Interview by Erin Christie
“Show me the fucking way!,” an enthused Fat Dog frontman Joe Love shouted into the maw of a frothing TV Eye crowd in Ridgewood, Queens at around 10 PM on a Tuesday, following he and his bandmates sauntering on stage with a “perplexing vibe,” as one of my friends described. Donning a tarnished but still stark white karate kit and bright blue trainers, Love surveyed the eagerly anticipating crowd of onlookers with a squinted eye and furrowed brow before he and the rest of the band launched into their debut LP WOOF.’s opening track “Vigilante.” While the live version of the track did not include the recorded ideation’s pulpit-bound speech at the command of a doomsaying cult leader (aka British actor Neil Bell), it still perfectly introduced the snarling, propulsive, and utterly singular sound cultivated by the group in their short but action-packed career thus far, forcing the room into a swell of chaos in just under 2 minutes. Later setlist inclusions such as singles “Running” and “Wither” emitted a level of euphoric chaos that Ripley’s Believe It Or Not might’ve been interested in; it was truly one of the most joy-inducing sets I’ve seen in a long time, even if it blew by faster than you can spit out “It’s fucking fat dog baby.”
But before members Chris Hughes (keyboards, synths) Johnny Dutch (drums), Morgan Wallace (sax, keyboards), and Jacqui Wheeler (bass) joined the Fat Dog formula, making these calamity-inducing live shows possible, Fat Dog was Joe Love, alone. Back then, Fat Dog was a much different beast, albeit one that was just as gnarly as today’s version.
Fat Dog first began as Love’s solo project, ideated during the initial COVID lockdown when he began crafting quite intense dance music and instrumentals on his laptop. Soon, he began presenting his output during a brief stint of independent live shows once lockdown measures lightened (“Have you seen those videos of William Shatner where he’s just sitting there smoking and speaking lyrics? That’s more of what it was like”, noted keyboardist Chris Hughes). After having experienced god at one of said live shows, Hughes got in touch with Love and quickly weaseled his way into the group permanently: “It was the first time that I’d heard music that - I wouldn’t necessarily call it tribal, but it hit me right in the stomach and it let me let loose more than any other music I’d heard before. I was immediately hooked and went about figuring out any way I could to get into the band,” he recalled. Soon, other members followed suit and the rest was history.
Early singles, including their debut deep-fried 8-minute sermon “King Of the Slugs” (created over a love-filled but exhausting 6 months with the support of their label, Domino), is where it all began, quickly striking a chord across oceans, whether for good or bad, upon their release. With the band’s eventual debut album WOOF. further blending elements of European dance music, UK drum-and-bass, primal industrial punk, and more into a melting pot of sheer insanity, consumers and analysts subsequently stood among one of two camps: to some, they’ve created the best thing since sliced bread, and to others, they’re truly confusing, if not impossible to describe: “The one that stuck out to us most recently, we were in Belgium and this radio presenter described [our music] as ‘techno polka,’ which I don’t know if I agree with, but it was really funny,” Hughes laughed. “I used to say it’s like ‘rabbis on ecstasy,’ but techno rock is probably accurate.”
What also adds to the polarizing intrigue surrounding Fat Dog’s genre-defying recordings is the completely fantastical stories that shape each track, lending to their utter singularity. When writing, Hughes and Love often sit down and ponder the most ridiculous scenarios they can imagine, intending to form songs that “sound like” cops sliding over cars and shooting at people, some kind of sci-fi alien scene, or even a POV of being kidnapped by Jeremy Clarkson. Across WOOF. inclusions such as “I Am the King” (a surprisingly cinematic single, corralled in with a choir of cherubs and evangelical strings, but levied with comical lyrics such as “I ain’t crying for you / I just watched Karate Kid 2”) and “Clowns” (a transportive 80s synth video game soundtrack cut with just enough bark AND bite — “You are what you eat now, baby, you’re shit to me”), they create an extremely visual and viscerally surreal landscape that you can easily get lost in. Whatever your opinion of Fat Dog may be, you simply can’t say that they aren’t a good time without lying through your teeth.
With the varied word-of-mouth chatter, it makes sense, then, that attendees at this year’s SXSW swarmed to their sets in packs, whether to indulge in the reverie or see what the fuss was all about. In general, said festival-goers had to have been hibernating the whole week if they escaped without hearing so much as an enthused whisper or incredulous groan about the British genre-shaping conglomerate and perhaps buzziest band of 2024. Hughes recalls that his favorite attendee he met whilst in Texas was a man who resembled Larry David to a T — he attended every one of their shows that week (as documented via the band’s socials).
Following the festival, Fat Dog “broke” in the States, with the jarring sonic blitz that ensued across their live shows becoming a big selling point of their’s. In the past few months alone, they have continued on an upward trajectory, with sold-out headliners and festival appearances across Europe and the UK, Japan, The Netherlands, and more.
Hughes laughs when he counters that their manic on-stage presence — decorated with swinging microphone cords, spontaneous dance breaks, and acts of physical fitness — is actually quite separate from their collective demeanor on the outside (this is, however, ignoring the fact that his personal favorite memory of the band’s first time in New York was pissing his pants one evening after consuming about 14 All Star pint-plus-hotdog combos at Birdy’s — “This is truly the land of the free, I’ll give you that”). While touring as much as they have been this last year, the van’s energy is surprisingly kept mellow and silent as a cathedral, leaving the members’ energy to pour out onstage in the evenings: “Being British, we’ve already got tight shoulders, so being lit on stage is probably the perfect outlet for letting out our built-up tension,” he reasoned. “Especially Joe and I, we’re kind of like old men, sitting by the fire, reading the newspaper, and drinking a pint; a comfortable twiddle of the old thumbs.”
Whether hunkering down and indulging in a cheeky pint at home, or unleashing unabashed mayhem in the dingy pub, Fat Dog thrive amidst the chaos, emerging unafraid and unbothered in hazmat-guarded glory. They carve a lane all their own, regardless of what anyone has to say about it, and in truth, you simply must respect them for it. When asked what kind of dawg the collective has in them, Hughes thought carefully before choosing a bee-stung beagle with a huge nose and disoriented stare: “You can kill the man, but you cannot kill the dog.” God (or dog)-willing, this will hopefully remain true in anticipation of what’s next for the foursome. Needless to say, it’d be nearly impossible to anticipate what distorted reality they’re preparing to present next.
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