Lost Dog Found Interview! 2/21

So I went to this show at The Abbey @ Hopmunk and had an interview with a local Bay Area band called Lost Dog Found. When you listen to their music, it automatically reminds you of a swing band, but more current, as the band member and founder, Stevie Mac put it. They have some blues, jazz and a little bit of rock-n-roll as well. I know, this probably doesn't narrow it down. But they are a band of many genres. This is why you need to check them out yourself!

Check them out on their website LostDogFound.com


1. You guys are leaving your mark all over the Bay Area, by first playing local venues, and then all of the sudden your playing festivals and doing radio shows. Local bands usually don't have that much success after the first couple of years being together, like you guys have. What do you think about your success?
Chris- I think it's great! We'd would love more success, and take over.

Stevie Mac- It's funny because when the band started, going in I was just thinking that we would do what no one does and we will just catch fire and everyone will love it, unfortunately that's not the case. A lot of it is meeting people, phone calls, emails, dead ends. Every hour we probably rehearse, I would say I put in about 40 hours behind the scene. It's more of a business then musicians really realize. I want people to have a good time when they come and see us. And so it takes a lot of work to where were good enough and it gets to a point to where everything is all thought out. Some of it is trial and error, totally awesome and other times it's just sucking. And it usually ends out to where I want everyone to be like wow these guys are fantastic and their doing something no ones doing.

Chris- It is nice today in the case that, everyone can do it now. You can produce your own album just by sitting in your living room. But you still have to do the hard work. If you don't have some major label backing, it's up to you to go out there and get your name out.

Stevie Mac- That's kind of the shitty thing too is that, you could go home and record a song on Garageband and put it out, just as easily as I could go to the recording studio and pay $2000 a day, it just as easy if you just playing level and it sucks for people who are talented because, the people don't rise to the top and so a lot of time who ever makes the most noise gets more of the artificial sound.
Chris- There's a lot of static out there now.


2. Lost Dog Found won The Press Democrat's "Best Local Band 2013", congratulations you guys! I totally agree by the way! How did that make you feel winning an award like that?

Chris-It's fun! It was funny because Steve and I went to the award ceremony and Hopmunk won best venue and we were sitting at the next table over from those guys and there was a lot of serious people there that won for Best whatever and then were in the back of the room like, clowning around with the Hopmunk guys, like the class clowns. But it's cool, I think it makes a little bit of a push.

Stevie Mac- It's something to hang your hat, I was honestly kinda shocked. We asked our fans, hey if you guys like us, vote for us and they did. And that's sometimes if you just say hey we would like to win this. And I was shocked that we won. I mean were relatively known around here but if we went to Sacramento, we draw way better in Sacramento just cause we have a better following, just as the swing crowd. Enough though were built like a swing band, we don't want to be just a swing band. We opened up for Tommy Castro and that's where voters happened, it was a really big show for us. If we get into big festivals then that's usually where people fall in love with us.

Chris- It's great, now it just means we have to win it again next year, haha.



 3. Out of all the genres of music, what inspired you guys to make, like you said earlier swing, jazz, blues music?

Chris- Well I think Steve sort of has just been in love with that music for a long time, I know personally and to some of these guys we love rock-n-roll, we love jazz, we love blues. And this is the kind of band where were not just doing swing, were not just doing rock, its just a mix of everything and we just for me its just about keeping it interesting

Stevie Mac- Yeah that's probably for me too. It's funny because when the neo swing thing died there's lots of bands who are doing very similar stuff, some cheesy, and trying to be something that their not like all of the sudden I think people got tired of it because it didn't sound right. Our whole thing is we don't want to sound old timey, we want to sound current and we want to take jazz and swing and jump where its not. And there's no band doing what we do. There's just not a lot of bands with the high energy swing.

Chris-There are a lot of swing bands that give us grief I guess for not being old timey or traditional and that's the thing, were not traditional.

Stevie Mac- Yeah I don't have a 40's suit cause I'm not in the 40's.

Chris- I mean we like to take some of that traditional and mix it up with other stuff. I think that's what makes it interesting.

Stevie Mac- All this swing and jazz is for all the people who are in there 40's and up because the younger kids cause their into all this electronica and super Miley Cyrus pop. It's almost like its back in the 80's where its a flashy pop thing. What were trying to figure out where it works with us. We don't write pop songs but were trying to figure out where its an adjustable kind of music, more accessible.

Kyle-Where kind of carving out a sort of revised genre in swing, I think that's also what differentiates us from what comes out now.

4. I'm from Las Vegas, and also me stalking your Facebook, I noticed that you guys are performing in the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekender 2014. Are you guys excited to play a show in Vegas?

Stevie Mac- It's a funny city. This will be a lot more fun because we will be playing for 45 minutes. We played at the House of Blues and The Palms. We rolled up into town, unloaded in the hotel, ran to the venue play for 3 hours, and then played at The Palms the next night.

Chris- We played 9 hours of music in 3 days.

Stevie Mac- The only parting we did was after the last night was we stayed up 'till 4am and Kyle didn't go to sleep. So are we looking forward to Vegas, yes! Because we will only have to play for 45 mins. We've been trying to get on Viva for 3 years but finally everything worked out where we can do it.

Chris-And it's funny that this is the year were doing it in Sin City and we also going to Disneyland, that's happiest place on earth.

5. And now for a less serious question...How did you guys get the name, Lost Dog Found?

Stevie Mac-Haha, least favorite answer of the day! It's nothing special. I had a family blog, before Facebook happened. But I started a blog just to record family stuff, of like photos of my kid growing up and so I just called it Lost Dog Found thought it was a cool name. So it just something that I really like and like Chris says it start out sad but ends happy. When I started the band and a couple guys thought that's what the band name was and before we were originally going to call it "Skin That Kitty" but then we thought that would be bad, haha.

Chris-Someone posted on our Facebook page saying, '\Come to our saving the dogs! You wanna be involved with our lost dog found thing?' Haha, but I like our name. If it was 'Skin That Kitty', we would've have PETA all over us.

Stevie Mac-It's a bad name for a swing band but if we were a Mumford and Sons kind of band then it would be perfect.

Chris-Whats in a name really?

Thanks Lost Dog Found for the interview! I just want to put this out there for their fans and people that are just discovering them, that these guys were extremely nice and really cool to talk too. Just saying!