Medford rockers (and longtime AP faves, dating back to the old skateboarding days) hey i’m outside are among this city’s very best live acts by our estimation. A lean-and-mean trio that floats pretty freely between fuzzed out indie rock in the classic, collegiate sense and rollicking alt country in the actually rocking while using dobro and pedal steel as an accent to said rocking sense, they have also been fairly prolific thus far. Fronter Patrick McPherson records a lot at home: his band, other bands, maybe your band? which frees them up to crank out the hits on their own schedule. Enter into frame their second full length LP Loud Ass Barking Dogs. Announced on just a few days’ notice, journalistic privilege means we’ve had these tunes in our ears for a bit and jumped at the chance to correspond with the trio ahead of this sneak release on New Music Friday Tuesday. hey i’m outside don’t really mess too much with the formula here, preferring a refinement of their prodigious gifts in favor of a tear-down, though they do twist and reframe that base into some exciting new shapes. The payoff is tremendous to say the least. Hit play on the stream below and read on for more on Barking Dogs, undoubtedly their strongest collection to date.
Allston Pudding: We know hey i’m outside are big home-recording proponents; what does the studio look like these days?
Patrick: I do love DIY home recording, though I’m a bit of a hypocrite with that too since I also record and mix other bands and obviously I want folks to work with me. Of course there’s space for both ways of working, even within a given project sometimes. And we may find ourselves working with someone else at some point too. I started home recording this band in the beginning because I wanted to strip it back to the bare essentials of getting a song out. And of course because I enjoy doing it and recording your own stuff is a good way to learn because you’re not screwing up someone else’s music if you mess up.
As for the studio space itself, it’s in my and Hannah’s basement. It’s kind of a fat “L” shape and is one big open space. It is a finished basement so it’s not too spooky and is pleasant enough to spend all day recording in. I’d love it if the ceilings were higher but you work with what you have. Any space has quirks and getting to know them is half the battle. It’s not too reverberant which is nice for recording, though it has a stairway that comes in handy for extra roominess when called for. We’ve done a bit of treatment and rearranging over time to try and make the best use of it. We’ve got a respectable selection of mics and gear now but gear is a bit of a paradox. I love trying new mics and you can definitely get inspired by stuff like that. But having some certain piece of gear is not necessary at all to make a record that people connect with.
Hannah: I would just add that it’s very comfortable and cozy to record at home. It makes it easier to fit into the rhythm of our lives, heading down to the studio in the evenings after dinner with our coffee, etc.
Noah: Agreed, it’s a comfy space. The fridge stays well-stocked, too – I’ve been pleasantly surprised by several new flavors of Polar seltzer down there.
AP: Does the dog really have that loud a bark? What sets them off?
Patrick: 100%. Her bark is extremely loud. And she runs up to the door barking, which is in this small, tiled entry way and it makes it even louder.
Hannah: Yeah, she’s a barker. The reverberant bark in the entry way is deafening. She barks at anything she finds suspicious, which is most things. Mostly people walking on the sidewalk in front of our house, the mail carrier delivering our mail, or noises that might indicate an unknown human. I should give her some credit though in that she doesn’t bark at fireworks, thunder, or things like that.
Noah: She barks at me whenever I show up for practice, though it feels like more of a welcoming bark nowadays.
AP: How did this summer’s festival crowds take to your band?
Patrick: Playing Levitate was such a treat. I think we’re a little outside the core genres people usually associate with that fest, but the crowd there is kinda down for anything. Our music is also the kind of thing a passerby could stop and appreciate, i.e. not super abrasive or experimental. So we have that going for us in those situations. The crowd was great to us. They stuck it out as it started to rain during the set and bought a bunch of shirts. The staff was so nice to us as well. One big festival gig doesn’t instantly change things for the band, but nothing really works that way anyway. It’s more about cumulative opportunities building on each other and just trying to make the most of each one. That’s what I hope is true anyway.
Hannah: Levitate was the only proper “festival” we played this summer, but we did do a few other outdoor gigs that had a festival vibe. Junkyard Boston back in May and playing in the Boston Common earlier this month at the Harpoon/Emerson beer garden. It’s fun watching passersby stop and listen for a bit and get into it. I always think about the line in that Tomberlin song that goes “I love the people playing songs in the park. Guitar for babies instead of people in the bars”.
Noah: Yeah, the Levitate crowd hanging around despite the rain was cool to see. Getting to play there was super special. I really enjoy playing outdoor shows. We haven’t actually done all that many, which I guess is somewhat ironic given the name of the band.
