The Next Chapter in a Dog-eared Saga
Philly band hits the big stage in Columbus
By Travis Hoewischer |
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Last April, I was standing on the tips of my toes, craning for a clear line of sight as Philadelphia's Dr. Dog stomped through an encore for a sold-out crowd at The Basement. I turned to my friend and made an astute observation, akin to Roy Scheider's in Jaws - it looked like one of my favorite bands was gonna need a bigger boat.
Nearly a year later, the band returns to Columbus - they previously co-headlined the 2008 CD101 SummerFest and were one of the last bands to grace the Little Brother's stage - in anticipation of their new album (Shame, Shame, due in April) backed by a new label (Anti Records, home to legends like Tom Waits and Roky Erikson, as well as indie heavies like Spoon and Neko Case).
Dr. Dog
Photo courtesy of Big Hassle Publicity
Dr. Dog's vintage music - both in sound and style - has earned steady praise since their wheezing quirk of a debut, Toothbrush, landed in the hands of My Morning Jacket's Jim James in 2003; and the lo-fi follow-up Easy Beat in 2004, was a record that The New York Times praised as "irresistible." They cut their teeth as openers for James and MMJ, as well as Wilco.
Since then, Dr. Dog has been progressive and prolific, texturing their sound with lush string, horn, and organ arrangements on the 2006 EP Takers and Leavers and the 2007 full-length We All Belong.
By 2008, the raw energy of the band's filler-free live performances and the sonic tinkering to their unabashed homage to classic pop, soul, R & B, and gospel came together for Fate, a concept album of sorts, with equal nods to pretty melodies and dirty blues dirges.
With a new album and new tour, Dr. Dog is "a better band than [they've] ever been," according to bassist Toby Leaman, who said the band's status as a headliner, yet not quite household name, grants them the advantages of a successful band that still wants to maintain its approachability.
As if on cue, the band's publicist breaks into our interview to remind us politely that we are almost out of time. Leaman sheepishly waits until she gets off the line to let me know that he's not exactly as pressed for time as he's supposed to maintain he is.
"If you've got a few more, man, I don't mind," he said, laughing. "I'm not doing anything."
I guess that comes with the territory for a band that keeps getting bigger, I countered.
"This is the first time that has ever happened," he says, laughing again.
You guys have come a long way in a pretty short period of time. You're a headlining band now, and you're more prolific as a band. How would you characterize where you are, career-wise?
At this point, we've done six albums, and you get better as a band as time goes on. I feel like we're a better band than we've ever been. Our shows and our albums get progressively better, at least in my mind. We opened up for bands for years; for the first two or three years, that's all we did.
It was fun; coming up there and playing 35-40 minutes balls-out, hard-as-you-could, fast-as-you-could, loud-as-you-could - but it gets to a point where you have so much more material and you want to develop your own thing. It's nice to not feel like you have to go out and razzle-dazzle immediately.
I've read that the album Shame, Shame reflects more of the live sound of Dr. Dog. I even saw the term "punk" thrown in one early review.
That's how we went into recording; that was the spirit going into it. A lot of the songs are simpler songs, that sort of build. Those ones will be a lot of fun to play live. They might only have three chords, but you can make each part go somewhere. I hope the record comes out like that. It's sort of ironic, because with other records people always say that it sounds "live," but it's always been heavily overdubbed - track-by-track, drum-by-drum.
I've always thought Dr. Dog the recorded band, and Dr. Dog the live outfit have been two pretty different-sounding bands. Would you say that's accurate?
That's definitely accurate and that's always been a conscious thing. Live, you can highlight a different aspect of a song and keep it fresh. You can take a song that's pretty intricate [on record] and live, just get down to the bare essence of what makes it good.
When it comes to press reviews of Dr. Dog, you hear references to bands like the Beatles, Beach Boys, and The Band. Are those comparisons you tend to shy away from, or embrace as obvious influences?
The only reason I would ever wince at that is because it comes up so often. But, if you're going to get compared to any bands, better that than some crap band.
