Howling Hawk | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: I love that that is nine miles high. The band is Howling Hawk, and uh, let's see who we have from the band on the line with us A via WhatsApp. Hello, welcome to the show.

0:11 Speaker 2: Hi, thanks for having me.

0:12 Speaker 1: Absolutely, So who is this? Who do we have on the line with us?

0:16 Speaker 2: So? This is Jim. I'm the singer, the bassist, and I write the chunes outstanding.

0:21 Speaker 1: I'm glad that you're a singing bassist because I am also a bass player. And uh, I don't feel that we get enough time out in front, you know.

0:28 Speaker 2: So I know, I know we're dying breed lead guitarist at ten a penny, but a good bass player is worth his weight and goal exactly.

0:36 Speaker 1: I completely agree. And I love that track nine miles High. And I'm really curious to ask you now, did you write the lyrics to that?

0:44 Speaker 2: Of course? Of course, all.

0:45 Speaker 1: Right, tell me about tell me about these lyrics because very very interesting and uh, I really want to dive into this. I'm excited to talk to you about the song.

0:56 Speaker 2: A friend of mine went through a phase where he spent a little bit too much time enjoying medicinal herbs and listening to his Twitter feed. Oh, and he uh, he began because he was getting increasingly paranoid every time a helicopter went over here coming to look for him. Oh wow, you know, close to making Tim Foyle hats mm hmm. So there's about having a friend who's going down that dangerous rabbit hole and trying to pull him back from the brink. Yeah, that's the vibe. I didn't know how much of that comes across, but that's what I was going for.

1:33 Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's interesting because I think that that I don't know, I don't know what kind of feedback you've gotten on this, but to me, that seems highly relatable because I think, and I can tell you here in America, you know, there's there's a conspiracy theorism and all of that stuff is rampant, and there are a lot of people who who there are a lot of people who don't need any any anything to uh to help from get there. They just somehow managed to get there on their own. And it's frightening.

2:06 Speaker 2: There's a lot of people over here who just been waiting for confirmation of a lot of what you're It's so difficult now reading the news every single day and having these little nudges that maybe the conspiracy theories were true. I got all excited about eighteen months ago when they are a bunch of Expressdents talking about aliens. That sounding kind of fun, but it's taking a bit of a dark turn. Sit then.

2:30 Speaker 1: It has. It has, So I mean, what kind of feedback have you gotten on the song? Do you find that other people can also really kind of relate to this?

2:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, people seem to like it. It's a lot of what we play is very deliberately like nineties focused, big choruses, britpop, and this is the one where we've gone a little bit, a little bit more X files. Yeah, and people seem to appreciate it, So maybe that will be a direction we've tried to do. We've got a release plan for this year. We've got to put a song out every month. Okay, so we've got our next single is out next Friday, which is a very different vibe. But I think for the next few after that we're going to go back to the back to the well for some weird stuff.

3:14 Speaker 1: Okay, Oh cool? What is that kind of your So you're gonna be releasing a single every month? Is that? Is that the long term strategy. Are you going to do you have any plans to do an EP or an album? You know, we we live in a time where there's so many different strategies for releasing music, so I'm curious or maybe these singles will eventually coalesce into an album or what one's kind of the long term strategy.

3:35 Speaker 2: Well, probably every now and again, collect stuff together into a into a whatever feels best, So like collect them together by vibe. Yeah, we've got a CD. We've got a CD with putting out next Friday, which is the most recent three songs that we've recorded. Not that we plan to do them like that, but they just they fit quite nicely together.

3:52 Speaker 1: Mm hmm.

3:54 Speaker 2: We're doing one single a month because it's just so hard to get anything out and through the noise since we since we started playing together that there's been just this explosion of AI created dross. So it's apparently Spotify. I'm not a big fan of the fact that Spotify exists, but to be fair to them, if they're having to deal with one hundred and fifty tho AI songs uploaded every day, oh yeah, it's how do you get through that? It's because of people like it's going to be people like you that help bands fight through the noise.

4:28 Speaker 2: So thank you for what you're doing.

