According to one Native American myth the last thing humankind will hear at the end of the world is the cry of the Songdog (the coyote), so I picked that name.
Our new album — Joy Street — came out in August but right now we’re preparing arrangements for the songs that’ll be on the next album, we hope to record it next year.
Yes, I think anyone can make a mistake in the thick of a live performance. With me it’s forgetting the words, I just mumble till I get to the next line, or step back off the mic and mumble so the audience thinks the mic just didn’t pick up that bit.
I don’t really think in terms of genre, but I suppose we’d be classified as folk, mainly because our stuff is based on the acoustic guitar and we use instruments like the mandolin. Sometimes we get called folk-noir because the songs are dark.
What the future mostly means to me right now is getting another album recorded. All the tunes are written, it’s a question of learning to play them.
Once I discovered music around the age of nine or so it’s all I ever wanted to do.
I guess the internet is a good thing for music, it means you don’t need to sign to a major record-company to get your stuff heard anymore. But it also means people can shove any old crap up there.
My first love was the Beatles. I suppose the biggest influence on what I do with Songdog though was the mid-sixties folk-rock, baroque pop of 1966 to 1970 and the singer-songwriter movement of the late 60s/early 70s. I love great songwriters — Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Jim Webb.
