Band

In the end, everyone’s a dancer. Even the ones who play.

Kari Riihimäki guitar

Originating from the West coast of Finland, Doggtown was founded in 2003.

We were actually in the studio in the middle of recording what would eventually become ‘November Road’. At that time I was totally annoyed with everything constantly halting somewhere halfway. So, I had written enough songs and I had a band and I had decided I wanted to record those songs. The only thing we were still missing was a singer. Timo [who would also record and mix Re:construction] was recording us and it was he who told me about Tumppi.

Tumppi Niemelä vocals

Having moved to Turku I got to know a few musicians, Jonne [who plays keyboards on Re:construction] and Timo among them. It was in 2004 Timo told me that a guitarist named Kari was looking for a singer for a band he was recording with and that Timo had given him my number and told him to give me a call. The first time he called me we talked for nearly an hour on the phone, basically comparing our favourite artists and influences. Soon enough we both realized we shared the same ideas on what this band might be like. It had been Timo who had told me this band he was recording was called Doggtown.

Juha Paananen bass

The band’s first full—length album November Road (Bluelight Records) was released in 2005.

Don’t get me wrong, not ‘just’ jamming, it’s more like... Obviously, you can’t just go in the studio to make your first album, set the tape rolling and ‘see what happens’. All the songs were written and more or less arranged, but still — coming from different directions and with different influences and going in the studio for the first time together — we didn’t have any strictly defined goals in our minds, production wise. — Sure, in retrospect it would be nice to say that ‘November Road’ captured the essence of the band as it was then but when I’m listening to ‘Re:construction’ [pauses]...it sounds like our first album captured a band still in motion. I’m not saying that the first album isn’t that good or even that it’s different from ‘Re:construction’ — though it definitely is. I’m just saying it’s only now you can hear the first album in the right perspective: that is, where we were headed eventually.

Despite receiving airplay and a few good reviews with November Road, everyone in the band felt they needed to venture outside the familiar terrain and rather than just contenting themselves with refining or duplicating their sound for their forthcoming second album, they went on to write songs with a whole new approach in mind. Re:construction (Samsara Records) is a clear move towards a more aggressive and more modern direction, yet it still maintains the soulful atmosphere of the first album. But even if the songs on Re:construction are for the most part shorter and arranged tighter than on November Road, it is on Re:construction the band has also for the first time experimented with manipulating their overall sound outside the usual realms of the studio.

Petri Rinne drums

We wanted it to be obvious right from the rolling intro and the chorus of ‘Twisting My Faith’ that Re:construction is aimed to be a more song oriented album and a clear departure from its predecessor. One of the first three songs — either ‘Twisting My Faith’, ‘Always Underdog’ or ‘Reconstruction Of Destruction’— will also be the first single release from the album. The album begins purposely intensively and it isn’t until ‘Cardamon Hills’ that the pace slows down. One thing should be stressed here: Re:construction is intended to be positive and I think that ‘Cardamon Hills’ gets that point across perfectly. And even with its duration of over eight minutes and different parts reminiscent of the players’ various influences from Rage Against The Machine and Hendrix all the way to Radiohead... that song was never intentionally meant to be complex... the version you hear on the album is just the way it turned out in the end.

Although a big part of the band’s sound can be attributed to its members´ influences and abilities, it’s not just simply the sum of its parts: the most important element to the Doggtown sound is the chemistry and interplay between the players, stemming from years of playing together as a band. What you get is a blend of hard hitting alternative rock and soulful performances by an ambitious band that has found its own true voice. Or should one say beginning to find its voice, as the band is already planning its third album.

Even if the album is guitar driven, it wasn’t about me doing a solo for the sake of doing it if the song didn’t seem to need it. There’s a difference in hearing something you could do and something you should do. My original plan was to attack the outro solo of ‘Brave’ with a heavily distorted sound — you know, something in the likes of ‘Comfortably Numb’. I was just improvising, kind of contemplating the mood and... I know it sounds like a cliché, but honestly, I didn’t even know the tape was rolling. In the end, it sounded so natural and to the point that we decided to leave it that way. So basically what you hear in the end of Re:construction is me trying to truly feel what we’ve been playing there, not trying to come up with something premeditated. “Brave new blues”, that is. Be it blues in the traditional sense or not — and most likely it’s not — in a way, it’s more than fitting.