ACRN.COM

By Julia Weber, Features Editor

[Photo courtesy of Abby Brandewiede]

Q&A with Bloodhounds

Bloodhounds are a musical trio hailing from Cleveland, Ohio consisting of Mae Brando on the drums, Massimo Dipierro on the bass and Grant Santoscoy on the guitar and vocals. After their performance at ACRN’s annual Battle of the Bands, the band sat down with me to discuss their musical style, their performance and their first impression of the Athens live music scene.

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

Julia: You guys played a great show tonight. Can you tell me how that went for you?

Grant: Really fantastic. So much energy here. Maybe the most amount of people I’ve seen packed into a show like this. Awesome.

Massimo: I’ve never had a mosh pit at a show. 

Grant: First mosh pit.

Julia: Awesome! That’s what we like to hear. For people who haven’t heard your music, can you give a short rundown of what listeners would expect?

Grant: Some of our main influences are Modest Mouse, Sonic Youth, Alex G.

Mae: Slowdive.

Grant: Slowdive, yeah. … Citizen. We do a little bit of folk stuff, a lot of post-hardcore influence sometimes, indie rock.

Julia: Nice. I saw that you guys have some stuff on Spotify that’s relatively new. Can you tell me about that?

Grant: Yeah, we had an album come out in June. It’s our first full-length. Before that, we had an EP in 2019 back before (Mas and Mae) were in the band…

Mae: (The new album was produced) with Flowerpot Records. Local DIY in Berea and they’re really good at mixing local bands. Really great.

Julia: That’s awesome. Can you tell me a little bit about the evolution of Bloodhounds?

Grant: I was on electric guitar and my friend Owen was on cajón and I just played a couple bars, like dirty punk bars. It was very low, very chill. I didn’t do any screaming, I don’t think I used distortion. … We got Massimo and Mae over COVID. We worked really hard and we started crafting a sound that we all collaborated on.

Julia: Sweet. That’s awesome. What do you think of the other bands tonight? Did you get to see any of them?

Grant: We got here so late. We came in as the last band was playing, though, and they were really good. They have incredible guitar tone, so many instruments. I really liked it.

Julia: Yeah. I think it was Meat and Cheese Collective, right?

Grant: Yeah, they were really good.

Julia: They’re the only band I had seen before tonight.

Grant: I asked them, ‘have you played outside of Athens before?’ and they were, like, ‘no.’ I was very surprised.

Julia: Well, that’s everything I had for you guys. Is there anything that I haven’t asked about that I should be asking about?

Grant: We’re recording new stuff. It’ll be out maybe in December. Maybe. We’re playing a lot, whenever we can.

Julia: Keep up the good work. You put on a great show.