Bridge Dog is a Sydney-based band whose blend of shoegaze, twee rock, and classic Korean pop has placed them squarely on music lovers’ radars. Through fuzzy guitars, hypnotic melodies, and airy vocals, the band immerses you in a sonic sea of angst, melancholia, and romance. Bridge Dog harkens back to a time when bands resisted the pressures of algorithmic virality, instead recording songs in basements and playing make-shift gigs in garages across suburbia.
Beginning as a pandemic project, founding members Brian Park and Grace Ha soon realised they had something far more substantive in their hands. After debuting in 2021 with their EP, Going South, they followed up in 2025 with the album Auto-Fictions. While the initial reception to the LP saw them treading the surface of the Australian music scene, word of mouth eventually spread far enough to plunge them into the deep end, garnering shout-outs from Apple Music, The Guardian, and Billboard Japan, and a nomination for the 2025 Australian music prize.
We chatted with founding members Brain Park and Grace Ha about Bridge Dog’s expected journey so far.
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to chat while you’re away in Japan and Korea. Have you had any chances to check out any bands/music?
Brian Park: We’re taking a shorter trip than we would have liked, but we’ve managed to catch a couple of bands in Japan. We saw CRAZY BLUES, and MoritaSaki in the pool, who were the local support acts for Winter at her Kyoto show. I don’t know if this is a wider trend across Japanese acts or if it was just the room on the night, but we were pretty surprised and a little delighted at how much louder and heavier the bands sounded live.
Grace Ha: We were hoping to catch a few shows in Shimokitazawa too but we missed out on seeing some great bands by a couple of days. Aside from gigs, we’ve been on the hunt for some Advantage Lucy CDs but haven’t had any luck! We’re probably just looking in the wrong places.
BP: We love to spend time in record stores, and it’s become a minor tradition to pick up something they’re spinning. Last time, we got a copy of the reissue of Ozawa Kenji’s Life. This time, it ended up being srwks.’ debut album, as well as what turned out to be a CD of The Postmarks’ last record. It’s a cute way of finding music that’s not so dependent on the algorithm and is also outside of whatever our social bubble is listening to. I do think it’s pretty annoying for whoever’s working at the stores though – they literally have to stop the music and then the whole store goes silent until they can get the next disc on.
I recently saw (correct me if I’m wrong) that you’d taken a photo with a copy of Auto Fictions in Tower Records. Was that a surreal moment?
GH: So surreal! We’ve had friends sending us photos of our CD out in the wild, but it was super weird to actually go and see the little tab with ‘Bridge Dog’ on it in the Tower Records in Shibuya.
Who were some of your favourite bands growing up?
BP: I was such a sad sack kid, I was obsessed with Elliott Smith and Sufjan Stevens, Neutral Milk Hotel… It kinda sucks to admit it but Weezer’s Pinkerton was probably the single most formative album of my high school life.
GH: I grew up listening to a mix of classical music, and old K-pop my mum loved – COOL, WAX, S.E.S. – I don’t know if I’d call any of them favourites, but then bands like Belle & Sebastian and Wilco were the baby step, gateway bands that got me into the Elephant 6 groups and C86 and all of the other post-punk/twee that really made an impression on me.
You’ve stated the importance Korean folk songs and ballads played in shaping your relationship to music. Was it a conscious goal to incorporate it in your sound?
BP: I think there’s a natural impulse to want to reject your parents’ taste in music. I grew up in a very stereotypically Korean household and used to think my parents just had rubbish taste. In retrospect, I think a lot of the music they had on all the time were just very classic Korean albums. I’ve sort of stolen their CD collection and there’s so much stuff there that I used to roll my eyes at that I really love now.
GH: It’s definitely complicated. I used to try and get rid of moments in our songs that reminded me of Korean ballads because I thought it would be too cheesy to work. We were working on one of the early songs on the album, called Standard Issue, and were really struggling with it because it didn’t have a traditional verse-chorus structure. We couldn’t figure out how to make it work until we stumbled across an old classic called 소녀 by Lee Moon Sae that neither of us had heard in forever, and that really unlocked the song for us. Since then, we’ve been trying to approach the things that influence us in a more considered way.
