It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m talking to Shane Cody, the drummer of Houndmouth, who finds himself on tour in Denver. His girlfriend did not make the trip.
“Yeah man,” he says. “I’d like to thank ProFlowers for delivering those flowers to her.”
Sounds like a guy who knows how to plan ahead.
But really, Houndmouth is a band who’s been thrown into a moving fire, with very little time to make any comfortable reservation.
“Before Houndmouth, none of us had toured before,” Cody tells me. “We had never been in a touring van. But, you know, we have a saying that applies to harmony: Get in where you fit in.”
On Saturday, the band from New Albany, Indiana — Cody, Katie Toupin, Zak Appleby, Matt Myers — will be making its first St. Louis appearance at Plush with Howell Dawdy, and will help celebrate Speakers in Code’s 4th Anniversary. It’s $10 (advance) / $12 (day of show), and you can purchase your tickets here.
We would love to see you at Plush!
Here’s more of our interview with Shane Cody.
On playing in St. Louis for the first time
It’s our first date there in St. Louis. I like it because most of the places we’ve been to now are repeat venues. I guess it’s cool to see how many people come, or don’t come second time around, but it’s kinda funny we’ve never been to St. Louis.
On playing Lollapalooza in 2013
Lolla was great. It was crazy that we even got to play those big festivals last year. I went to school in Chicago in 2009, and in 2010 when Lollapalooza was going on, I snuck in one year really early on my way to class. To go to my school, we had a bunch of lanyards and badges and whatnot, so I just wore all black and made it look like I was part of someone’s crew. Flashed a couple badges to security, and then walked right in, just roamin’ around before the shows were going on. And then a couple years later here we were playing it. (laughs)
On finding immediate success
It was pretty insane to get picked up so quickly. Most bands tour around for a while and will catch on after a year or so — a label will catch on, or a booking agent will find them. But, we lucked out in 2012 when we met Geoff Travis, the owner of Rough Trade. We had maybe played 10 or 15 shows when we started talking to the label. We were super fortunate. For me, I’ve studied recording and have been around music since I was 12, and I ran sound at a live venue in Louisville. So, I’m kind of used to touring bands. And I studied recording, because I figured I would never make it in a band because it seemed impossible. (laughs)
On the makeup of the band
So, we’re all from Southern Indiana, the New Albany area. Katie and I went to high school together for about a year, she’s a couple of years younger than me. But, she didn’t play music then — I was actually friends with her brother. Katie didn’t start playing until he was 18, I think. Her dad kind of took Matt under his wing — her dad’s a really great blues guitar player. So, she was around music her whole life, but just never played it. And Matt, Zak, and I were all poker buddies in high school, but we never really hung out, just had mutual friends. I knew Matt was that kid who went to New Albany High who could play guitar really well. (laughs) So, it was funny, when I moved home from New York, somehow Matt messaged me on Facebook and said, “hey, I like your stuff, and I would like to get together.” And I’m like, “yeah, you’re the dude that’s fucking awesome on guitar. I’d love to.”
On their song, “On The Road”
That was one of those songs that when we were practicing, Zak and I went out for a smoke, and Katie and Matt wrote that one in like ten minutes, just a simple little pop song. It’s hilarious, because out of all our songs, that might be our least favorite, but that’s the one that kind of got people’s attention.