Police Dog Hogan is a 7-piece urban bluegrass outfit formed in stages over the course of a year. The nucleus of the present group first performed together in early 2009, founded on strict principles based on the simplicity of the instrumental line-up: guitar, fiddle and mandolin. The later addition of banjo, bass and drums badly undermined these core principles, but the resulting sound was worth the betrayal.

Some time that summer the fiddle player told an amusing story (although really, you had to be there) about a police dog biting someone, and Police Dog Hogan became the first band in history to be named in honour of a serving canine officer.

In a sense, however, Police Dog Hogan have been around for much longer: most of the members have been in one band or another, on and off, since the 1980s, and James, Pete, Ed, and Adam were in a band together back in the mid-90s. All their songs are informed by experience, because Police Dog Hogan are, to a man, old enough to be your Dad.

The group perform original material, written individually and together (four of them are also professional writers), occasionally reaching into their ample collective back catalogue for an old song to put through the urban bluegrass mill. They’ve played at the Maverick festival in Suffolk, the Port Eliot Festival in Cornwall and in various venues in and around London. Police Dog Hogan released a ‘triple A-side’ CD, Fuzzy Folk Riot, in 2009, and their first album, Police Dog Hogan, in late 2010.

Police Dog Hogan are:

James Studholme – lead vocals, guitar

Pete Robinson – vocals, lead guitar, dobro

Eddie Bishop – violin, vocals

Tim Dowling – banjo, vocals

Tim Jepson – mandolin, vocals

Adam Bennette – bass

Michael Giri – drums, vocals

Regular onstage guests include Lucy Bailley on cello, Bill Amberg on the jaw harp and once (memorably) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on tambourine.