AP: How does a hey i’m outside song traditionally come together?
Patrick: We’re definitely one of those bands that has a clear leader, which for better or worse is me. So I’m almost always bringing the songs to Noah and Hannah. We usually start recording before the song is 100% fleshed out (a benefit of home recording for sure). I kind of hate writing lyrics but I force myself to do it. It’s slightly easier than it once was for me and sometimes I enjoy it a little, but it never flows as easily as musical ideas do. I mostly hack at it until I have lyrics I don’t completely hate. The best approach to things like that is summarized in a one-liner from my sister Erin: “Have you tried trying?”; i.e. you have to just force yourself past the feeling of “I don’t know what to write” or “it won’t be good” and literally just try. Eventually something comes out that you can work with. Musical ideas usually come easily for whatever reason and I have loads of those still waiting to be developed.
Once I get the lyrics and main structure figured out Noah comes over and we mess around with drum parts. Sometimes we record stuff that makes the record that same day, but often we’ll come back later to record the drums for real once we get it figured out. Then we start fleshing out the rest, getting Hannah in on bass and adding whatever other parts we think it needs until it feels done. That part is a bit more collaborative. Unfortunately for Hannah and Noah I can be a bit picky and I know I annoy or frustrate them at times. But I think we all understand that even though making music is something we enjoy, it doesn’t mean every single moment is pure fun. If you care about an artistic pursuit there’s bound to be some friction. And I rely on their feedback a lot as well.
AP: What were you listening to, reading, watching, etc., while putting together the album? Do you feel like those things informed the somewhat harder edge (and also at times lighter) of these new tunes?
Patrick: It’s hard to pinpoint exact influences for me. Musically, the guy that we’ve had master both our albums is named Bennett Littlejohn. He’s mostly a mixer/producer these days but he has a solo project called Bendrix Littleton that I love and listen to a lot. It’s much “weirder” than hey I’m outside, but maybe some of that weirdness influenced me. Outside of music, now that the Harvard Art Museums are free all the time I’ve been going there a lot. It’s actually really nice to be able to stop in for a short time and not feel like you have to spend a lot of time there. Repeated visiting is nice too as you can get to know the works a bit and notice when things are swapped out. How exactly that’s influenced me I’m not totally sure. One thought I’ve pondered for a while is that visual artists are (in my opinion) given leeway to experiment with the same idea over and over again. Like they’ll do 20+ paintings that are variations of the same idea. And often that’s celebrated. But music doesn’t normally work quite like that. Maybe I took slight inspiration from that for the two title tracks.
Hannah: Last year Patrick and I watched the Ken Burns country music documentary series so I think that probably made it in there as well. We were listening to lots of random Bob Wills songs.
Noah: Drum-wise, I went through a big James Gadson phase when he passed away earlier this year. I also really like Steve Jordan’s playing. They’re two of the most recorded drummers in history, so I’ll also include this Danish guy Jonas Kardyb who plays in a duo that I was listening to constantly this spring and summer. The common thread between all of them is that nothing they’re playing is all that technical or complex on paper, but they just make it feel so good. While my playing and feel is certainly not at that level, that idea is definitely something I’m striving for when writing and performing with the band. Minimum complexity, maximum groove.
AP: There are some new features for the band on this (namely the pitch-shifted vocals on “Blade”). Was that a conscious choice to expand the hey i’m outside palate or was it just in service of the song?
Patrick: I definitely approached this album with an eye towards adding some new flavors. I didn’t specifically go in thinking we had to have pitch shifted vocals somewhere. In that case we were looking for another element to bring some interest to the intro of that song and had tried just about everything else until we finally had the idea to sample the vocals from earlier and pitch them up. And that led to the idea to tamper with the guitar and glitch it up in the verse after that. I would love to keep exploring that direction in the future because I really like how it came together there.
AP: What is the significance of the “Elevator” series of interstitial tracks across all your releases thus far? Would you ever release a collection of micro-songs like that under the moniker? Or maybe a different one?
