 miles away from you, which of you would send to look for help? And if while the rest wait there's no food and the only way to feed yourself is by eating each other, who would you eat first?
I'd send Karl for help because he's got the stamina to make the hike. I'd eat Dave while I waited to be rescued because he's over six-feet tall, so there'd be more meat to keep me going .....
Which country you guys would love to play?
The United States.
With which bands would you guys love to share stage?
I'd love to go on with Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young, who is Karl's biggest hero - we'd love to be invited to do one those Bridge concerts he organises every year.
Are you guys OK with the direction the band is going in?
Musically, so far so good. The hardest part is keeping your nerve, not to fiddle too much with what you're doing just because a move sideways might be better commercially. You need the balls to stick with what you do even through those times when the world don't seem to give a fuck. And that's where Songdog's at, keeping the faith.
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