Interview: Dr. Dog

admin on Apr 14th 2006

I’m completely and unashamedly hooked. In fact, I can’t recall ever being as excited about a new band as I am about Philadelphia’s Dr. Dog. Purveyors of cascading melodies and irresistible harmonies, these guys have been doing their thing for years on beat-up cassette recordings, yet somehow the results still remain immaculate. Meeting the band ahead of their Dublin debut in the Village, I asked them whether the lo-fi element has a strange way of adding something extra to a recording. “I would go along with that, most definitely,” replies lead-guitarist and co-vocalist Scott McMicken. “It displays a person in a certain context that’s more easily relatable than someone producing this shimmering, huge sound. It’s not so much about the hiss; it’s just about ‘here’s a guy who’s comfortable working with very limited means.’ It shows an aspect of a person’s personality more than anything else.” Running a gauntlet of genres from rock and blues to doo-wop and soul, by harking back to a more vintage brand of sound, Dr. Dog have managed to draw more than a few comparisons to the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Rather than dismiss it as lazy labelling, however, the band are surprisingly open to any interpretation of their music: “There’s no doubt that those elements that they liken with us are my own personal taste,” McMicken considers. “I love what vocal harmonies can do to a melody and the way a good, tight rhythm section works. You kind of look at it like the drum and bass will carry the foundation of the song and then we tend to put splashes of guitars and keys in there like embellishments. But on top of that we need a really great vocal performance, so what backing vocals do is they add this feel. I mean when you’re hearing a human being going “ooooooooooh,” it just has a soul to it, so that sits all the way on top. To me, that’s the type of music that I love; that’s what I need to hear.”

“I don’t feel like we’re trying to emulate other bands,” says Toby Leaman, bassist and lead singer. “We just think about the songs. We’re not trying to rely on little tricks or anything like that; the only thing you have to come back to is the song itself – it just has to fit.” “We’ve got shit that totally disregards that pop template and stuff that indulges in it too,” adds McMicken, “so fundamentally we’re a band that tries to keep everything as open as possible.”

While Dr. Dog have been championed by the likes of M. Ward and heralded as “the best fuckin’ band in the world” by Jim James, if it wasn’t for a chance encounter with the My Morning Jacket frontman, the widely adored “Easybeat” might be something we’d have to do without. Leaman seems only too aware of this when asked how many great bands could be out there trawling the depths of anonymity: “Billions! Probably the best bands in the world, nobody knows about. I could think of ten off the top of my head.”

“I think after so much awful music has dominated the globe for a decade now,” says McMicken, “people are starting to get back to what makes really good music. I don’t think that’s a controversial statement, because you just see so many good bands sprouting up every day. Tonight I’ll inevitably end up talking to someone here and I’ll ask ‘are there a lot of good bands around Dublin?’ Every time I do that, people are like: ‘yeah! There are four of five bands you need to check out.’”

Only two dates into their European tour and the feedback from their own audiences has come as a pleasant surprise: “I couldn’t believe how energetic and pumped up the crowd was last night in Belfast,” says McMicken. “It’s the kind of thing we rarely see in the States. But then after the show so many people came up and said: ‘yeah, we’re sorry everyone was so tired and nobody was dancing,’ so I thought: ‘you’re apologising for this?’ I was honestly shocked by it. I didn’t think many of them would have even heard of us, but it was overwhelming. I mean after the show, there’d be three or four people trying to talk to you and buy you a beer at the same time – it was insane!” Informed that plenty Dr. Dog fans in Dublin were denied the chance to see them after they were added to the bill of an already sold-out show, the band simultaneously erupt: “Jesus! Shit! …Bring ‘em round to the backdoor!”

Nevertheless, in the aftermath of a gig still rattling around the bloodstream, you need only overhear a fan citing the band as the cause of his speeding tickets to realise that returning for the summer festivals is something justifiably high on the group’s agenda. With their hands expertly wrapped around a long enduring, golden sensibility of sound, Dr. Dog seem to be on course for a future as bright as the sun-kissed sounds they create.