Sundays are rehearsal days for born-and-raised Collingwood band Moondoggy.
Despite moving south to Toronto to pursue their musical dreams, the band from Collingwood is set to release their first studio album on Nov. 17, called Mad and Noisy.
Jakob Matanowitsch (vocals) along with his friends Nick Wyant (bass) and Jonny Contini (guitar) started the band together while Collingwood Collegiate Institute students in 2019. In 2022, Jakob’s older brother Ben joined on saxophone and Victor Carrillo joined on drums, and they’ve been making beautiful music together ever since.
“I was making music on my own earlier in high school, and Jonny and Nick were playing in a cover band. We got together toward the end of high school. They were playing music that I wanted to play,” recalls Matanowitsch.
“We played our first show at the high school, at Relay for Life,” he said with a laugh.
After high school, band members moved to Toronto to pursue post-secondary studies and city jobs, but despite their busy schedules, they still get together every Sunday to rehearse.
“Personally, I like to say I’m a musician who also works at an engineering firm,” said Matanowitsch. “I’d like music to be my full-time job, while having something to pay the bills.”
The story behind the name Moondoggy is different depending on which member of the band you ask.
“We were at a party at Jonny’s house and we were deciding on whether to start a band,” said Matanowitsch. “He told me the story of an old Italian gangster named Moondoggy. I thought it was a cool band name.”
“It was a skeptical choice at first, but that’s where we’re at,” he added.
He says the band started with an indie rock sound, but has evolved over time.
“It’s developing into more of an alternative rock sound, comparable to Cage the Elephant, Sam Roberts, or The Sheepdogs,” he said.
The band has released three singles off the album so far: What a Shame, Passport and Ramona.
While Matanowitsch takes the lead on songwriting, he says the band will work together on arrangements before coming to a consensus on final versions of songs.
“It’s a collaborative process to get to the final version,” he said. “We spend time at our Sunday rehearsals drilling it in and getting good sounds. Everybody is responsible for writing their own part on their own instrument.”
After years of the band playing shows in haunts across Toronto, Matanowitsch says it was a new experience for the band to have someone work with them to record their album. The band had previously recorded in their homes.
“It feels great. It’s a super rewarding feeling,” he said. “It’s great to hear our stuff professionally produced and engineered.”
“It feels like all that work over the past four years is finally paying off.”
Mad and Noisy will be released on Nov. 17, and Moondoggy will be hosting an album release party on Nov. 18 at the John Saunders Centre at 80 Sandford Fleming Dr. at 7 p.m. The event is 19+. For more information, click here.
To follow Moondoggy on Instagram, click here.