4:29 Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, I appreciate that. Yeah, you know, we're doing what we can. But we actually did a segment on that recently about Spotify and how how they've they've begun to delete a lot of AI generated music. Of course, the tricky thing there is too, I always say this, some people are going to get There are legitimate artists who are going to get caught in that net as well. And that's a tricky thing too, because on one hand, Okay, you want to delete all this AI generated stuff, that's good, But at the same time time there are artists who maybe there's there's something in their music that flags gets the attention of the bot that is going through all this.

5:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.

5:12 Speaker 2: And there are only so many beats that you can play, right, I think that a solution might I'm sure your listeners know of a Noah band camp.

5:22 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh I love band camp.

5:24 Speaker 2: Which is which is a great idea. The trouble with band camp, I think, is that ninety percent of people use it a musician selling their own music. It hasn't really got like mainstream traction. If there was a way of pushing people towards that, or if Spotify could do a add a button to buy a song if you like it enough for whatever pennies you know, yeah, fifty whatever, that'd be a game changer. But until then, it's just a case of trying to get your music in front of people however you can. I'm so grateful if you're playing these songs to people would otherwise I'd have no way of reaching them.

5:57 Speaker 2: I'm so grateful.

5:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, we're like I said, We're glad to do it. And I do love that song. I'm curious about you know, you mentioned britt Pop and what that song to me? I mean, I'm a huge Oasis fan and you know, I job, what's up? Good job, thank you? Oh Morning Glory is one of my favorite albums ever. But or no, I'm sorry, I definitely maybe I'm sorry, But I'm curious about what other you know because you're in where where are you exactly? I'm not sure your exact location.

6:32 Speaker 2: I'm in London, sir.

6:34 Speaker 1: You're in London was the.

6:35 Speaker 2: Center of the universe musically until not so long ago. Yeah, you go back a few years and you couldn't walk down the street without bumping into someone work. I mean I talking about Oasis. I bumped into an old Gallagher in a supermarket here. Oh no, Kaddy just ambushed him while he was trying to buy his butter. And he was a lovely man, lovely man and he's very that. That used to be pretty standard around here. Amy Winehouse brought me lunch breakfast with Black Sabbath. I've got photo evidence of a lot of that.

7:11 Speaker 1: Wow.

7:11 Speaker 2: Now, it's just there's been such a what's the word, a fragmentation of that industry that it's just hard for any of those little ecosystems to sustain themselves. Sure, there there there are a couple of new bands getting through. There's a few. There's a band called Westside Cowboy that are breaking through that sound pretty good like a traditional guitar band. Interesting, so in terms of like, we we love the britpop thing because we what we really love is choruses. Man, people bands now seem to be sort of embarrassed about writing choruses.

7:51 Speaker 2: You got to look so moody,

7:55 Speaker 2: like why do you? Guitar is meant to make you feel good. That's the point at the end, At the end of a if if you've got a bunch of people who have only seen you for the first time, Yeah, I don't think nine out of ten of them are going to walk areer remembering your lyrics, but make them.

8:08 Speaker 1: Feel exactly that's it, man, aim for aim for the jury exactly. No, I agree, I agree. Is there is there like a pressure coming from there in terms of, you know, being being a band from from London? Well, actually though, well interestingly, so you're in London, but not all the band members are correct.

8:28 Speaker 2: Oh they're all in London now, oh they are? Yeah? Yeah, so were we all live?

8:34 Speaker 1: Oh good?

8:34 Speaker 2: Okay, okay, so now we're a real like in person band.

8:38 Speaker 1: Oh good?

8:39 Speaker 2: And we yeah and we so. The guitarist one of them, Parlo, He's Italian, as you can guess from Yeah, Gonzalo is. Gonzalo is Chilean.

8:49 Speaker 1: Oh okay.

8:52 Speaker 2: But we came together with the all we found each other online and came together for the love of the same music. Yeah. I mean, you can tell what music we like from listening to our songs. We're on our sleeves.

