Unsigned band Wolverhampton Runaway Hounds talk ahead of city gig

They may have been around the scene for a few years under different guises, but the Wolverhampton boys only officially formed last September after finding drummer Callum Ford on social media quite accidentally.

Since then, guitar-wielding twins Owen and Kent Stavenuiter, from Penn, Bushbury boy Callum and Pennfields-born bassist Dan Glover have been pretty busy. They’re already on single number two – Sophie – released last month following on from last year’s Rattlesnake. The foursome are hoping it will act as a springboard for more local and national interest.

“We’re hoping the release of Sophie will lead more people to listen to and enjoy our music and draw awareness to Wolverhampton’s growing music scene,” says Owen. “We’ve had a lot of support so far for it; from our listeners and music blogs, so we’re really happy with the progress its making.”

And his twin Kent adds: “So I came up with this really exciting riff that I thought was pretty catchy and fun to play – that element has stayed through the whole process. It was quite straightforward to figure out chords from that, but the structure of the song took a lot of time. It took a good six months to really refine the track.”

Its predecessor Rattlesnake managed to attract more than 2,000 listens via music sharing platform Spotify in just its first few months of release – not a bad start for the Black Country teen.

“Rattlesnake was really well received,” Owen adds. “It was given airplay three times on BBC WM Introducing and also landed us an interview with them. It also gained more than 2,000 Spotify listens which we were really happy about since it was our debut single.

“It’s definitely built our following online and given us more recognition from promoters across the country. I think the release also created a great atmosphere at our gigs since the crowd know the tune and can sing along, which encourages new audiences to look us up and support us.

“The main thing really though is that the reception has massively encouraged us to keep at it and improve ourselves as a band, which is a wonderful thing in itself.”

And live-wise it has also been a busy time ever since the group were ‘thrown in the deep end’ and had to debut in front of a nerve-wracking 400 people at one of their home city’s Wolftown events.

“It was quite, daunting,” says Owen, “especially since we’d never played to a crowd before – let alone one that big. But the crowd were absolutely incredible.”

Kent adds: “We’ve mostly played in Wolverhampton, building ourselves up locally and getting experience, but we’ve also played twice in Birmingham and recently played in London so we’re definitely starting to branch out to different cities. It’s also great to see some of the crowd singing along to our songs now, especially since the release of our first track Rattlesnake.”

And they don’t want the fun to finish there. They are already looking at making 2018 the year of the Runaway Hounds, but the studio may be more their friend than the stage in the near future.

“We have an upcoming headline gig at Newhampton Arts Centre on March 29 which is looking to be a big one,” Owen enthuses. “Then we have no summer gigs scheduled at the moment but we’re definitely hoping to get some in between writing more material.”

So for now then, the concentration is on getting material down on record rather than through a stage amp.

“We’re really excited to be going back into the studio in June to record another two tracks so we’re putting a lot of time into making sure they’re as ready as they can be for that,” Owen adds.

“The main thing is to keep improving. We rehearse as often as we can to ensure that our sound is tight but we’re constantly looking ahead and seeing how we can get better. I also want to experiment a lot more with different approaches to songwriting.

“Self-critique is really important and the better we get, hopefully the more support we can get and the more people listening to something we’ve put a lot of time and passion into. Our main focus is building our local following as there are still a lot of people around here that haven’t heard us. But we recently travelled out to London to play a set which was a really great experience.

“At the moment we’re just focusing on releasing singles. But an album is definitely something we’d like to put together eventually. We’re really enjoying ourselves with the gigs too so a bigger project like that could come later down the line.”

Owen and Callum are currently away studying at university; Callum’s studying computer science and music technology at Keele University, while Owen’s working on a music degree at The University of Surrey.

But Owen insists: “It’s great to see that despite the fact me and Callum are at uni it hasn’t gotten in the way of the band so we can keep getting bigger and better.”

So recording singles, booking gigs and looking at laying down an album are all big dreams for this exciting group of youngsters this year. With so much to look forward to, the Hounds could be barking up a lot of trees in 2018.

l For more information on the band and their gig at Newhampton Arts Centre on March 29 follow them on Facebook and Twitter, both @RunawayHounds.

Leigh Sanders