DOGPOUND

Interview date

October 2007

Interviewers

Florent P
Yann G

I N T E R V I E W

Hi guys, thanks a lot for accepting this interview for the french metal webzine http://www.auxportesdumetal.com/
Dogpound is not very well known in France. Why ? Could you please present us the band ?

Dogpound consists of the following: Hea Andersson -Vocals, Figge Danielsson - Bass, Tuka Boman - Drums & me, Micke Dahlqvist on the guitar. We started out in '99 after getting together with the intention to form a cover band. I had some songs written that I wanted to try out so I asked the guys if they'd be interested in doing original material, and they said, ok. And from there on the cover band idea was canned and Dogpound was born. We recorded a couple of demos and got some great response both from the media and record labels but it wasn't until '03 that we found the right one in Lion Music. That same year we released our debut, "The Hellbum", consisting of material written back in '99 and up to the day of recording. Actually the song "Bleed" from that record was the first song I ever wrote for Dogpound! A couple of years on, in '05 we released album #2, called "A Night In The Gutter" and now were here, with the freshly released "III". Why we're not well known in France...hmmm...you tell me! I don't have clue! :)

We really loved your latest album "III", we think you have the level of a band like Gotthard.
What is missing you to reach the success ? Is it a problem of label, of promo ? Of CD artwork ?

Thanks man! Gotthard is a great band so it's nice to be compared to them...amazing! I actually bought my first Gotthard album a couple of weeks ago since there has been so many comparisons to them in the reviews of "III" so out of sheer curiosity I had to have a listen to them. But back to the topic...Our big problem is that we can't afford to play live. I'm sure as f**k that if we got out on the road for some time we'd climb the career ladder a lot of steps. There's no market what so ever for us here in Sweden so to do some gigging here would be useless...and to get a band on the road in Europe, Usa or Asia for that matter, costs. We've been offered to do tours both as a support act and on small headline tours, but it's always the deal that we "pay for everything and get a table to sell merchandise after the show to finance the tour" and that just don't work for us. We all have families that is our first priority, we can't risk that they become homeless just because we want to get out on the road...If we'd been 18 years old and lived with our parents it would have been a different story, but we're in our early 30's with wives, kids, dogs, mortgages and stuff like that...and the bills have to get payed. So for now all we can do is to build a reputation as a good band, keep doing records that are the best we can do and some day, get our asses out on the road to prove that we're worth your attention! Lion Music has been nothing but good to us and if the cover art is the reason for us not being the new Metallica, I'll eat my hat...:)

Let's present us shortly your album "III".

It's a collection of 14 songs, the most focused set of songs we've ever recorded with a wide variety of songs from the crushing songs like "Human Hologram" and "Blind" to the slower stuff like "Not Welcome Here"and "Other Way Around" and of course the piano ballad "Rain Must Fall" which I wrote as a lullaby for my daughter. It's produced by Peter Tägtgren and he has given us the best sound we've ever had. I wrote 25 songs that were scaled down to the 14 that made the record, the other 11 is in the trash can! It's by far the best album we've done so far, covering all areas from writing to performance to sound. It also has the best cover art so far, made by Daniel Andersson, who has made the previous covers also, this one is just amazing in its simplicity, just as we wanted it. So all in all, in our opinion it's our best disc to date. But things can only get better, huh? :)

Which themes do you develop in the lyric s of "III" ?

It's everything from the sad fact that so many people build their lives around what other people say, to the paparazzi phenomenon which has become so sick and twisted, to the tale of a guy so damn tired of his life that he's considering suicide but thinks twice about it. And of course there's the Dogpound style of humour in there...but that part you'll have to figure out for yourself!

When you listen to "III", which influences do you hear ?

Tricky one to answer...when we started out we were all heavily into bands like King's X and Galactic Cowboys, but over time I feel we've developed our own sound...but if I listen for influences I hear bits and pieces of just about everything we've listened to. There's a big chunk of classic hard rock (we all love bands like Sabbath, Rainbow, Purple) to grunge era bands and even some death metal bands that have inspired me to write in certain ways. There's so much music so I couldn't possibly name them all...Queen has of course inspired the vocal arrangements to a certain point, but also the bands I mentioned earlier (King's X & G.C.) have great vocal parts. Tuka's inspiration when it comes to drumming is heavy grooving guys like Thomas Broman, Niclas Sigewall and his personal God, John Bonham. Guitar wise, it's everything from Dimebag Darrel to Brian May...

Do you like to play live ? Will we have the opportunity to see you live in France ?

