Sleeping Dog is an alternative metal band from Los Angeles, California. On June 20 their third  album “Portal” will be released and, even if they have experimented and combined new elements, they stays true to Sleeping Dog sound.
We had the opportunity to interview with Mat and get to know better the band and their music.

-Hey Mat, welcome to The Offering! Would you mind to introduce the band and give us some biographical hints?
Hi this is Mat, frontman of SD, speaking on behalf of Sleeping Dog.
We are a band from Los Angeles, California that was formed in 2012. We have two full length releases “Otis Empire” (2015) and “My Throneless Seeking” (2018).
Our third full length release “Portal” releases 6/20/20.

-What did you bring to choose “Sleeping Dog” as band name?
The quote “It is nought good a sleeping hound to wake ” originates from Geoffrey Chaucer in his poem, Troilus and Criseyde (1320). However I discovered this quote in a different form from William Shakespeare’s play, King Henry IV, Part II. The quote says “let sleeping dogs lie” which basically means to not cause problems.
A sleeping dog is in peace and to wake the dog will cause chaos and uproar. The dog will bark endlessly. Letting the dog sleep will grant you peace.
This name was chosen to hold the meaning true to the band. We value the peace in the band and do not bring any unnecessary problems into the fold. Sleeping Dog stays true to the music and speaks only the truth.

-Your new album is going to be released this month, what can you tell about its genesis and lyrics? And what are the main differences compared with your previous works “My Throneless Seeking” and “Otis Empire”?
Portal’s writing process started around late 2018. The album cover of an astronaut resonates with the story I was trying to tell. Briefly, the story is about an astronaut who leaves everything behind to escape in another world because of the true evil in the world he was living in. Thus escaping through a portal to create his own truth.
Mainly , the lyrics are about everything I have gone through. It’s about the music industry I can’t change and about the system I’m running a race with. It seems endless like a burial through a digital algorithm in an endless matrix. Everything seems so fast and irrelevant. Songs such as “New Blood”, “System”, “Don’t Pass the Torch if You Don’t Have the Flame”, and “Iron Lung”… explain this.
Some songs touch base on staying true to human interactions. Good and bad. Everything is a natural part of the human experience. It’s nothing I can change and it’s necessary to have both. Stay true to your emotions and accept them as a part of your life. Songs such as “The More You Want the Less You Get”, “War Machine”, “Pry”, “Throw It All Away”, and “The Good Times” explain this.
Portal is different in many ways. To start, the production is done in a completely different way than “My Throneless Seeking” and “Otis Empire”. The sound of the room became a huge instrument in the creation process. It sets up the mood and space you hear in these songs. Also, there are many elements that the other two albums never ventured into such as rap and a variation of different guitar tunings. The lyrics are different and hold more conviction to a bigger cause rather than personal ones.
That being said it still holds the same integrity as a Sleeping Dog album and stays true to the sound.

-We recently had a difficult time because of the corona virus, how did you manage working on the released of the album? Did this situation slow up your work?
Not at all. Quarantine gave me all the time to finish and polish the songs for the release.

– You describe your musical style as alternative, but what are your main influences?
Bring Me the Horizon and Linkin Park are the two main influences.

– You are from Los Angeles, how do you see the metal scene there nowadays?
Speaking locally, It is small and underground. I know just a handful of bands who play metal in Los Angeles.

– Even if in this moment everything is uncertain , are you planning a tour? And what are the countries you would like to play concerts in the future?
Things seem very uncertain in the music scene right now, however if SD could ever play in the future it would be Japan or Europe.

– If you could choose a band to tour with, which one would be?
It would be amazing to tour with Crystal Lake from Japan.

-We are at the end of this interview, thank you so much for your time! Would you like to say something to our readers?
Thank you for all your support. Stay true and never be afraid to speak the truth.

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