Formed in the early 80s (no one quite knows when, as the process was somewhat random and organic), the Wolfhounds became one of Britain’s most persistent and consistent underground bands in the latter part of that decade, and featured David Callahan on vocals, later of ‘post rock’ prime movers Moonshake. Though more orthodox than Moonshake instrumentally, the Wolfhounds were just as distinctive and individual and scored several underground ‘hits’ in their day, as well as remaining critical favourites to the end. Having curtailed their activities in 1990, three of their members have occasionally reconvened throughout the last decade for the occasional live show, but 2012 saw a renewed vigour, with more live shows and new material beginning to be written and recorded.
In their first incarnation, the band recorded four albums and many singles and EPs, as well as appearing on the now-legendary C86 cassette which was distributed free with New Musical Express in 1986. Three sessions were recorded for BBC Radio One’s legendary John Peel Show. They toured Britain and Europe extensively and annually, building up a loyal following, particularly in France, Germany, Switzerland, and The Netherlands, and were well-known for often incendiary shows. The Wolfhounds also supported My Bloody Valentine and the House of Love on nationwide tours, and alumni went on to join or play with Stereolab, Paul Weller, Dr John, Spiritualized, Oasis and Moonshake.
Their music evolved quickly from garage punk and post-punk roots, to (what is now called) indie pop, through to detuned and effected guitar compositions that saw them likened to Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, though they always retained a pop edge to their wayward experimentations. Nothing if not prolific, their last three LPs were released within the space of one 12-month period.
The current line-up is:
David Callahan – vocals, guitar
Andy Golding – vocals, guitar, keyboards
Richard Golding – bass
Pete Wilkins – drums
01.You recently reformed to play at the ‘Scared to get Happy’ gig at 229 The Venue, London. How did it go? Did you spot the old faithfuls in the audience? Did you make any converts?
Actually, we didn’t reform to play the gig, we were already an ongoing concern for a couple of years, with two three-track singles under our belts and a fair few gigs, so it was fortuitous that the compilation came out and we were able to play. Our audience tends to be a little more oddball than the average indie band, and there were certainly the freaks from provincial towns gone middle-aged there, but also younger ones who should know better. We make converts wherever we go – the fact that we look a bit dad-like can be turned to our advantage when an audience realises pretty quickly that the sounds coming out of us are more original, faster, noisier, more melodic and more limber than the lazy spectacle of most reformed bands. This is because we reformed owing to getting our creative spark back rather than to chase a foolhardy penny. If I say so myself …
02. What is your opinion of the current pop scene? What aspect of it are you excited by? What aspect do you dislike?
I’m never excited by a scene, but there are a few good bands in the indie nook – Flowers, Evans the Death and Peggy Sue come to mind, and there are a few more. So I’m always excited by an imagination pushing against boundaries and creating ambitious music and writing from a frugal start. True independence, that is. You can be great bashing paint tins together and appalling with the best gear in the world, it’s up to you. I don’t like the way some of the newer bands we’ve played with take all the gestures of ‘indie pop’ and just perform a cliché, but that didn’t do anything for me when we started either.
03. How do you feel about new technology? Do you like to keep up with the latest kit, or do you prefer your old, tested equipment? What are your reasons?
We’ve never been frightened of technology and are quite capable of making it all sound cheap and accessible! We used basic sampling in a few of the last songs we recorded in the 1980s (check out Cottonmouth, the Blown Away mini-LP and Celeste if you can find them), but I also went on to form Moonshake, and other than the Young Gods, we were the first underground band to incorporate sampling fully into our sound. There were few straight steals though – the idea was always to screw sounds up to make new sounds, an ideal I still pursue even in what can seem superficially a guitar pop band. We like a tune, too.
With the reactivated Wolfhounds, we record and mix on hard drives and iPhones, and have samples on the single after next. We’ll play, destroy and fuck around with any sound making device you’d care to put in front of us, and it will still sound like us and like punk rock and like pop music.
04. How did you arrive at your various sounds? Deliberate experimentation or happy accidents?
See Q3, but via curiosity and fun seeking – using everything from banjos to samplers to certain guitar effects often starts as a piss-take out of the song or just messing around to amuse ourselves.
05. How much were you affected by your peers and how much by those you admired?
This is a bugbear of mine – there’s too much respect for the past from other musicians. Listen to it, love it, learn from it and then dump it in the most cruel way possible, is my advice about influences. Only then can you be yourself and listen to great stuff without being coerced into copying it.