9:03 Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, So is there a pressure like being a London band in terms of just I mean you mentioned trying to cut through the noise. There's that part, but is there also this thing where, like you said, you know it used to be if it's not still or one of the centers of of the of the musical universe, Like do people expect you as a band from London to is there a certain expectation there or or a certain expectation in terms of your sound.

9:29 Speaker 2: Or I really can't. I mean, we're just so blessed to be from London. Yeah, it just carries a certain a certain weight I think like this. The venue that we're playing next Saturday is called the Troubadour. Oh yes, any I mean that's it's the last surviving sixties venue. We'll be playing on the same stage that who Jimmy Hendrix, Rolling Stones used to play on, and that's the It's just an ordinary venue. It's not like a museum. So yeah, we're really spoilt like that, and just the the I mean I half joke about bumping into people, but you really can find amazing people.

10:05 Speaker 2: The guy that the song you just played was recorded for us by a guy called Paul Tipler, who was a lovely man and he runs a little studio in London. He charges next to nothing for it and he's put out. He's produced Doctor Feel Good, he did the first recordings by Placebo HM like he's there are just these people around, like there's a really nice I've never met anyone who wants to do anyone down in music. I haven't. Everyone's been lovely. Yeah, and I think that might be. I do love London, but there is something magic about it now.

10:39 Speaker 1: Is it Unit thirteen? Is that where you recorded that? It is?

10:43 Speaker 2: Yeah?

10:43 Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, great, great sound. You know obviously it came out really well. Have you recorded like the previous singles that you've released or are releasing? Are those all recorded there as well?

10:55 Speaker 2: So we did a song called The Downside that came out I think earlier this year with him and the next the next song, Delilah, is that next Friday. I'll send it to you after after this chat to enjoy a few if you're interested.

11:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, what what what song is it?

11:09 Speaker 2: It's called Delilah?

11:10 Speaker 1: Oh, Delilah? Okay, okay, and I do. Have you also sent us Ramona, which I'm going to play at the end of our conversation. That's a great song too. I really like that a lot.

11:19 Speaker 2: And that was that was produced by a friend of ours called Cucko, who runs Damon Albarn's studio, which is also called thirteen Studios.

11:31 Speaker 1: I guess it's amazing.

11:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's there's a magic there, right, serendipity.

11:37 Speaker 1: That's excellent. So in terms of writing, you know, obviously you mentioned Nine Miles High. You wrote the lyrics. I assume did you also write the music to that?

11:47 Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I tend to come in with just really basic chords and a melody, and but my voice won't change. But I tried to give the rest of the band as much space as they as they want to develop.

11:59 Speaker 1: It has been that way from the beginning with this project.

12:02 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, who needs to feel that. I don't want it to be me and my session band. It has to be those guys expressing themselves. It's a nice Arctic Monkey's style riffing that the Powder came up with.

12:13 Speaker 1: Oh okay, you're right, No, that's yeah, that's cool. And then I assume, what what's the live situation like? Are you doing a lot of shows? You you know you did mention the show at the Troubadour coming up. If you've been playing a lot because I can imagine. I would assume that in London there's a lot of places to play, or maybe not.

12:29 Speaker 2: I'm assuming, but no, there are loads of venues, but the audiences for live bands aren't quite what they used to be. I'm from Camden, which is I mean, it was the musical hub, but so many of those venues are closed down now just because the constant tax and business rates keep keep going up, which pushes some good people out of business.

12:54 Speaker 1: Right.

12:54 Speaker 2: But that said, that said, there are some growing scenes. There's some wonderful people here. There's Debbie from Cooper Concept who's built a fantastic little scene over in West London. There's a new friend of ours called Johnny. I only know him as Johnny Middleman. He's a bit secretive. He's he's putting on the gig at the Troubador as part of what he's trying to develop into a gig cooperative with the London with a London band, and there are three other bands from other major English cities. So they're going to come down and see us and then soon we'll go up and play their places.

13:27 Speaker 2: Because that's, as I say, being from London, we're so blessed that it's easy for us to get gigs in London.

13:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, we can just you know.

13:34 Speaker 2: You get a bus there. It's not hard. But if you've got to come down from Manchester or Liverpool, that's that's a big investment.

13:40 Speaker 1: Right right now. That's that's excellent. Are are you playing like pretty consistently or what's what's the what's the schedule?

13:47 Speaker 2: As much as we can, we've got to we play a lot to each other. We've got to shared that we're always playing it. Yeah, but in terms of like we're trying to play one London gig a month and then get out of London to play other places.

14:02 Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm really curious what the name Howling Hawk means. I'm sure you get this question all the time, but uh, I like the name, but I'm curious what it means.

14:14 Speaker 2: It's just Howling Wolf was taken, that's about.

14:18 Speaker 1: It a long time ago. Yeah.

14:20 Speaker 2: I think that the best, the best rock and roll band name ever is the Rolling Stones for me, Okay, And we were trying to come up with something in the same bluesy vein and just something about that. Howling stuck. Yeah, and we went through it to try and find you've got Arctic monkeys. We don't want it to be ridiculous like howling penguin. Certain edge to it.

14:42 Speaker 1: No, I like it. I like it. Did you did the name come easily? Or did you have to go through some and to find one that you agree on?

14:49 Speaker 2: God? No, I've had so many, so many terrible, terrible names.

14:52 Speaker 1: Okay, I love I love hearing about rejected band names. Give me, give me what you got. I love this.

15:00 Speaker 2: Lima was floated around for a while, really, as in the monkey, the little furry thing that be something exotic and cool?

15:09 Speaker 1: Well, was it gonna be Howleen lemur or just uh see.

15:13 Speaker 2: If we'd have had you? We we went through a phase of just adding colors, two different nouns as well. Okay, the red, the red seven, you know, the blue whatever, the blue. But yeah, harling Hawk has done quite well. It looks pretty good on a T shirt as well.

15:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. No, it's a cool name. Although the red seven is kind of cool. I wonder, I wonder if anyone else has taken that. I do like that, but I think, excuse me, I think no, Howling Hawk is a great name. And when how long has this project existed? When when, when roughly did you start this?

16:00 Speaker 2: Well, I met the guitarist Reese, the guitarist Gonzalo and Parlo about two years back, okay, and we've had a series of different drummers for different reasons too, wet. We met Reese in about the summer of last year, okay, so probably since then. This feels like the band at the moment.

16:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is a relatively new project then in the grand scheme of things.

16:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so if everything's we're still learning how to do everything really.

16:32 Speaker 1: Yeah. It's interesting too that you mentioned about drummers. It sounds like you've been through a few. I don't know if it's the same there, but I can tell you here every drummer I know is in just multiple projects because there's only you know, we we talked at the beginning about how bass players are, you know, harder to find. Drummers are like impossible.

16:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I only played the bass because I couldn't find a bassist. Yeah, to guitarists and bass instead. But this this drummer, now, Reese, aside from being a talented drummer, he sings as well. Yeah, so we've been leaning into that to try and build up that Lenin and McCartney vocal vibe. Right, it's ridiculously arrogant, isn't it. How can you jump from hockey jumped to Lennon and McCartney. Yeah, far more, far more average than Lennon McCartney. But we're going to have multiple voices from now so that should be fun.

17:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think that's excellent. So so the show at the Troubadour is on the twenty eighth, so that's a big deal. Who do you want to mention? Who else is on that show with you? You guys are the headliners? Correct, Yeah, we are.

17:37 Speaker 2: And they're there are only I think a few. It's like a handful of tickets left now, which is really eating because it's being filmed and recorded as well. Excellent to put out a live at the Troubadour EP later in the year.

17:54 Speaker 1: Oh, very cool.

17:56 Speaker 2: So the other bands we've got, uh, there's a Bank and the Mama's Boys.

18:02 Speaker 1: Okay, that's Fantastic's a band called black Manas okay.

18:13 Speaker 2: Well, and they're they're really good. Some of their stuff sounds a bit like they're from Manchester. If you imagine LCD sound system but with a thick Manchester.

