Embracing Unhinged With Fat Dog
Photo: Pooneh Ghana
With raucous, high energy live shows, it’s unsurprising Fat Dog have amassed an ardent and faithful fan base.
Post Covid everyone just wanted to move, and British band decided to give the people exactly what they wanted, putting out track after track of chaotic, impossible to sit still while listening to it tunes. It has been said that the band made two rules when they first formed - no saxophones and a real focus on health. Two simple rules that have since been broken and don’t we love a rule breaker. Constantly selling out London shows, the five piece band are about to release their debut album WOOF. and we caught up with the band ahead of the release.
Do you like your music being described as unhinged?
I mean, call it what you will. It’s a very refined and carefully crafted sort of chaos, so I’m one sense yes, and in another sense it’s just so fucking calculated that it’s more obsessive than unhinged, though there is a fine line…
Would you describe yourselves as unhinged people personally?
Depends how many days we’ve been on the road for… but really we’re not too unhinged. Outside of the music we’re sort of just a bunch of normal folk. We like a bean and cheese toastie and a few hours of a war documentary or a nice quiet pint in an old pub. Potentially we could be seen as unhinged just because we’re all pretty dedicated to committing to anything we want to do - for example, Chris keeps taking a collapsible fishing rod and a bunch of lures in his synth case so he can go fishing on tour. It’s great to do that but our keyboards stink of mackerel now.
As someone who has not seen you play - how do you maintain the chaos when you’re on stage, are there certain set designs or extras that add to it?
When we started out it was easier to get that energy on stage because we were so fucking nervous on these big stages during our support tours that our bodies would be saturated with that sweet sweet adrenaline, and the chaos came from always having technical issues and having to sort of improvise something in the interim of getting it fixed. Nowadays it’s almost as though we’ve been conditioned to enter that state through sheer Pavlovian association. See the big stage, smell the crowd, go stupid for an hour.
Do you have a drink before the show? Does that help?
Normally we’ll all have a few beers before a show, or sometimes a yakult or something to settle the guts a bit. We like going out to pubs before gigs wherever we are because they’re nice little insights into the locals and the culture of the country we might be in. Plus they beat sitting in a windowless green room with nothing but white walls and your thoughts for three hours. Not sure if the beer helps, frankly, but it’s tradition!
I’ve read that Chris Hughes became a member of the band through pure shit talking and not actually through his finesse of playing a viola - which is absolutely incredible and resonates deeply with Monster Children, especially me. Has he proved himself now?
Chris isn’t even really a keys player, but he’s been playing bass since he was six years old doing big band and classical music, used to be a double bass player as well. He’s got the music in his blood pal, and by god does he play those keys with the fury of a thousand suns. It’s like Bear Grylls said: Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. If you put in the practice on anything eventually you’ll be decent at it. He’s been in the band for two years now and he’s proved his abilities on most instruments we’ve thrown at him, just don’t let him see this, or let him try and learn any small string instrument within a week.
You’ve grown a die hard community in a relatively short amount of time - why do you think that is compared to other bands out there starting at the same time?
Surely partially right place right time - post COVID people were pent up and stuck inside and it was their first opportunity to start moving and getting feeling back into their extremities. I think our music fits that niche very well. We also didn’t release anything for ages and played a shit ton of gigs, so people had to have a certain loyalty to commit to buying those tickets and watching all those sets. It built a stronger foundation for our fans.
Did you feel pressure working with James Ford considering his past portfolio?
Nah not really, just gives an opportunity to steal his production techniques. He was really good at actually getting the album done though, because he’d stop joe from obsessing over two bars, and push him along to look at the picture. Without that sort of objectivity we might be releasing the album a lot later…
What gets you most excited about music?
When you’re playing with other musicians and you have that perfect moment where, without any verbal communication, you can look at each other and you just know that you’re all thinking ‘this sounds fucking good!’
Album coming out, the most stacked line up of shows, how are you looking after yourselves during this time?
Chris has his fishing, Morgan likes to go sightseeing, we all have our little things we do to keep ourselves a bit sane on tour. Headphones are great because when you’ve been in the van for a while everyone’s voice (through no fault of their own) becomes insanely fucking annoying. Zoning out is kind of important over a long stretch. Joe goes swimming in the mornings when he can, and we all try and get a good Vietnamese soup in here and there because that stuff works wonders, like a hug from the Vietnamese grandma you never had.
Are there plans to come out to Australia?
If Morgan doesn’t melt into a frothy puddle of Devonshire clotted cream due to the heat, we’ll be there. Good fishing out in Australia no? And there’s another band there called Fat Dog and The Tits who we’d love to play alongside…
If you could go wherever with Fat Dog - what’s the ultimate dream?
Home, eventually, would be lovely.
Preorder Fat Dog’s album WOOF. out 6th September here.
