Police Dog Hogan will make a headline appearance at Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 15th March. Tickets for the show, their first London performance since selling out The Scala last February are on sale now and available here.
The band, whose last album ‘Wild By The Side Of The Road’ spent several weeks in the official UK Americana charts, have just released their new ‘Hard Times Coming EP’. “With 8 tracks, it’s really more than an EP, if not quite a full album, but they’re all songs we just had to get out,” explains lead singer James Studholme. “We’re most excited about the lead track ‘Pigs Head Roll’ which feels like a song for the future we’re heading into. When humble soul food is rebranded as a trendy gourmet fare, it’s surely a sign that hard times lie ahead. The EP also features a cover of Lyle Lovett’s ‘If I had a boat’ and, in ‘Rolling Down to Old Maui’, a lively response to the bottomless demand for more whaling songs.”
They also recently unveiled a video to live favourite and Steve Earle cover ‘The Galway Girl’ which is also our Song of the Day – I’ll admit that this is probably my favourite version… doesn’t get any better.
Hard to categorise, Police Dog Hogan combine fiddle, trumpet, banjo, mandolin, accordion, drums and guitars, fusing it all into songs whose subjects range from the Battle at Passchendaele (the AMA UK Song of 2018 nominated ‘Devon Brigade’) to the shortest day of the year (‘St Lucie’s Day’), tackling love, loss and inferior white wine along the way. As one recent review cited “their growing reputation for infectiously punchy folk rock is shaded with elements of country and bluegrass.”
Police Dog Hogan have played over 300 gigs together, including appearances at Glastonbury, Port Eliot, Kendall Calling, Larmer Tree, and Bestival. The band were among the headliners on the main stage at Cropredy and topped the bill on Cornbury’s second stage last year. Police Dog Hogan were one of only three UK bands invited to Nashville to perform at the prestigious Americana Music Association awards where DJ Bob Harris snapped them up for a live recording that has become one of the most-watched YouTube videos on his ‘Under The Apple Tree Sessions’ channel. Many Guardian readers will know that columnist Tim Dowling is the banjo player in Police Dog Hogan; what they may not know is that he’s recently added the dobro to his repertoire. Eliot James (Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, Noah and the Whale, Two Door Cinema Club) produced the band’s second album ‘From The Land Of Miracles’ and Al Scott (Seth Lakeman, Oysterband, The Levellers, Asian Dub Foundation) oversaw the latest album, ‘Wild By The Side Of The Road’ as well as the forthcoming ‘Hard Times Coming EP’.
Police Dog Hogan are James Studholme (lead vocals, guitar), Eddie Bishop (violin, vocals), Tim Dowling (banjo, harmonica, vocals), Don Bowen (bass, vocals), Michael Giri (drums, vocals), Shahen Galichian (accordion, piano, keyboards, harmonica, harmonium, vocals) and Emily Norris (trumpet, vocals).