BRYAN McGILL- THE FILTH HOUNDS

💿 Hi, it’s a pleasure for us to have on Hardrockheavymetal BRYAN McGILL of THE FILTH HOUNDS!!

You’re Welcome!!

“HAIR OF THE HOUND?”, your new album, is “hot’n’ready” and will be available from Oct 26! Can you tell us somethin’about its composition process and style? We have the privilege to listening to it in preview and we were very impressed!

Thanks, glad you like it. This album has a lot of songs on it that were co-written by me and other members of the band. To be honest this is new to me. Our first album, ‘Release the Hounds’, was written entirely by myself and a good amount of those were written when I was younger. This is why there are a lot of different styles on the first album.

I have found this a lot more exciting than I thought I would. I listened to so many different bands when I was younger, all different styles, and I think that comes out in our songs.

There are a lot of influences but all in equal measure, so there is not one influence that over powers the sound. Some of the members have come along with riffs or ideas and I have molded those ideas into the finished songs.

We do not try and make the music into a certain style, it just comes out the way it comes out. That is the Filth Hound sound.

💿 Can you tell us somethin’ about the birth of the band? Which bands influenced you?

It started when I got a friend request on Facebook, from a lady called Jackie Allom.

I ignored it for quite a while as I was getting in to trouble from my wife for accepting friend requests from women.

After a few weeks I looked again at it and I noticed a guy with her that I recognised. This guy turned out to be John Allom. I had played in a band for a short while with him in the mid 90’s and he wanted to get a band together for his birthday, with people he had played with in the past. It was only supposed to be one gig!! Just one gig!!! We decided to do a few local shows playing our own songs after his party and we won a heat of a battle of the bands, which was the release of our first single, “Too Damn Good/Hooked on Love”. Every year since then more amazing things have happened to the band. When the band first got together, John, who is an encyclopedia of heavy metal, had not heard much of Tank, so I made him listen to Filth Hounds of Hades.

We listened to it a lot around the time that we first got together.

We thought calling the band The Filth Hounds would be good. If we could turn the clock back we would never have named the band that, as people think we are a Tank tribute band. We have our own sound which is nothing like Tank., even though I name them in my influences, they are not a huge influence for this band. My influences are vast: Tokyo Blade, Loudness, The Rods, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, Rush, Rory Gallagher, TANK, Hanoi Rocks, Jethro Tull, Van Halen, Tygers Of Pan Tang.

Phil Lynott is a great influence when it comes to lyrics, as I love to write lyrics that tell a story. 💿 This new platter will be out via PURE STEEL PUBLISHING. Can you tell us somethin’about the birth of relationships with PURE STEEL GROUP?

We recorded the album last year. It took a long time as we had problems with our personal lives which hindered the recording of the album.

My wife had a heart attack and John’s wife broke her arm.

It was finished in January 2018. We have been told by a lot of people over the years that in Europe, people would love us. So, we decided that we would prefer a European label to release our new album.

We sent our album to a few record companies and Pure Steel were the first to come back to us. They were the most excited about our songs and they came across very eager to bring us on board. I even had a Skype call with the director.

They believed in us as a band, so we joined forces with them.

💿 The real news in music industry is the return of the vinyl. What’s your opinion about this classic format and the current “music business”?

The Filth Hounds on Vinyl!?,,,Oh my god!.. If I had a bucket list I would have to add that to it. It is so expensive to produce, so a Filth Hounds’ vinyl is way out of our league at the moment. I think it is the feel of a vinyl album in your hand and the cover that is far superior to cd or download. I can only talk about the music business in the UK now, and it is dying.

There is a lot of nostalgia about older bands and people fill stadiums to go and see Iron Maiden or Ozzy, at huge prices.

If a third of those people actually came to see local new bands, the scene would be amazing, but they don’t.

We are hoping the current music business in Europe is better. 💿 We love the cover of HOTH!! Can you tell us somethin’about?

The Title of the album is a play on the saying in the UK “Hair of the Dog”.

It means if you have had too much alcohol the night before, then you need more alcohol the next day, which should make you feel better the morning after. This is the second Filth Hounds album, so it is the morning after the first album. So, if you feel kicked about and all metaled out from the first album, then why not listen to the new album, so instead of Hair of the Dog it is Hair of the Hound. The design took days of Facebook messages to our very talented photographer and graphic designer Keith Talbot.

He has taken live photos of the band for a few years now and we have also done some studio and location photos with him. When we decided to rebrand the band a few years back we asked if he could design us the Filth Hounds’ logo, we sent him a few images and pulled different parts of those images to finally get an idea of the hounds.

He designed them on new 3d software. So, when it came to design the album, we naturally asked him. We had many different ideas of the hounds being in a bar.

Were both hounds in? Were they in the cellar? Then we came up with the idea of it being one hound in a cloche offering a drink.

Would you like a Hair of the (dog) Hound? Keith works during the night, so I had many late nights, messaging back and forwards.

Can he look this way or that way? We eventually decided on the design and he just took that design to another level.

It is like a Salvador Dali, there is so much detail in the background that is relevant to the album, words drawn on the window etc.… He is a genius! As all the songs have different meanings I decided to put a preface in to tell a little bit about the story of each song. After trying to use Google Translate when we recently played in France, it’s probably a total waste of time. If you can’t read English, it won’t make much sense on Google Translate, but hopefully people will know a little bit more about the songs.

💿 Can you give us news about your next live projects?

We have a few UK gigs coming up, including supporting Oliver/Dawson Saxon. We are waiting to see how our new album is received in Europe, as we want to tour in Europe as soon as possible.

This is because our gig in France recently, was so amazing.

The only thing we have in the book at the moment is a gig in July 2019 at the Rock Den just outside of London. We are open to offers if you want us to play near you. 💿 Thank you so much for your time! See you soon on Hardrockheavymetal!

P.A. Pure Steel Promotion

#THEFILTHHOUNDS