MuzicNotez: First off, it’s an honor to be doing this interview with you, thanks for taking the time to sit down with us.

Introduce yourselves, what are your names and rolls in the band?

• The Howlers: Hello, we are Adam (Guitar & Vocals), Tom (Drums & Vocals) and Guus (Bass)

MuzicNotez: How did you meet and form up? How long have you been together?

• The Howlers: So the band started Mid 2019 only about 9 months before the covid pandemic so most of our career happened in lock down Adam and Guus went to Uni together but we knew Tom from the london scene as he was playing in other bands at the time and he was originally our first choice of drummer but other commitments meant that wasn’t possible, it became obvious we needed to replace our old drummer at the beginning of 2022 and got back in touch with Tom, and it’s all be upwards from there really, 1 year later and we’ve done alot together.

Website: www.TheHowlers.co.uk
Facebook.com/thehowlersuk
Instagram: @thehowlersuk
Twitter: @thehowlersuk

MuzicNotez: How did you come up with the name The Howlers?

• The Howlers: Adam and Guus both lived in a flat in Hoxton prior to the pandemic and on Hoxton street there is a pub called ‘The Howl at The Moon’ it’s pretty infamous for featuring in music videos of major artists like The Verve and Arctic Monkeys (we found out after we decided on the name) but we needed to change the band name as to be honest the original name was awful! and it just came to be one night sat outside the pub, they do a house larger called ‘Howl’ and the tri logo for that we’ve borrowed the design for posters and things, haven’t actually been back their in a long long time, it’s a bit of a trek from the nearest TFL link.

MuzicNotez: Who were your musical influences, idols, or bands growing up that have helped mold you into the band you are today? Or helped mold the music that you create?

• The Howlers: We all have vastly different answers here but we see the band as like a 3 way ven diagram we all have artists we listen to that the others don’t and then we all cross over with artists like Zep, Sabbath and soul and R&B acts from the 60’s and 70s if you listen to our tunes you can hear the R&B Drums and fuzzy 70s bass lines, but we owe alot of who we are to artists we work with or challenge us to be better, friends in the industry in successful bands who we learn from alot.

MuzicNotez: What’s the greatest concert you’ve ever been to or performed?

• The Howlers: Ill answer this (Adam) best gig i’ve ever been to was Micheal Kiwanuka at Knebworth supporting Liam Gallagher, it was just at sunset, golden hour and it was just the most amazing sound and setting for me totally blew everyone out the water, Kasabian and Liam paled in comparison after that musically at least. We’ve played some pretty great shows to be honest our hometown gigs are always fun.

MuzicNotez: What’s the ultimate goal you want your music to achieve, or for you to achieve in your career as a band? Any particular message you wish to send?

• The Howlers: We just want to offer people a little escape from the realities of life in the modern world, if people connect with what we write about and come to a show we want them to leave all their issues at the door and just be themselves for that hour were on stage, that’s all we want everything that comes with that is a plus, we all have our own struggles and issues in life and we hope people can see we are no exception.

MuzicNotez: Your latest release is the 4 track EP ‘Live at Metropolis Studios’, what inspired this release? What’s the significance of Metropolis Studios to you?

• The Howlers: It’s an iconic studio for one, but we get our tracks mastered there, and it came about through that really the overall team share tracks they work on with each other and whilst listening to our EP one of the engineers reached out and offered us the session, we’ve been offered to go back again and do some more, it’s not often you get to record at studios like that so when they come up you take them, the type of studio where you have a cuppa tea that someone comes and takes your mug to the kitchen to be washed up, seems daft to say that but like that blew our minds.

  We always wanted to do a live recording. We had one planned at RAK that never came to be, and we just wanted to demonstrate that on record is how we sound live. not many bands can say that.

MuzicNotez: You’re highly regarded as one of the best live shows out there right now. How do you get up and ready for your shows? How do you want your fans to feel after seeing The Howlers live?

• The Howlers: We are still underdogs that’s for sure so we go out and give 110% each night, we have no option but to be the tightest band on that stage otherwise this reputation we have got crumbles away very quick. we all have little prestage rituals Adams is he beats on his chest like king kong it’s an adrenaline thing or an distraction thing, Guus is always having a quick Ciggy before stage time and Tom is just chill all of the time, we walk on stage as brothers and walk off as brothers sometimes we might feel individually we had a bad show but for us a bad show is still a good show if that makes sense we hold ourselves to such a high standard.

  We just want people to come along and feel like they’ve seen something they’ve not heard before, and that in that time we are on stage they thought about nothing else.

MuzicNotez: I saw you posted something about ‘BBC Introducing’ being put on redundancy notice with all the issues you’re having over there in the UK right now. For your fans here in the US, can you explain this a bit more? Also, we’ve always worked to push new emerging artists here for over a decade, so love what you said about them helping to launch new musicians. What kind of advice can you give to other artists just starting out to find success like you have?

• The Howlers: So BBC Introducing since its introduction about 10 years ago has become a huge springboard for emerging artists in the UK offering stages at major festivals and often artists first radio play, it’s the BBC name that goes next to your art that catches peoples attention, you have to remember the BBC is part of UK life its paid for by the people so it’s a big thing, the powers that be decided to cut a number of shows meaning regional DJ’s now cover Bigger areas meaning that more artists will find there art goes unnoticed, you can see it in two ways, either the standard of art has to go up as let’s face it not everybody is making hit singles or you can see it as the artists development path has been cut so artists that aren’t making hits now won’t because there not being nurtured. The DJ’s and producers at Introducing are often the unsung heroes and it’s hard to watch friends and music lovers forced out of jobs because the music industry here has a complete disconnect with Arena Acts and where these acts start, our grass roots venues are closing down at a rate of 1 or 2 a week.

  I think the best bit of advice is to really know your art, the barriers to entry are so low now (Anybody can pop a song on spotify) that for your art to stand out you need to be doing something that you feel and live and breathe that is effectively YOU that’s all art is an extension of YOU, every act starts off thinking ‘We are the best act in the world’ if you can disconnect from that and look at yourselves critically, watch other acts keep learning then you will be the best in the world and not just naively think that, take us for example we’ve still go so much to learn and were constantly trying to be better.

MuzicNotez: What else are you working on? What can we expect to see and hear from you in the future?

• The Howlers: It rhymes with Day-Poo Cow-bum thats all i can say.

MuzicNotez: Anything else you wish to say about yourself or your music? Any message for your fans?

• The Howlers: At the end of every show Adam always says ‘Get home safe, look after each other and we will see you soon’ that seems appropriate here especially in today’s world.