There hasn't been much of that in the Dogpound history, unfortunately, and at the moment there are no plans of getting on the road for the reasons I mentioned earlier. But it's not that we don't want to, I can promise you that! We've mad a lot of friends out there during the years that we'd love to meet and that really deserve to get a chance to see us. But just hang in there, one day we'll be there to kick your ass and if France wants us, I promise you that we'll be there!

You write great catchy melodic songs. Who is the songwriter inside the band ?

Thanks! Well, that would be me then...to 98,5 % at least. Hea wrote the lyrics for the song "One", all else is from my pen. Hea has written some of the lyrics on our previous albums too, but all music and most of the lyrics are mine there also. I'm the band fascist... :) :)

How do you proceed for recording : each on your own or together during jam sessions ?

On our own. Tuka lay down the drums, the I record about 80% of the rhythm guitars before Figge enters to do his bass. After that there's the vocals combined with guitar overdubs and last, but certainly not the least the background vocals. We've found that this is the most relaxed way to record for us. we've tried the other way too, but we didn't get the result we wanted so...The good thing is that we record in our own studio that we've built so we can take all the time we need to get it the way we want it to be without the stress of seeing the money ticking away when the damn guitarist does his 654.765:th take on solo... :)

Can the Dogpound members live of their music or do you need to work ? If you need to work, which are your respective jobs ?

There's no way that we could live on a Dogpound salary...maybe if we were ants... :) We all have ordinary jobs...Tuka is the manager of a drum shop, Hea works as a boss in a store that sells tv's,dvd's and stuff like that, Figge works in a factory and I'm a full time musician doing gigs, studio jobs and writes songs for other artists.

Isn't it frustrating or revolting for you to see some bands getting a worldwide success with songs with a much lower quality than yours ?

No, I can't say it is. It's not up to me to decide. If I think a band suck, I simply don't buy their album. If someone thinks that we're more worthy of success than some other band, I find it flattering but even so, I'm not the one to tell the world that what we do is fantastic and what others do is crap, even though it would be nice to be the next big thing, that I can't deny. The tv phenomenon (American Idol, Popstar and all that stuff) I find a bit irritating from time to time, when someone is thrown into showbiz just by luck and getting all the goodies served up on a silver platter when many great bands struggle for years without recognition...a bit unfair. And when looks count for more than musical skill...I mean what the f**k...come on! Anybody and his grandma can be a rock star these days, there's no end to the possibilities to what a good studio engineer can do with a computer and some magic. 20 years ago, in most cases at least, what was recorded was what was heard on the record and if you were good, it sounded good, if not...There's a tape circulating where a sound engineer has taken the original unedited recording of a very famous and beautiful "artist"...and this guy couldn't hit a note even if his life depended upon it. That's just sad...but, the guy's a millionaire, so he's not complaining!

Dogpound has the potential to become a big band on the melodic metal stage. How much time do you give yourself to get this worldwide success ?

Thanks for all your kind words, man! And to answer your question: Too little it seems! As I said earlier, a lot depends on that we don't do any touring, but right now we're doing as much interviews as time permits. And there's been a shitload this time, a lot more than previously. But the coolest one so far was a phone interview I did for the Japanese mag Burrn!! I've done a lot of interviews in the past with other bands before Dogpound and now days for Dogpound, and waiting by the phone for some journalist to call...man, I've spent so many hours just waiting for the bastards to call! But with Burrn!, they said that they would call me at 1 am, and 25 seconds past 1 the phone rang! And the interviewer was by far the nicest one I've ever spoken with. Just awesome! We've also made a video for the song "Glass Jar" which was a new thing to us and hopefully will help in the promotion of "III".

How do the first reviews on "III" sound ? In which country are the best reviews ?

Most of them are awesome with grades from 8/10 up to bulls eye,but of course there has to be some downers... :) Funny enough, the worst reviews are from swedish writers, never under 6/10, but any way it seems like what we do isn't for Sweden at all! The best ones so far have surfaced from Great Britain and USA...and then there's this great review in French which I don't understand a word of, but the grades spoke clearly to me.. :) So thanks a million for that great review!

What are your future projects ? How do plan to promote "III" ?

As I said earlier we're doing a lot of interviews and we recorded the "Glass Jar" video, that's about all we have time for at the moment. We'll do another video somewhere around January, we haven't decided what song yet, but probably "Human Hologram" or "Other Way Around". Well, if you who read this wish to request a song that you want us to do a video for, drop a line in our forum at www.dogpound.da.ru And while you're at it, check us out at www.myspace.com/dogpoundsweden for the latest news on what's going on in the pound!

Thanks a lot for your time.

My pleasure! Thank you so much for taking tour time to do this interview. Hopefully we'll come to France one day...you'll never know!! Cheers, Micke/Dogpound