Sean Cooney

But I just love it so much.

And I think writing those kind of more meaty songs about real people led me to, like, an intensity of research that I had to do to sort of do justice to...

people's stories and people's lives and so I've just kind of maintained that thing really of you know do as much research as I possibly can around a subject and so this is scraping the surface really of what I'd like to do if I had more time with dog research.

It was finding the folk clubs when I was a teenager with Michael and David and the young ones that really led me to finding my voice really because here was a

a community of people who got together.

And it didn't matter if you had a big voice or a little voice, if you could sing in tune or not, if you had a song or a story or something to share that meant something to you.

it was respected, and I just love that.

I still do today.

I suddenly found songs and culture related to the landscape that was around me, and I realised that you could sing a song in your own accent without an instrument, telling a story about something that meant something to you or other people, and that was just life-changing.

I left university, I did a bit of travelling, and I came to live with my mum and dad right by the sea in the old part of Hartlepool, the headlands.

And we started a folk club there in about 2007.

And I'd meet characters in the pubs.

I'd meet fishermen who told me amazing stories.

So that's what I started to do.

I started to write songs about the history of Hartlepool and Teesside.

And then realised a few years down the line that, well, why am I writing about these things that have happened?

The people who were writing the good songs 200 years ago were writing the songs of the times they were living in, the things that meant something to them.

And so that became a...

A bit of a change of direction really to start writing about things that were important to me in the 21st century and incredible stories of human resilience and inspiration that were occurring around the world that kind of led to this.

find myself in a privileged position where where people now approach approach us as a band the young ones and me individually to kind of turn their own stories into songs which is which is a real beautiful privilege so what what do you think connects a lot of these stories of dogs that you found are there common themes that you're finding as you write in some of these new songs