A few days now separate us from the opening of the Meteor Camden Crawl, a festival which will take over the centre of Dublin across the May Bank Holiday weekend. Dozens of bands from home and abroad will appear and one of the more anticipated acts to play this weekend is DOGS. The Dublin fourpiece peddle a sound which seamlessly fuses melodic electronic grooves with all manner of other sounds, clicks and buzzes.
DOGS will play at the entertainment.ie-curated Upstairs at Whelan's stage on Saturdya and we caught up with them for a brief chat ahead of the gig.
I remember hearing something about DOGS many moons ago which really stuck with me - that the ethos of the band is to make music free to download as much as possible. Is communicating the band's message and music more important than creating a revenue stream from it?
Yeah it is... Having said that if someone wanted to give us money, we would sell out as quickly and as comprehensively as possible. We gave our music away for free at the start to get people into our music. Unfortunately you can't keep doing that forever, if you want people to take you seriously. We'll have an EP out in July, that will need to be purchased, or at least illegally downloaded.
Some bands really find themselves in the studio, while others do so on the stage. Do you fall into either of these categories?
We like to think of ourselves as a band you need to experience live as the electronic production is so impactful through a big PA. In terms of finding ourselves, I think we learn a lot about songs in the process of trying to record them in a studio, which informs how we play them live.
Will this be your first Camden Crawl experience? Did you see any of it last year?
I caught a few bands in the Village last year. Jape was spectacular, a deserving big audience despite being on early. Laura Smyth came on with Le Galaxie for the Nightcaller, that was special. We Are Scientists were the big surprise. The place was rammed.
Who else do you recommend we check out throughout the course of the festival?
Must sees would be Wife, Sleep Thieves, White Collar Boy, Elaine Mai, Fight Like Apes, Slow Skies and especially No Ceremony ///.
Do you have any big plans between now and the end of the year, a busy summer schedule for example?
Yep, we've an EP out in July, a 2FM/Dan Hegarty session and we're playing a few of the big festivals over the summer. There'll also be more happening, so check out facebook.com/dogstheband
Dogs will play Upstairs at Whelan's as part of the Meteor Camden Crawl on Saturday 4th May.