18:21 Speaker 1: Accent okay, okay, interesting.

18:24 Speaker 2: And there's another band called Brides who are really cool okay, and they'll be grateful for that shout out.

18:31 Speaker 1: So yeah, no doubt, no doubt. That's great. And then so what's what's the next thing after that? Because I know, well, well, actually, let me ask it this way. When does the or maybe it's already started. You said, you know you guys are going to do one single a month, So is that is that cycle already begun? As far as I know, Nine Miles High is new right? When what does that come out this month or last month?

18:55 Speaker 2: Yeah? So that came out. We're trying to put a somewher on the last day. I think enough that's been out for two three weeks now, and we've been it's it's been great. How how many how anna say? We've been stuck in a little London bubble for a while and so so we're really grateful for the people who are seeing us and hearing us. A lot of the time it's the same people. So to get the music out and heard in other strange and interesting places, it's really fun, Like you get messages from interesting places.

19:33 Speaker 2: So we're trying to get some airplay in places that we wouldn't normally go the next song. We've got a few conversations like this booked in with places in Italy and Chile, and then we'd like to get maybe go out abroad somewhere and play. Well.

19:52 Speaker 1: That's kind of a that's kind of an interesting advantage too. Where where you've you've got in terms of the members of the band, there's some there in terms of where they're from originally, so it kind of gives you it kind of gives you an in, uh in some places that you wouldn't otherwise have. So that's pretty cool.

20:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, we've we've had some some radio play in with indie books in Brazil and Argentina, Okay, but we haven't had any interviews or any proper conversations yet. Yeah, so we'd like to build some relationships with that. That's a big part of what we do. This is just meeting people with the same interests. You like, the same things, you know, we want to make friends. Yeah, and sure there's those joyful womens.

20:33 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, that's how you build a fan base. So no, I think you're I think you're on a great trajectory. Like I said, I listened to UH. I listened to a bunch of the songs, you know, because we did mention band camp. So I was listening to UH. Obviously I love nine Miles High. I was listening to some of the other tracks on band camp. The great thing about band camp too, is and because I mentioned this, every opportunity I get, because a lot of people don't realize this, you get a higher quality file on band camp than you do if you're just say you're just streaming it on YouTube or something like that.

21:01 Speaker 1: So I'm a big I'm a big proponent of band camp. I think that's the best place to listen to that to listen to music personally.

21:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, I tried is it title?

21:13 Speaker 1: I tried title?

21:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was okay. And there's one I think called Coba's or quobas q ob u z. And it's really really noticeable that the leap in audio quality. I think there's a whole a whole generation of people now who have only ever used Spotify and YouTube, who have never had the chance to listen to Dark Side of the Moon or Sergeant Pepper on vinyl through nice speakers.

21:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they are, they are missing out. Nothing sounds better than vinyl. I love the warmth of vinyl. What so are are? Do you guys have any plans to release any physical media or is everything digital? Because I can tell you that here in the US, CDs not that they ever went away, but it seems like over the last five or six years have have sort of made a comeback in the sense that a lot of independent artists here really like to have physical media. But I've also noticed when I talked to artists from the UK, it seems a little different there.

22:05 Speaker 1: It seems like, uh like maybe you've all just kind of left that in the past. I don't know, though, I'm curious what your perspective is on that.

22:12 Speaker 2: I think I think people are naturally inclined to want artifacts that commemorate the things that they love. Yes, like I've I've got you, and I have got access to YouTube for free. We could listen to any song that's ever been released without spending your penny. But they've still got that drive in me to buy the latest vital by my favorite band. Yes, if I reissues and I find that people want people buy CDs from us, then they'll they'll never play them. They'll listen to us. In other ways. Anyway, I want to have something that shows that they've they've built that connection.

22:49 Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely, we're starting to move into physical media.

22:52 Speaker 1: Excellent.

22:53 Speaker 2: There's been a weird push for old style cassettes, you know, like the old Walkman people. I think that just looks really cool when you put it on a shelf. Yeah, it might be that. I would love to get some vinyl going, but it's just it's just not realistic.

