The Story so far..

The band started in 2003 when Ryan O'Reilly and guitarist Mark Cowking had a few successful jam sessions after a chance meeting at the local One Stop. Although this was a few years after Ryan and Mark had performed together in a Thornden school music showcase (playing almost all Dylan songs, and one long forgotten original). The duo soon became a trio with the arrival of the talented bass player Alan Clarke.

The band rehearsed a set of mainly cover songs from artists like Van Morrison, Bob Dylan and Ryan Adams, plus one or two originals. The trio agreed on "The Raindogs" as the name. The first live outing came in early 2004 when The Raindogs took to the stage at the candle club open mic at Talking Heads in Southampton.

It was a slow start (timing and tuning seemed a bit beyond us at the time!), but after a few more outings at open mic nights and the odd Railway Inn gig in Winchester they decided to concentrate on playing original Americana music and got some of the new material recorded. More gigs came (thanks to Dan Lloyd) and more new songs got finished and rehearsed.

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