What inspired ‘Bridge Dog’ transitioning from a pandemic project to a band?
GH: Truly, it was just getting gig offers. We were such amateur musicians, and hadn’t ever really played in bands or thought about gigging. Eventually, we got enough offers that we decided to bite the bullet and put a proper band together, with actual musicians, and then there was no turning back from that.
How did bassist Cohen Bargas, drummer Eduardo Guerra, and keyboardist Colin Ho join the band?
BP: Cohen and Eduardo answered an online ad we put out for a bassist and drummer, and we all just gelled really quickly. They had way more gigging experience than us, but they were both fairly recent transplants into Sydney. Cohen had just moved from Canberra, and Eduardo from a tiny bit further away (Brazil), and I think it helped that we were all outsiders to the local music scene and were just trying to figure it out together. We met Colin at a gig a couple of years in and convinced him to play the synth for us and he’s been a lifesaver, gamechanger – all the things.
It’s now been roughly nine months since the release of your debut LP, Auto Fictions. Has your relationship changed with the record now that it’s been consumed by audiences? How would you describe the growth of the band in that time?
GH: We’re just really grateful that Auto Fictions has resonated with the people who have heard it! For a long time after the album was finished, I could only hear the things I wanted to redo, and the parts I wasn’t happy with. In a weird way, it helps that it had been done for a very long time before it was released. It was enough time for us to go through the entire emotional cycle before anyone else ever heard it, and in that time, I think we’ve all grown individually, as well as having become a tighter unit. The album feels like an honest representation of us at a certain point in time, but we’re hopeful that the next batch of songs will be different, and better.
Is there a specific key quality or consideration to having on-stage chemistry as a band?
GH: We played as a band for nearly three years before this, but I truly think Colin joining the band really changed our dynamic. Having someone who’s more comfortable on stage has really helped us all take things less seriously. I’m not sure what the specific key quality itself here is though!
BP: I think a lot of it is just time, especially if it doesn’t come naturally to you. We debrief after shows and talk about the things we think we did well, and the things we think we need to improve on, individually and as a group, and then we practice those things. We’re also okay with being a little awkward on stage! We’re awkward and introverted people in general (except Colin) so it doesn’t feel too weird anymore.
The band has garnered widespread acclaim from fans and the music industry alike. From my perspective, it appears as if the band is constantly going from strength to strength. Have there been any challenges with dealing with success?
GH: That’s very kind of you to say! I feel like maybe the fairest way to appraise things is that while I don’t know that we’ll ever really be popular in any meaningful way, the people who love the album really do love the album! Sometimes, you’ll wake up to messages from the Philippines, Belgium, Mexico, Italy, from all over, and it’s really humbling to think that a human being took time out of their day to let you know that something you did meant something to them. The other side of the coin is that unfortunately, because we’re living in the streaming era and because Spotify has made streaming numbers impossible to ignore, it’s hard not to feel the pressure to engage in the whole popularity contest element of the modern music industry.
BP: That part of it all just feels pretty bad. Monthly listener stats, triggering the algorithm, popularity scores… I wish we could afford to know less about all of it.
Are there any plans for 2026 you can share with us?
GH: We’ll be back in the studio at some point this year, and have some really cool shows booked in! None of them have been announced yet but they’re really exciting! We also never did a proper album launch and are already coming up on the one year mark, so we’re going to try to put something together for that.
As a last question, who are some other bands/musicians anyone reading this should check out?
BP: Speaking of Korean ballads, Phoebe Rings has a really great cover of a very classic Yoonsang ballad up. I really love the latest Local the Neighbour singles, and have also been very into Blush’s Beauty Fades, Pain Lasts Forever.
GH: Chiming in to say I’ve really been digging High Heart from Plastic Girl in Closet. A permanent recommendation that should come up like a disclaimer whenever we speak is The Pastels – we have a cover of Thru Your Heart available as a Japanese CD exclusive, and they’re basically one of our favourite bands ever.
Thanks to Bridge Dog for taking the time to chat. You can follow them on Instagram, Bandcamp, and on all streaming platforms. Make sure to check in on them to see where they’re playing next.