23:10 Speaker 1: It's very expensive.

23:12 Speaker 2: Yeah. Have you heard of Third Man Records?

23:15 Speaker 1: That sounds familiar to me. I'm not sure that.

23:18 Speaker 2: So Jack White, the White Stripes Jack White, Yeah, really really cool. Guy is pushing for greater accessibility for vinyl. Oh, okay, and he's opened a he's got a store in Nashville, I know, but he's opened up another one in London, not far from where I'm sitting now. And at the back is a nineteen fifties straight to wax recording booth. Oh you can go in and record records straight onto vinyl. But it's broken. I go in there once a week to see if they've had it repaired. I'm praying that by the end of this year, I've.

23:52 Speaker 1: Got something on vinyl that's interesting. Yeah, here in the US. It was either twenty two or twenty three was the first year, or maybe it was twenty four. It all becomes a blur, but the first year that vinyl actually outsold CDs, uh for the first time since CDs became the you know, the primary medium for music. So yeah, love love the sound of vinyl, and and people give me vinyl records sometimes. You know, some of the guests that we have on the show that are here in person, and you know, I don't I don't even have a record player at home.

24:22 Speaker 1: We do have one here in the station. I don't have one at home, but it's just cool to have it, you know, and it looks good on the wall, and you know, love vinyl.

24:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean someone it might have been Warren Zevon was talking about books. He said that we buy books not necessarily to buy them, but because we feel richer having them around. And I think having vinyls is the same thing. I love that vinyls have also brought back a new found love for art and for cover art. Yes, means people are displaying these things in their homes.

24:52 Speaker 1: That's a great point. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, well, Jim in a moment we're gonna we'll hit that track, Ramona. This is another great song and I really like this a lot. But before we do that, and you know, we'll let you go in a moment when we do that. But where is the best place to go? Where should people go online to keep up with everything that Howling Hawk is doing.

25:15 Speaker 2: We're we're most active on Instagram, but you can follow us wherever you like if you go to harling hawk dot com. Okay, you want to speak to me and say hello and maybe you'll send you a present, and just go to go to the Instagram.

25:28 Speaker 1: Okay, that's easy. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. It seems like Instagram is really becoming in terms of social media, kind of the main hub now for a lot of artists, which is which is interesting.

25:39 Speaker 3: It's amazing the people that you find on there. I was talking the other day to Gordon Raphael, you recorded the first two Strokes albums. Yes, chatting away on Instagram is it's what Twitter should have been?

25:54 Speaker 1: Yeah?

25:55 Speaker 2: I love it.

25:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I like how you said that is what Twitter should have in Yeah, that ship is sealed. Well, very good, very good. Well, Jim listen, thank you so much for joining us today, and we will definitely do this again in the future. I'd love to have you back because it sounds like you're gonna be. If you're gonna be releasing a new single every month, then that's easy. We will definitely have you back, and we're happy to also kind of be your your conduit into the American radio market here.

26:22 Speaker 2: Because thank you so much.

26:25 Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, because we really love what you're doing. Anything we should know about this song, Ramona, I think you said in the email, this is one of your favorites.

26:34 Speaker 2: It is. It's absolute nonsense. It's like John Lennon stall Doggrel. I read about how David Bowie wrote some of his songs by just writing. He collected up newspapers and cut the lines out and then rearrange them like a like a weird jigsaw, and it's just that.

26:52 Speaker 1: So okay.

26:53 Speaker 2: I like the idea that that sort of fate might lead it to a meaning for someone who's listening, but for us, it's just fun.

26:58 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, No, I like that. So we'll share this with everybody, and I'm gonna hit that track, but Jim, we will let you go. Jim from of course Howling Hawk, thank you so much, and like I said, you know, bass players unite and uh and I really appreciate you joining us today and I look forward to the next time we get to speak.

27:18 Speaker 2: Thanks man, great talking

27:19 Speaker 1: Absolutely jam all right, thank you, take care,