Patrick: I always liked it when bands that usually have vocals would include instrumental tracks. It can be a nice way to explore something different or take a breath on the album. Screamo bands used to do it a lot. “Attack On Memory” by Cloud Nothings had a cool instrumental on it. And during Covid lockdown I got really into Slow Pulp like a lot of people. They had that real goofy track at the end of “Moveys”. That was probably the most direct inspiration for doing the elevators since ours tend to be a little goofier sounding. There isn’t really any grand theory behind them other than not taking ourselves too seriously and offering the listener a moment’s peace from our “normal” songs. The elevator name scheme was originally meant like “elevator music”, i.e. muzak, hold music, etc. Though most of our elevator tracks don’t really sound like muzak. And I’m not sure I’ve ever actually heard music in a real elevator, which is a shame. Another interpretation of our elevators is that they help move you between points in the album. I do like making them because they feel lower stakes to me. A collection of them would be fun.
AP: We really like the idea of dual title tracks, what prompted the writing of them?
Patrick: I had the idea to call an album “Loud Ass Barking Dogs” a while ago. I liked how visceral the image is but how there’s room to explore what’s behind it as well. Dogs bark for all kinds of reasons. It can be chaotic, playful, aggressive, insecure, lonesome, etc. I knew I wanted to write a title track and the first one that came out was the quiet one where I went with the image of the dogs barking outside at night. In any movie where someone is sneaking around at night, they’ll always put a barking dog sound effect in there. That dog off in the distance that makes them freeze for a second. And I love that. It’s a perfect night time sound. Maybe annoying if you’re trying to sleep. But I got to thinking about maybe the dog just wants to come inside and the song went from there. But I thought that image also had so much potential on the louder, more chaotic side too so I decided to write another one. It felt like a waste to just use it once, especially if that was the album title. They share a few lines but are 95% different songs. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen that done before, which I also liked. But I’m sure someone must have. I would love to find some other examples if anyone knows any.
AP: Being Texans relocated to the East Coast, what do you make of the supposed “indie twang” boom, and do you feel a kinship with bands of that ilk?
Patrick: Well first I do have to give props to Noah for being our only Massachusetts native. But Hannah and I are absolutely transplants, as you mentioned. We’ve been up here for over 10 years now, so we’re pretty deep into New England at this point and very happy to be here. Hannah comes from south Georgia originally and I actually grew up outside of Atlanta. We did live in Texas for a couple years before coming to Boston though. I can’t deny that there’s been a resurgence of interest in twangy or country type sounds in indie rock these last several years. I don’t think I have any special claim to it by being from Georgia or Texas. Neither Hannah nor I grew up on a farm or in a particularly “country” way. My claim to it is more my dad played country, bluegrass, blues, folk, etc. in the car throughout my childhood so it felt natural to try and bring some of those sounds in with this project. But I think anyone can play it that likes it.
I think a ton of great music has come out of the modern bands working in the indie rock + country lane. And we’re in that lane for sure. Like any trend, there are annoying aspects of it too. Like how a lot of well meaning people will tell us we sound like MJ Lenderman. Even if they mean it as a compliment, which I appreciate, sometimes it feels like people want to flatten everything down because there’s a bit of twang instead of listening more closely.
Do I feel a sense of kinship? Not necessarily with any of the stars in our genre that I’ve never met. If I think back to starting the band, I don’t think I was reacting to the trend or trying to get on it. Perhaps subconsciously. I do feel a sense of camaraderie with folks that we’ve met or know locally who are sort of kindred spirits or who appreciate that type of music. Like getting to know Pat King and talking shop with them on pedal steel, that sort of thing.
Hannah: Yeah, I grew up in South Georgia, so was around lots of farms and kids who lived on farms, but my family wasn’t in that world. Funnily enough, I now have a job where I sometimes have to drive a tractor. Only occasionally, though. Maybe we should write a tractor song.
AP: What’s next for hey i’m outside?
Patrick: Trying to spread the word about this album. We decided not to do any singles and release it all at once. So now we have to speak on it for a bit so hopefully some people will find it and check it out. We need to hit the road too but I haven’t booked anything yet. It can be a slog booking underground tours. It’s worth it in the end, but it’s so much work. I need to buckle down and make it happen. We’ll keep writing too, I’m sure we’ve got at least one more record in us. And hopefully more than that.
Hannah: Yeah we’re thinking we’ll do “singles” sort of after the fact. Highlighting and speaking about specific songs and giving them the single treatment, just with the album already out. It felt better to do it that way for some reason, just trying something different. Watch out for a music video very soon.
Noah: Yeah, at least one music video coming real soon and hopefully more to follow. We’re taking the DIY approach with those as well which has been fun.
Loud Ass Barking Dogs is out now digitally, you can pre-order a tape right here.