Houndmouth are set to perform in New Zealand at the Auckland City Limits music festival.
Houndmouth are set to perform in New Zealand at the Auckland City Limits music festival.
Houndmouth just got some news. TimeOut has turned up to the band's Austin City Limits dressing room for a chat.
They do appear mystified why some guy from New Zealand is interviewing them ... until TimeOut asks them if they know they're going to New Zealand next year for offshootfestival Auckland City Limits?
Apparently not and after hearing the news, bassist Zak Appleby and drummer Shane Cody are all grins. That's awesome. Singer-keyboardist Katie Toupin, who arrives a bit later, did know. She thinks it's awesome too.
American band Houndmouth.
Meanwhile, singer-guitarist Matt Myers remains outside fiddling with his guitar before their mid-afternoon set.
They are on the stage nearby after rising rapper Vince Staples. But the short distance between his booming beats and the backstage portacom makes polite conversation and recorded interviews a little tricky.
What's crystal clear later is that live, Houndmouth are as terrific as their sophomore album Little Neon Limelight from earlier this year.
Their mix of country, rock'n'roll, big harmonies, wry lyrics and melancholy tunes make them not just another Americana band - at times they remind of an updated loose-limbed take on the likes of the 90s critical favourites the Jayhawks.
They've had plenty of comparisons to Americana founding fathers, The Band, too.
Houndmouth hail from Indiana, right on the North and South border with Kentucky, a divide that may or may not affect how they sound.
Says Toupin: It's interesting because when we got to Europe - we're not a country band; in the North we might be called a country band, but in the South we are not a country band - it's super-different how we are perceived depending on where we go."
All four grew up in and around the city of New Albany, with Toupin and Myers starting out as an acoustic duo before hooking up with bar band stalwarts Appleby and Cody to form a quartet who all write and sing.
Houndmouth performs on stage during the Austin City Limits music festival.
And the band's live exuberance as they swing between songs like the rockabilly romp of 15 Years, to heartfelt ballads For No One and Gasoline to the goofy Motown swing of Say It proves utterly infectious.
It's easy to see why Geoff Travis of veteran British independent label Rough Trade signed them immediately after seeing them play at Austin's SXSW Festival a few years ago - Houndmouth might be Americana, but they rise way above the genre.
