Conversations with Phantom Hound

Today we’d like to introduce you to Phantom Hound. 

Hello Phantom Hound, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
We got started in 2013 under the name Hound and got off to a rough start looking back. We wrote some killer songs, had some sweet shows, and finished recording about 80% of a demo. As most things do when they go up though, the original lineup went down separate ways and Jake Navarra (guitar & vocals) would, unfortunately, end up getting in a motorcycle accident. After this, the demo was shelved and Jake stepped back to focus on health and work. Eventually, though he found his way back to music and called up original bass player & recording engineer Keith Hernandez to finish what became 2016’s “The Ether Ep”. From there the search for a new lineup began and after some great friends came and went the lineup came together early 2018 with Jack Stiles (drums & backing vocals) and Stephen Rogers (Bass & Synth). We changed the name to Phantom Hound around that time. The three us pretty much gigged our way into the studio spring of 2019 with producer Chris Huges (Burn the Insects, Kook, Lazer Beam). Those sessions yielded our debut album “Mountain Pass” which we self-released under “Devil Blues Records” on March 28, 2020. Due to the pandemic, however, we had to cancel our support tour with Hippie Death Cult in the pacific northwest which was a huge bummer at the time. None of us had ever been on the road before so it was a huge bummer at the time on top of not realizing what the rest of 2020 had in store for everybody. But like most bands though we just shifted gears and focused on writing new material. We really bonded over a lot of music during quarantine. The pandemic definitely made it very challenging for us to gather and rehearse consistently but it also gave us time to conceptualize more of where the sound of the band was going. During quarantine, we added synthesizer and a lot of backing vocals to the mix and when summer of 2021 finally rolled around, we decided to team up with our good friends in Three Towers and the two of us bands hit the road on what we dubbed the Captivity Tour for later that fall. We hit 4 states in two weeks and had no fires, no smoke, no theft, no breakdowns., and no problems. We had an absolute blast bringing music back out to people. For a lot of folks, it seemed to be their first live concert of any kind since before the pandemic. Now were back to a local scene here in the bay area where mask mandates have dissipated and live bands are getting like normally again. We can have shows and gather with friends and the energy is amazing. Were currently writing the 2nd half of our new record and plan on getting back into the studio as soon as were ready. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
We survived a house fire once. That was pretty gnarly. We took a trip out to Truckee, Ca to film a music video for our song “The Northern Face” in October 2019. Truckee if you’ve never been is way up there in the Sierra mountains and we had rented this house to stay nearby and hang for the weekend while we filmed. 13 of us total who all chipped in to make a weekend of it with us. Making the video during our Friday in Sunday out timeframe went down great and we had a blast as a team. Over the weekend though we noticed our rental kept having various electrical issues. The heater didn’t work on night 1, The tv wall lost power end of day 2. So, you know then we did the process and called the company who sent the guy and said nothing’s wrong. We stay up and celebrate our hard work and everybody passes out. Day 3 @3:30 am all the smoke alarms blare like a symphony of the worst kind. Smokes filling the entire house and billowing out of the fireplace like a portal to Mordor. For a second it was hard to process how bad it was. The house filled up within minutes. and started to settle on the floor and hide your feet from your eyes. We used a fire extinguisher which did nothing. Ran over to the neighbors and borrowed theirs which also did nothing. Then we had to just evacuate the house and call the fire department. It was really hard to process how quickly we all had to get out of there. Within 30 minutes we had grabbed everything we could along with all our gear and personal items and got moved down the street to another rental to sleep it off. 

What had happened was the gas fireplace was on a timer and somehow shorted out due to the same electrical issues prior in the weekend. It sparked a fire within the chimney and caught the house on fire from the inside out shooting smoke back into the house. We included a clip of the fire it in the music video at the end to kinda remember how crazy that night was. With all the fires we get here in California these days wildfires kind of feel like a new type of boogieman. We thought for sure the house was gonna go up in flames and trigger a massive forest fire. The stress that night was real but the fire department showed up and just ripped that fireplace out and hurled it out onto the driveway like some Spartan victory blow. It was a really satisfying victory moment for us all. After about two hours of this entire ordeal, we all finally find our ways into the new loaner house a block away and sit down together in silence for the first time. Only thing our director Mikey Monti grabbed was a beer. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Phantom Hound is a hardworking band. Everybody has day careers and we each put in at around 50 hours a week at work. That’s made us all great at coordinating and communicating our goals and seeing to it they get done. Seems it’s also made us pretty dependable to plan and book with. I think that’s something were all really proud of and known for. Being in a band is kind of like being in the circus, it takes a team to raise the tent and put on the show. Between the three of us though we work in sales, audio engineering, and stevedoring within the Port of Oakland. 

How do you define success?
Success should be defined by the level of joy a passion or hobby of any kind brings someone. Sure, money always helps but when you’re having a good time with your friends and loving your instrument and the pursuit of success, I think the success just starts to appear in the form of happiness and everything stems together from there. Put good energy out and good energy will return to you. 

Pricing:

• Mountain Pass LP – $20

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.phantomhound.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phantomhoundband/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phantomhound/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYljjeMSI24Y6cl9zoPnlsQ
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/phantomhound
• Other: https://phantomhound.bandcamp.com/releases

Image Credits
Russ Wright
Molly Stetson
Three Towers