Moondoggy launches sophomore album

Moondoggy is set to release its second album this Friday, the culmination of the local band’s commitment to creating and recording music over the past year while building careers.

Lead vocalist Jake Matanowitsch admits that he would love to focus on music full-time but for now is balancing the creative process and a growing audience with the responsibilities of adulthood.

Moondoggy will be opening for a sold-out My Son the Hurricane show in Duntroon, part of Clearview’s Small Halls Festival line-up, on Sept. 27.

The band formed while its original members were attending Collingwood Collegiate Institute, where Matanowitsch said he is lucky to have met some friends who shared an interest in music; Jonny Contini, on lead guitar, Nick Wyant on bass, and Jack Courtemanche on drums.

Matanowitsch said he had started making music on his own in Grade 9 when he got his first laptop and discovered Garage Band.

“It was all really bad and really rough but it was a learning curve that I found really fun,” he said.

Towards the end of high school Moondoggy was playing house parties and local gigs in Collingwood while at the same time self-recording their first tracks. In 2018, they released their first single, Sweet to Me.

While at university they would get together when they could and work on songs but didn’t perform much. When the pandemic started they shared recordings to collaborate on until they could get on stage once more.

Their first gig back, members of Moondoggy were joined by Matanowitsch’s brother Ben on saxophone. “That was super fun, we loved having the sax so he immediately became a member of the band,” said Matanowitsch.

The siblings grew up in Nottawa and Collingwood and Matanowitsch says his older brother got him his first guitar.

“He’s definitely on paper a more talented musician than I, so it’s great to have somebody to bounce ideas off as well as having an automatic friend that you get from being brothers and close in age,” said Matanowitsch of his brother, who also plays with his own band Blue Sienna.

Eventually two original members stepped away from the band, and Victor Carrillo replaced the drummer.

“It really felt like the band started in 2021, when we started playing club shows in Toronto,” said Matanowitsch. Their first show was at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, which Matanowitsch describes as scary, exciting and humbling.

Matanowitsch said the band played as many gigs as they could and their fanbase grew. They now have 37,500 monthly listeners on Spotify (and growing by the day), where people can hear their first album Mad and Noisy, so named because Matanowitsch spent a lot of time at the Dunedin home of his girlfriend Eve Clements, while “wandering around the rivers and the hills and writing most of the songs there.”