06. Which musicians/bands/singers did you admire when you were first playing? Why?
I can only speak for myself, but I’ve always sought artistic rigour in every genre and cherry-picked right from the start. But as teenager, it would have been virtually all the post-punk bands (from Pere Ubu to Josef K to the Slits), some of the earlier punk bands (Subway Sect, Spiral Scratch, etc), John Lee Hooker (we used to cover Madman Blues), Sonny Boy Williamson, the usual Doors/Velvets/Stooges nonsense, Nuggets/Pebbles/Chocolate Soup for Diabetics, Tim Buckley, Captain Beefheart, Miles Davis, Astrud Gilberto, odd country things like Kris Kristofferson and Marty Robbins … blah blah …
07. How far do you feel they influenced you?
Even in that basic teen list there is an endless amount of possibilities that inform me to this day. I‘m a terrible impressionist, so whenever I tried to copy someone it would come out quite bad, but if I worked and worked it would eventually sound like myself. Nowadays, I don’t even try to impersonate anyone, that’s the advantage of maturity – you no longer fit the models.
08. How do you feel The Wolfhounds are fitting into the current pop scene? Do you feel you have any younger kindred spirits? Who are they?
I can’t pretend it’s not nice to welcomed by so many of the younger musicians and fans as one of the ‘originals’ in this evaporated down indie pop scene. It feels great that people are and were listening in small but active numbers and it was astounding meeting people in New York that had flown hundreds of miles to see us, some after waiting 30 years, and that people in their early 20s were impressed enough to come up to us and tell us how much they liked it, too. Even the fact that we’re substantially noisier than most of the other bands seems to go down well.
However, we formed in relative isolation, were always somewhat on the outside and remain so. That’s good – if you belong, then it is harder to comment and observe – it’s bad for your music. So, no kindred spirits, but some that we like. I always like the attentions of nice people, you’re a fool if you don’t, but I keep my distance enough to not become smug, I hope.
09. Your ‘EP001’ contained some songs from your earliest days. How did it feel to be playing them?
We never properly recorded those songs, and it felt like we were reconnecting with our roots as a way of achieving creative ‘blast off’. Like channeling our younger selves with the benefit of knowing what would work. The reboot worked too well in some ways – the backlog of unrecorded and unfinished material is now frustratingly huge …
10. Did you think you would have recorded them differently then? How different?
We would have recorded them more tinnily and with less warmth and confidence – experience counts for a lot as long as you don’t get artistically flabby.
11. What’s your world like? Books? Films? TV shows? Pastimes? Why are they important to you?
Sadly I don’t have the time for TV and films these days (that goes with being a father and worker) but I read plenty – usually 19th century London history, crime novels and surrealism. What you might expect, really. My media checking time is mostly filled with writing instead, and I’m not a good consumer and not a good passive absorber.
12. Who would you say has inspired you the most, and why?
As a young man I was particularly taken with the ambition, achievement and precociousness of Orson Welles, and we stole the title of Bright and Guilty (our 2nd LP) from The Lady From Shanghai. He became somewhat of a pragmatist in his old age. People won’t fund your art blindly forever. He continued to make interesting work to his dying days, but in my own small way I would hope to avoid the compromises he had to make, which overtook his ambition in the end. Good luck with that one!
And Tim Buckley. I‘d never heard anyone express themselves so purely as on Starsailor and Lorca (and on the more accessible material too). I wouldn’t (couldn’t) copy his music, but what I thought I could feel coming from his music I tried to put into my own performance. Even now, onstage, I feel like laughing, crying, screaming, hugging some people, punching others in the face. Not like some hippy nightmare, but real contradictory selfish/selfless expression.
13. Who do you wish had never been born, and what do you wish had never been invented? Why?
You can wish all you like, it won’t change anything!
14. What’s in store for the Wolfhounds future?
Rigour shot through with flashes of inspiration. Forever looking up as the waves reach our chins. Being lower class and classy. Belying our ages. Making not-fitting-in the new fitting in.
Web Links:
facebook.com/TheWolfhounds
twitter.com/@TheWolfhounds
myspace.com/magictrigger (unofficial)
Tour Dates:
4 October Berlin Popfest
26 October Preston, Lancs
London gig TBA in September
Records available @:
Cheer Up: oddboxrecords.com
Skullface: vollwert-records.de
Lost but Happy comp: amazon.co.uk/Lost-But-Happy
Scared to get Happy comp: amazon.co.uk/Scared-Happy-Story