True. I've never heard anyone compare you guys to Nickelback.
And that's good. I mean, there are a few songs on this record that are direct rip-offs of Nickelback, but only like two or three. (laughs)
I'll be looking forward to figuring out which ones those are.
(laughs) Have you ever seen that YouTube clip of the two huge Nickelback hits? It's like the same song! Same chord progression, same melody. You've got to look it up, it's amazing. No, seriously, I love those bands - everyone loves those bands. So, if that's the criticism someone's throwing on us, that we sound like bands that are universally loved, f@#k it. I'll take that.
You share vocals and songwriting duties with Scott McMicken, and you guys seem to have that two-headed-monster thing that many great bands have.
He and I have been writing together for almost 17 years, and pretty much writing with no one else. That's the joy of it. When you write with somebody that long, it's funny because if I feel a little weird about a song, when I bring it to Scott, I can almost know in advance if he's going to hate it or not. Or, you find out what they like about it, and go from there. If one of us is questioning our own abilities, the other is right there to say, "No, we should probably pursue this." At this point, pretty much anybody in the band has that role, whether they wrote the song or not. It's pretty democratic. No one ever pushes a song through like that; that song will fail. It will murder itself.
Inevitably, as a band like Dr. Dog grows in popularity, the business of a band changes. What are the best and worst parts of moving forward the way you guys have?
There are few cons. It's not as intimate as when we started, when you would go to a city and know four or five people. You lose that aspect a little bit. We're not playing huge gigs, but now, the only people comfortable enough to come up and talk to you are a little more on the crazy side. The smaller bands, you know, you can just sit at the bar and chat it up. The bigger you get, the more people detach from you, which is sort of a bummer. But, the reality is, growing as a band is always what we wanted to do. We always wanted to play bigger shows, we always wanted to headline, and we always wanted to make enough money that we didn't have to do anything else. That aspect is great. I don't have any fear of getting too big . . . I mean, we're never going to be a band that has a hit single.
That does sound like the happy medium: make a living, sell out shows, and still not be uber-famous.
We've been really lucky like that. We've never hit a lull. It's been a slow progression. The other weird thing about being a bigger band is that people have an impression of you without knowing you.
Yeah, you guys are at least big enough to have a false rock-and-roll rumor spread about you. (After Dr. Dog canceled tour dates in 2008, including a Columbus gig, it was falsely reported Toby was punched in the throat, instead of the boring-but-accurate fact that he had simply lost his voice). That's got to be bizarre.
Yeah, that was a good rumor. I wish it went down like that. (laughs)
If you want, we could make up a new urban legend for you here in (614).
Honestly, I feel like that's pretty good. Getting punched in the throat in some sort of back-alley brawl - that's not a bad one.
It seems that you guys have stayed connected by doing fringe things like being the house band at Kentucky's Lebowski Fest, or a video of you guys I recently found, where you played at Juan's Basement, literally in the basement of a dude named Juan. It gives you guys the air of approachability.
Yeah, that stuff can be fun. You do Juan's Basement, or Daytrotter, and that stuff can be fun. But, you never know, you might have a string of those for a week that are awful. You don't say "Yes" to all of them. Some times, it's awkward, and it's nine in the morning, and it sounds like shit. But, when they're good, they're great. That's the kind of stuff I don't see us ever stopping.
Tell me more about the nickname thing. (The band's bio refers to Leaman as Tables, McMicken as Taxi, Zach Miller as Text, and Frank McElroy as Thanks.)
We sort of just got away from that. That was sort of a different era of the band, where we were operating on this level of anonymity. It was cool and it was fun. It was more about, you join the band, you get a name, and that's who you are. All the other bullshit you do in your day is gone. Now, you're in this band and you're having a good time.
Then, people start asking about it and you feel like an idiot. (laughs)
Dr. Dog Performs with The Growlers @ The Newport
1722 N High St.
February 12th, 7 p.m.
www.drdogmusic.com
Originally Published: February 1, 2010
