Andrew Golding discusses The Naughty Step and future plans

Transmission 209: Interview with Dragon Welding

Dragon Welding is the moniker used by Andrew Golding, a British multi-instrumentalist who co-founded The Wolfhounds, an indie noise-pop band that emerged in the 1980s. Their latest album, The Naughty Step, was released on February 28, 2025, under the Dimple Discs label.

Title: The Naughty Step
Artist: Dragon Welding
Genres: Electronica, Indie Rock, Synth Pop
Label: Dimple Discs
Description: Andrew Golding of Dragon Welding discusses The Naughty Step, released on Dimple Discs, and shares updates on upcoming material.

The Naughty Step, recorded prior to Nik Cockshott’s relocation from London to Manchester, includes the singles “Up and Away,” “We Dance Among You,” and “Start Believing, Start Living the Lie.” After the move, the collaboration between Cockshott and Golding continued at a distance, yielding a work shaped by lyrics that address contemporary disillusionment, systemic pressures, and environmental anxiety.

What first made you want to start making music?

I’ve always loved music from a very young age. My dad had a great record collection of old singles and 45s, and I loved Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry. I always wanted to play guitar after that.

Which artists or records had the biggest impact on you early on?

Early on, as I said, the rock and roll era—my dad had a lot of records from that time. I used to listen to a lot of those. I think the guitar solo in Rock Around the Clock was one of my favorites. I still can’t play it.

That’s when I first started listening, when I was about three or four years old.

Do you remember your first instrument and what you tried playing on it?

At school, I used to take piano lessons and I wasn’t very good at that. hen I started playing the violin and then the cello and I didn’t like those either. The first instrument that I actually bought myself was a bass guitar.I aspired to play the introduction to Princess of the Streets by The Stranglers. That was one of the first things I really wanted to do.

What was the local music scene like when you were starting out in Aztecs?

It was pretty good. I joined the Wolfhounds in about 1983—back end of ’83, beginning of ’84. There was a great little club in Romford called The Rezz, and the people who ran it used to book quite a lot of fairly big indie bands for the time.

We’d see bands like The Triffids, Tiny Town, Turkey Bones and the Wild Dogs, and The Moodists. They’d all come down to this little place in Romford. So it was pretty good.

It was very exciting.

Why did you decide to start Dragon Welding as a solo project?

It wasn’t really a decision. When we finished recording Untied Kingdom, a Wolfhounds album, I still had a lot of ideas and songs I was working on. So I just carried on on my own.

Before I knew it, I had an album. I approached the record label we were on at the time, A Turntable Friend, and the guy who ran it liked it and decided to put it out.

So it was almost accidental.

Was it difficult to work alone after years in a band?

No, it coincided with the time I discovered GarageBand on iPad and iPhone. I was doing a lot of traveling then, so I started writing and recording using GarageBand on mobile devices. It was just a way of passing the time. Before that, I used to read a lot of books.

Now I don’t read as much—I just tend to play around with GarageBand wherever I go. I ended up with a lot of different ideas and decided to pursue them to see where they went.

How did Nick end up joining Dragon Welding?

When I did the album Fictionary, I recorded a song called The Dark, and Ant Chapman from Collapsed Lung—who’s a longtime collaborator of mine and the Wolfhounds—I asked him to sing it because I couldn’t make it sound very good myself. I sounded like Robert Smith being really miserable.

Ant sang it, and he was going to perform it live with me in London when we supported Keeley. Unfortunately, he double booked himself. Nick had previously said, “Oh, you should have asked me to sing it,” so I basically called his bluff. He came to the gig and sang a couple of songs, and it just sounded really good.

So I asked if he’d like to try some new stuff, and he did. That’s how the album came about, really.

What sparked the first ideas that became The Naughty Step?

The Naughty Step—I don’t know if it’s the same in Italy—but in England, it’s where you send a child when they’ve been bad, to reflect on what they’ve done wrong and why they shouldn’t do it again. It was just an idea I had about, as you get older, looking back on all the times you were sent to the naughty step and trying to work out what you did wrong. That’s what it was about, really.

Did the new lineup affect how you approach electronics and rhythm in this album?

Not so much on this one. On the next album we’re working on, definitely. My main instrument is the guitar, so there’s quite a lot of guitar on The Naughty Step.

It’s quite sparse in places, but it’s there. As I’ve started writing more with Nick in mind, I’ve started playing less guitar and focusing more on the keyboard parts and the backing. So I think there’ll be less guitar on the next record.

Not none, but a lot less.

What gear or instruments do you use most often in the studio besides the guitar, obviously?

I write on iPhone, record the guitar into my iPad, and any samples I pick up—found sounds—I loop those around. Once I’m happy, I bring it into Logic and try to make sense of it. So my iPad is really my main tool. I’ve got a couple of guitars I use, and a couple of outboard synths. I’ve got a Roland I use, but not much external gear.

It’s mostly internal—GarageBand, digital sounds, and samples, really.

Are there already new tracks in progress for what comes after The Naughty Step?

Yeah, we’ve got too many songs at the moment. When we finished recording The Naughty Step, we just carried on. There are about 15 to 20 songs already finished, with vocals from Nick, and another 10 or so I need to send him. At the moment, there’s too much.

I’m trying to figure out whether to do two albums or a double album, but that’s expensive to make—especially on vinyl—so it might not be financially viable. I’m trying to get a couple of producers to help me mix it. I’m working on that now.

Nothing concrete yet, but there’s definitely a lot already finished, just waiting for the final mix. It’s all quite exciting. There are a lot of really good songs.

I’m really happy with the way Nick’s sung them. They sound really good.

Photos courtesy of Dragon Welding

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others