The Beardogz come ‘Home For The Holidays’ at Chan’s
We all know the holidays involve gift giving and seeing loved ones, but this time of year also has people coming back home. Someone who lives in another state or even another country sometimes returns to their hometown to spend time with friends and family during this special season. The same goes for musicians and bands with the main difference being that they’re probably going to play a gig at a local venue in the city or town where they honed their artistic talents. This is what Woonsocket indie rock act The Beardogz are going to be doing when they come back to Chan’s on 267 Main Street for their third edition of “Home For The Holidays” on December 26. The show starts at 7pm with the local band playing all night long.
I had a chat with co-guitarist and co-vocalist Spencer Soucy ahead of the gig about the band’s most recent EP they put out a year ago, performing covers and originals, the opportunities the band has gotten and what people can expect to see this Sunday night.
Rob Duguay: Around a year ago, The Beardogz released their most recent EP Living Room Yellow. To reflect, has your view of the record changed at all and what role does it have in terms of the band’s growth?
Spencer Soucy: It was definitely kind of a snapshot in time. I was living in Denmark with my girlfriend for about three months at a time and periodically I had to come back to the United States because of visa stuff. The EP is a snapshot of what I was feeling at the time so it’s pretty nostalgic to listen to the songs now. Even though it’s not that long ago, my life has kind of changed since then. I’m still with my girlfriend but I have a day
job now and I’m not traveling so much anymore, but I think the music style kind of has me emulating the things we tried out in that EP with a little bit more electric guitar and more elaborate horns.
RD: What was the experience like making the music video for the title track off of the record? I know it was all shot in different places so were you all isolated while it was going on?
SS: I think we’ve always kind of talked about what we should do for a music video but we’ve never gotten around to it for different songs from different albums. COVID-19 gave us a lot of time on our hands and I was talking to our bassist’s brother Pat Rowe who does our mixing and stuff and he also does some video editing. He told us that we could all stay in place and film some little fun things and some goofy stuff while simply being ourselves. He then edited it all together to make it look cool, so we did it with no timeframe while just getting some footage of us doing whatever. Everyone knows what the vibe of the song is, which is celebratory and happy while looking forward to the future.
It was fun and it wasn’t stressful at all. We didn’t write a script or anything, I kind of told everybody to do what they wanted to do so it was enjoyable.
RD: Outside of The Beardogz, you also play in the cover trio The Good Living Band. What are your thoughts on original music versus cover songs? Do you believe they have a mutual coexistence? Do you think there are places that are better geared towards covers than originals? What are your thoughts on this dynamic?
SS: I was actually just talking about this with some coworkers, they were asking me some similar questions. I definitely get hired more often to play cover songs but I love playing them and I think they really inspire the songs that I write. We play a lot of Van Morrisson and ‘60s and ‘70s folky rock stuff along with some music from the ‘80s and ‘90s. We like to gauge our audience before we start performing to see how people react, they’re paying attention and stuff like that. A lot of the time during a covers gig I’ll try out original songs just like how during an original gig we’ll throw in a cover song.
For example, during the show at Chan’s coming up we’re going to be playing a Beatles song. It can be fun to give people something familiar to listen to if they haven’t heard us before or if they recognize all the songs I’m playing during a cover gig, sometimes they’ll appreciate an original song here and there. It’s good to mix them up.
RD: Absolutely, I totally agree. The Beardogz first got noticed around Rhode Island due to making it to the finals of the 2017 WBRU Rock Hunt. What do you think has changed the most with the band since that time?
SS: Since then, I would say just the opportunities we’ve gotten have changed a lot. We got to open for LeAnn Rimes at The Stadium Theatre after we sent in a little video and she decided that we would be a good fit for the opening slot, which was pretty cool. We got to play a sold out show there and it was awesome. We also got to open for Darwin Deez at a house show, he’s a very reputable indie rock musician and he tweeted about looking for an opener for the gig while touring the East Coast. A friend of ours reached out and that’s how that happened.
I’m also proud that we’ve stuck together for this long, we’re all sticking with it and not giving up. They say bands usually break up after a few weeks or months so I’m glad that hasn’t happened with us.
RD: Yeah, local bands sometimes don’t last long so it’s nice that you guys are still together over these past few years. What can folks expect from The Beardogz homecoming show at Chan’s? You mentioned that you have a Beatles cover planned but is there anything else in store?
SS: Not last year, but the past two years before that both shows were sold out so you can expect a lot of energy. We’re thinking about possibly re-releasing our first EP and putting it out on Spotify, I know it’s currently only available on Bandcamp so that might be something to look forward to for some of our older fans. Our drummer Jonathan [Blanchette] lives in Detroit now so he’s going to be back in town, we don’t get to play a lot of shows with him and he’s an amazing drummer. We’re really looking forward to playing together again and he puts on quite the ridiculous drum solo during these holiday shows. Also, just being at Chan’s is pretty special, it’s a venue where so many legends have played and that brings a unique vibe to these shows we do there.