In this interview spotlight, I chat with Hey Bulldog about their latest music, technology, challenges and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
Hi, we’re Hey Bulldog from Manchester. Rob (guitar), Matt (bass), Ben (drums)
We make three-piece riff-based garage rock music. Most of our music lies in the relationship between the guitar, drums and bass, whether that’s in a 3-minute rock song or a 7-minute post-rock mostly instrumental track layered with synth loops.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
Just a genuine love and passion for music and what keeps us going is the realisation that the three of us have a very special unique and enjoyable musical connection, with a desire to progress and experiment now and again and to also make better and better music.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
This is probably our rawest and shortest single, usually, we’ll add a few overdubs in here and there to fill out the sound in certain parts of songs but this one is very much just guitar, drums, bass and vocals. Compared to our last single which was more of an atmospheric 7 minute epic this shows more of stripped back bass riff and melody side to us.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
The hardest thing is trying to break through and stand out to a larger audience without management or a big label or a big booking agent to help you. Technology has helped minimize this to a degree, we’ve managed to build up good relationships with some national DJs and getting some great reviews on blogs. We’ve also played some of the best festivals in the country through contacts on social media and emails.
What was the last song you listened to?
‘Ice Hockey’ by Pool Sharks they’re like Yorkshire’s answer to Teenage Fanclub and Big Star
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Vinyl is great for the sound quality and full experience of having larger artwork and something tangible to get hold of that you don’t get from having it on your phone screen, mp3s and streaming are great for convenience and discovering music
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
They all have positives and negatives, Spotify is great for playlists but apple music has better audio quality. Bandcamp is great for independent acts to sell music direct to fans and give them extra bonus tracks etc but you still lose out as an artist on PayPal and Bandcamp fees.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
A good starting point would be on Spotify or apple and we also have our whole back catalogue available to buy on our Bandcamp. https://heybulldog.bandcamp.com/
you can keep up to date with news on our socials https://www.facebook.com/heybulldogmusic/
https://www.instagram.com/heybulldogmusic/ or sign up to the mailing list at our website http://www.hey-bulldog.com/
Anything else before we sign off?
We have another new single coming out around September time with a headline show at Jimmy’s in Manchester Saturday 14th September to launch it
