Second-headlining the Student Union stage at this years ‘Twisterella’ festival, ‘The Howl & The Hum’ lived up to their reputation as an explosive live band and a ‘one to watch’. Led by part guitar player, part hip shaker and part vocalist, Sam Griffiths, The Howlers focused set may well have stolen the ‘best show of the festival’ award. Social Media would certainly suggest so.
“It was a crazy show” admits Sam “fifteen minutes before we started the venue was really quiet and we expected to play to 10 people, yet when we stepped on stage it was packed. We weren’t ready for a big crowd”, not that you would have noticed. Packing a hit–ladden set of songs into their 30 minutes, including standouts ‘Godmanchester Chinese Bridge’ and ‘Don’t shoot the storm’, Howl created a sound which was equal parts alt-rock, indie and pop, something the crowd fully responded to. “It’s funny” continues Sam “Godmanchester tends to gain a loud sing-along but the Twisterella crowd were singing to every song we played, including the ones they shouldn’t have heard yet”.
Crowded in a little secrecy The Howl have spent the majority of the year working on the aforementioned new material with the aim to release a new album towards October 2019, “we’re currently in the studio recording at the minute” admits Sam “we’ll aim to have a few soft releases out in the next few months, and most of the album is written, we’re just working mostly on production and mixing at the moment”. Admitting that the new material sounds “interesting and fresh” Sam laughs when asked for a description of how the band’s sound “we’ve been described as a band who play morose Bond themes with a disco sound, so I’d guess other people would describe our sound as traditional guitar band mixed with epic moments and strong grooves. Interestingly we’ve been working on incorporating more modern production sounds and techniques into our newer work, so I might even argue that we have a very slight r n’b or hip hop feel underneath our guitars. To be honest, it’s always hard to describe your own sound because it’s not really our sound to define; we prefer to let listeners decide for themselves”.
Building on the success of their live show, The Howl are heading back on tour in early January with a date in The Cluny 2 already selling well. Typically modest Sam plays down the heightened excitement around the band “To be honest, we’re a little apprehensive about the new dates because people’s expectations seem to have risen a little. What I would say though is that we’ve been on a small tour recently and we’re playing really confidently so we’re excited to be out and play. The North East’s a great place to play as the crowd’s have a sense of sheer enthusiasm about them and people will come and say hi after a show. When we played Twisterella it was really nice to see some familiar faces and for those people to have brought new faces along with them. What we want to do is pay back some of that faith and inject some fun into our music”.
The Howl & The Hum play The Cluny 2 on 24th Jan 2019.