Police Dog Hogan play Shoreham between contrasting albums

Formed in 2009, the band are a regular fixture on the UK festival circuit, having played Glastonbury, Cornbury, Cropredy, Latitude, Beautiful Days and the Sidmouth Folk Festival in recent years.

Last October they brought out the album Lightning Strike; now they are working towards the release of a very different kind of album in April next year.

James Studholme, guitar and vocals, said: “Last year we finished the album that we were working on and then we had an accidental record that we released. We went to a place in Devon with the intention of recording three songs and we were persuaded by the man that ran it to record onto his two-inch tape machine. We didn't think it through. If you record on tape then you can't change it. What you record is what you record and so by 11am on the first day we had already recorded the three songs we wanted to do. So we just thought we'd keep on recording and did a lot more songs, mostly outliers from the catalogue and there are also two or three new songs. And so we released it as Lightning Strike. It was literally a lightning strike that we put it together. We left in little bits of chat and it just feels live. There were no overdubs. We had a few backing vocals but there are all the mistakes on there in all their glory. We were in despair at the end of the first day thinking it was all mistakes but the next day after a refreshing night’s sleep we didn't hear them and we just carried on. The record has got a real spirit to it and it's a bit like our mission as a band, the way we write and record and the way we make new music. It never occurred to me when we first started that people would want to listen to us but that's what you get with Lightning Strike. It is really like a live album and I think that's what's embedded in the album.”

Now they are working towards the release of the new album The Light At The Top Of The Stairs: “It has been quite nice to have this interregnum with the record made in the middle of it and then we came back to what we had already recorded. We loved the vast majority of it and then we did some more songs and we're really happy with it now. It's going to be released in April next year.”

As for the title, it is a metaphor, as James explains: “It is about childhood. The landing light is the light that gets left on overnight to make you feel safe when you're a child, and then when you come in the landing light is the light that is left on for you. But it also speaks to eternity.

“I think it is the most emotional record that we have made. Unashamedly. There's one song on there called One Last Trip Around The Moon which is about the fiddle player’s dad and my dad. It's about how when someone is dying they almost need to be given permission to go. That song speaks to that. It is about saying ‘Yes, we are going to be alright.’ The record is also pretty honest about who we are and about the things that we have experienced. Things like One Last Trip are very powerful for some of our audiences.

“As a band we tend to ricochet between being funny and being very, very poignant, very, very heartfelt and very emotionally powerful. Lightning Strike was the humorous end of our canon but I would say that this is much more emotional, and it feels like a really coherent record.”