The Bad Penny (beta)

Veteran San Francisco Bay Area indie-rockers The Morning Line recently signed to Big Stir Records earlier this week, the label announced Thursday – and wouldn’t you know it, they already have a new studio record spick-and-span for release on September 18. Big Stir are good people, so The Bad Penny quickly jumped on the opportunity to interview frontman Stephen Smith hours after the signing was announced.

We’ll bring you our feature on The Morning Line’s new album, Stars, closer to its release date, but in the meantime, we’ll tide you over with the latest edition of our long-running series Pet Sounds, for which the band surely qualifies. Smith has Dot, a small, 4-year-old black mutt he refers to as a “Teacup Wolfhound” (more on that later). Drummer Peter Craft owns a 6-year-old half-boxer/half-pit called Levon. And guitarist Brian Mello has a 13-year-old cat whose breed is a Korat (a breed from Thailand) and whose name is Dr. Zira.