ON THE PHONE WITH THE BASH DOGS:

 

GARRETT: What's up girls?

508: Nothing, nothing.Just trying to interview y'all.

GARRETT: Everyone go ahead and announce yourselves.

NATE: I'm Nate Barrett.

TREVOR: I'm Trevor Brown.

JEREMy: My name is Jeremy Barret and I'm the drummer for the Bash Dogs.

NATE: Oh, and our manager Garrett Marango is on the phone.

508: Hi Garrett.

GARRETT: Hola.

508: Whoa-bilingual!

GARRETT: Dude, I walked out of Chipotle and saw this really hipster girl with dreadlocks.

508: What did you do about it?

GARRETT: I'm kind of about it but anyway...

508: Awesome. So we really want to know, what are the origins of the Bash Dogs?

NATE: I always say that our dad, Jeff Barret, is the guy that forced us to pick up a guitar, to do piano lessons, to listen to Hendrix, Zeppelin, all the classics when we were growing up...even Creedance Clearwater, it doesn't get more classic than that. In 5th grade for our school talent show, our dad helped me and my brother Jeremy make this band. It was this total 5th grade, shloppy, immature sound. He taught us the song "Gloria" by Van Morrison and we played it. Then the next year we played "Heartbreak Hotel" by Led Zeppelin. And the next year we played "Stone Free" by Jimi Hendrix. The next year we played "Sweet Child of Mine" by Guns 'N'  Roses. After that, when we went into high school, we started writing more songs. Finally shaped our name from Snap, Crackle, Rock to the Bash Dogs. We've been through five or six bass players, to be honest. We auditioned ten bass players and then we found ourselves a keeper.

508: We know that you and Jeremy started off in a childhood band, but what about Trevor? Where did you start?

TREVOR: We had mutual friends and I was producing another band and they said, "Hey, there's this band called the Bash Dogs, they need someone to produce their music." So I said alright, sounds fun. And I produced a bunch of songs, we had some good chemistry just as far as producing goes. It was fun, we wanted to keep going and make more music so we did. Their bassist left to Seattle, so they needed someone to play bass for them in a gig. I actually never played bass. I was not a bassist, I was a guitarist. So they said, "Trevor, can you play bass? You know all the songs," so I was like alright, a bass is a guitar, just the bottom four strings. I guess I can figure it out. We rehearsed, it felt pretty good, close to locked in. I wasn't their bassist because I wasn't a bassist. It took a little time to get the hang of it. I played a few more gigs because they still needed a bassist. Then we decided to keep it going and I became bassist for the Bash Dogs.

508: That's awesome! Having had a different number of bassists, has the dynamic changed between each of you guys? Is the chemistry better?

JEREMy: Jeremy Barret. The drummer. [laughs] Yeah, so we started way back in the day and once we started getting serious we had this bass player named Schmok. He was this total classic rock bass player which, we like classic rock, but it's not the total style of the band. We can't have a bass player that's living in the 60's, you know what I mean?

508: I feel you.

JEREMy: And then-

NATE: Well Jeremy, if you don't mind, another reason was this total shift from Schmok to Trevor because Schmok-you know, nothing gainst Schmok-extremely talented bass player, but always on drugs. He loved music so much and drugs and music are how he connected himself to the world. It Eventually became too much work. He was showing up to practices just high as a kite and he would show up to gigs just baked as...you know. So we realized we needed someone cleaner. It was super hard looking for someone to fit not necessarily the "level" of the Bash Dogs, but we wanted a guy who loves rock 'n' roll, half times, fat rips and

most importantly can sing some harmonies with me. And Trevor Brown is one of the best singers we know and when he started harmonizing on live shows and on record, it was amazing. We knew we felt a match.

[SINGING IN THE BACKGROUND]

508: Is that Trevor now?

TREVOR: That was not me. I am not taking credit for that.

508: I love that! You're looking for a more stable and reliable person that can supoort the band's evolution and growth. But how would you describe the band's sound now?

NATE: I would say that we have always been influenced by some dirty, garage sounds such as The White Stripes and The Black Keys. I would say these bands portray a dirty, raw sound. Being the Bash Dogs, we're just a bunch of grimy, rock 'n' roll dogs that wanna bash our brains out. We try to keep it as raw as possible.

TREVOR: I would also throw in the word trendy. I feel that a good genre would be trendy rock 'n' roll, because when we play our shows, man those girls are all dancing. We get some pretty hot girls showing up. We always imagined just a bunch of guys moshing to our stuff, but there's always like these hot girls dancing. Dudes are raging in the back. So we have a really cool audience. It's not so rock 'n' roll that girls are scared, and it's not so poppy that guys are scared.

NATE: Yeah, I agree. Also, Trevor recorded both of our EP's entirely in his basement. It doesn't get much more raw than that.

508: Uh huh, that's actually pretty amazing. You know how you were talking about the hot girls at shows and all, who would you say is your favorite type of crowd to vibe with? Who really gets you guys going?

JEREMy: My brother Nate, he had this huge Biola crowd. Crazy, dancing super hard, moshing to all of our songs, knew all of our songs, the lyrics and stuff.Also the Huntington Beach crowd is nuts. They mosh probably the hardest I've ever seen.

