Interview: The Black Hounds (Written)

Midlands melodic heavy metal band The Black Hounds return with the release of their second full length album. The album ‘All Kingdoms Fall’, comes from the idea that everything, good or bad, comes to an end. It was released on March 1st, 2024.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

I’m Joe, I am the drummer for The Black Hounds. Our other members are Ant on vocals and guitar, Connor on guitar and vocals and George on Bass. We formed in 2013 and are based in Wolverhampton. We formed from being members of other bands that had called it a day!

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

We play heavy metal.

If they’re still listening to me at that point ill tell them that we use 2 vocalists and have a good mixture of grows and melodic vocal styles with high energy songs.

3. What’s currently going on in your camp? New releases? Tours? Etc.

Our latest release will be our second album, All Kingdoms Fall. Due for release 1st March. We are playing shows throughout February and March. We then have the heats for M2TM into the summer where we have a couple of festivals lined up. It’s a busy few months!

4. What has been the most positive experience of making music to date for you?

I love creating new music. I love getting in the studio with The Black Hounds and working tirelessly together on our piece of art. On our upcoming release, we have pushed each other more than ever and we have poured our heart and soul into this album. It sounds cliché I know but its true. Even if nobody ever listens to it, we now have a piece of work that we created and can be incredibly proud of. A special mention has to go to Jay Shredder (SLL studios) here too because from the very start he has been just as invested in our project as we have and that spurred us on to make sure it’s the best it could be.

5. Likewise, what has been some of the more challenging aspects and how have you overcome them?

Getting people to listen to our music is extremely hard. I can speak for the whole band here when I say we absolutely detest having to create so much nonsense to post on social media to try and stay relevant, we want to write and play music, not become content creators. The way the music industry is at the moment, more emphasis seems to be placed on the quality of your latest facebook post than the quality of your music.

There are so many moments in a band’s journey that beat you down and hold you back and make you question whether it’s all worth it; Doing a 160 mile round trip and a 10 hour day to play a show to 1 person, missing an evening with your wife and children, getting in at 2AM for her to ask “How was the show?” and me being too embarrassed to even answer the question.

Spending 18 months and thousands of pounds to create an aforementioned piece of art and selling 2 copies in 2 months despite spending hours behind a computer screen updating websites, social media, sending emails, running ads and god knows what else!

I also hate having to pretend like I enjoy all of this stuff, there are plenty more examples I could find but I think you get the picture!

My truth about being in a band is that it’s a lot of hard work, stress and feelings of inadequacy but every now and then, there is a gold nugget to be found that keeps you hanging on!

6. How do you handle the modern expectations of being in a band? Always online, having to put out content constantly, your success measured in likes and follows?

I don’t handle it very well, I think I covered it above but when I say I hate it, I really do hate it! We try our best to share social media duties because we are all rubbish at it and it gets under our skin a bit. A necessary evil in today’s world so we just have to get our heads down and get on with it really.

7. What’s something that really ‘grinds your gears’ about the industry/business these days and what would you propose is done to combat it?

The honest answer is I don’t know. As a musician I hate streaming services that give little to no reward for people listening to/downloading our music. As a consumer, I use Spotify because of the convenience and the wealth of music at my fingertips. I don’t even own anything that plays a CD anymore so how does the industry change to still suit the consumer but also fairly reward the musicians?

8. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support your music?

Firstly, Engage with the band in some form. It costs nothing to like, share and comment on our social media but can help us reach new people. Secondly, turn up to our shows, there’s nothing more disheartening than putting a shift in to play a show and there’s next to nobody there. Thirdly, if you can afford to, buy a CD or a t-shirt. It goes a long way to making sure we can keep creating new stuff.

9. Outside of the music, what’s do you do to relax?

When I get the time, feet up, watching the footy and having a cold beer is about as relaxing as it gets for me.

10. Where can people find you?

Links

Website | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram