Northeast England’s Gate Hound didn’t form so much as accumulate — which is funny, given that the whole point of the project was to never wait on anyone.
The band belongs to Samuel Morley, who at the end of 2025 left a previous band and needed somewhere to put hardcore riffs that didn’t fit anywhere else. So he made somewhere. “I based Gate Hound on an ethos of efficiency, execution, and no excess,” he says.
“Actions speak the loudest.” Part of it was frustration — with people who say they’ll do things and don’t, who wait for someone else to get it done, then claim it. Gate Hound was built as the antithesis of that.
The first name was Cerberus, in the literal sense of an entity guarding its own territory, but he landed on Gate Hound. Less cliché. The core idea stayed: this thing operates like a factory, outputs music, rules its own domain.
Early demos were entirely solo — guitar, bass, vocals, programmed drums, all Morley. They weren’t where he wanted them, but with a release date already forming in his head, he kept moving.
Jack Hobson, a drummer he’d been working with separately in Burial Lines (a project doing quiet groundwork before going live this year), came in and elevated the tracks considerably. Hobson co-wrote the drum parts; Morley handled guitars and bass.
Vocals were the next hurdle. Morley worked out pretty quickly he didn’t want to do them himself — “number one I don’t enjoy doing it, and number two it’s objectively bad” — so he put out the call.
Liam Higgins replied, came round to record, brought his bass guitars, and it turned out he was more of a bassist than a lead vocalist. Morley clocked it fast: “by accident or fate we’d acquired a bassist and from that first interaction, I knew the right guy was involved.”
Liam recommended the vocalist from his other band; the guy had the chops but wanted to reshape too much of what Gate Hound stood for. Morley let him go. Then, mid-February, Jim MacVeigh showed up — recently moved to the Northeast, had been in bands, immediately got the brief. Morley and MacVeigh ended up co-writing the lyrics together. “Instantly bang on, perfect fit.”
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
That lineup — Morley on guitar, bass and backing vocals, Hobson on drums, MacVeigh up front — is what’s on “Keeper,” the debut single that’s already landed a spot on a No Echo playlist.
The mix and master? Morley taught himself via YouTube tutorials, bought a pair of monitors he’d been saving for, and knocked it out on GarageBand.
“To anyone who does mixing and mastering professionally, that probably sounds like a nightmare,” he says. Artwork is his too.
The sound is dirty and metallic in a way that makes imagining a mosh to these tracks feel almost unsettling. Brutal, plainly put.
“Keeper” is a two-tracker. The second song has been in Morley’s back pocket for a while — he used to play it as a live interlude in his previous band — and it hints at more range than straight hardcore.
There’s already an EP written, live rehearsals are underway, and a second EP has already come up in conversation.
Gate Hound operates with a plain flat mask in the mix, representing the idea that the band isn’t about the specific people inside it. The rotating lineup concept is built in from the start, out of necessity more than mystique.
“Gate Hound isn’t about the people involved,” Morley explains. “It’s its own environment. Things will get done no matter who does it.”
Wyświetl ten post na Instagramie