NATE: I would say our favorite type of crowd is when they know the words to our songs, like Jeremy was saying, but also when they are just paying attention to our set and examining every detail of what we're doing on stage. Moshing, dancing, getting on people's shoulders and crowd surfing.

508: That's so rad. Your answers were both on point, by the way. Now, about stage persona. What's really interesting is that you sometimes wear masks to perform. What do they represent? Do they add to the performance?

TREVOR: I think the masks are just funny. There is nothing serious about it. It's just an entrance, you know. Like boom. We're here.

NATE: I agree,I love that Trevor. When the lights are off and the curtains are closed we are on stage with these weird, cartoony masks that all represent us, not in a serious way. Like we have a dalmatian mask, a wolf mask...it's this image of us being these raw dogs that wanna rock 'n' roll. The lights come on, the stage opens, it's a bunch of these weird looking dudes in dog masks that are about to play a big show. Loud rock 'n' roll bass, guitar, bashing drums you know?

JEREMy: I remember when we first got our manager he said our show had to be a Bash Dog experience. Which means we don't just want to play all our music, even though it does all the speaking, but we want to make all of our shows fun to watch.

NATE: Exactly. We would like it to be the Bash Dogs experience like Jeremy was saying. It's almost like you go to a Bash Dogs show and you're going to this journey. From the moment we start our set, you're on a 30 minute expedition of what we would like it to be called, greatness.

508: Right. And it will probably end up being something iconic about the band. Also, what's with the surfboard? We noticed it at your show in Riverside. It was pretty sick!

NATE: Jerm actually made it himself.

JEREMY: Yeee!

TREVOR: Jeremy actually handles all the digital stuff, fliers...

508: No way! Does he do graphics too?

NATE: Yeah. The roles of the band...Trevor kills it in the basement studio. Jerm is the creative artsty side and I am basically just the writer.

508: For sure, that's dope.

NATE: Oh and another thing girls, our name the Bash Dogs, the biggest reason we call ourselves that is because when we were little and the rockets were launching from NASA we thought they were saying, "3, 2, 1, bash dogs."

508: [LAUGHS] How sweet! Who are some local bands you dig?

TREVOR: There is this band, up and coming, New Beat Fund. I think they're pretty dope.

508: Oh hey, they're RedBull Records right?

TREVOR: Yeah.

508: AYYYY!

BASH DOGS: AYYYYY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

508: Anyway...

TREVOR: There's this other band, Captain Nomad.

NATE: There's a band we're really close with, me and Trevor. I met a bunch of the guys in my first year of college. They're a band called King Shelter. We used to do a lot of shows together when I was at Biola University.

JEREMy: There are definitely two bands we are working the most with this year and that is Captain Nomad and FRTNK. We are all signed under Broken Management. Shout out for Garrett. There are a bunch of surf bands coming out of Huntington Beach. Like the Hindu Pirates, if you know them.

508: Oh dude, yes! Hell yeah!

[LAUGHS]

JEREMy: You should check out Trevor's band The Good Walkers.

508: We'll be sure to look them up. You guys are O.C. boys right?

NATE: Yes. We are Orange County boys who love surf and rock 'n' roll.

GARRETT: Also,they just finished their six-track EP and two new T-shirts.

508: Is the EP out?

GARRETT: Oh it was out about two and a half weeks ago.

508: Working hard!

GARRETT: It's on Soundcloud, Spotify and if you like their page on Facebook it's got all that information.

508: Perfect. When we met the other night the boys had some crazy stories about crashing Burgerama. Please indulge us.

JEREMy: Have you ever been?

508: Cheyenne has gone. Zara has not.

JEREMy: It's crazy. Me and Nate live right by it so we're over there almost every week. Honestly, just seeing bands every week we're kind of cool with meeting all the people.It's just awesome knowing all the people and watching them. We sneak backstage sometimes at the Observatory. It's super easy. That's how we make connections, meeting people backstage.

508: Any loony stories from hanging with people backstage?

JEREMy: One time we pretended we were a band that played, The Mystic Braves. So we made friends with the manager and with some photographers. I don't know, it was kind of wild but it was funny.

508: That's frickin' wild.

NATE: They invited us backstage, gave us some beer, pizza and we all hung out.

508: Damn, sounds like a party. You guys are ballsy! Are you going to be crashing Beach Goth?

JEREMy: We have our costumes ready.

508: What are you guys going to be?

TREVOR: I'm going to be a ghost with a shark head.

JEREMy: I'm going to be a mop. I'm going to put a mop on my head.

NATE: I'm not totally sure what I'm going to be. Maybe a cheetah costume.

[FROM THE BACKGROUND: GO AS A GIRL MAN!]

NATE: Exactly. Some lipstick and heels...

508: [LAUGHS] This about wraps it up guys. Thanks for cooperating so well and being such great company!

NATE: You ladies are great.

508: Thanks again guys, see ya!

BASH DOGS: Right on, later! Good night!

 

THE BASH DOGS SELF TITLED ALBUM IS OUT NOW ON SPOTIFY

AND SOUNDCLOUD. KEEP UP WITH THEM ON THEIR INSTAGRAM: @THEBASHDOGS