Prepare for Fat Dog Fall: “We could do a Taylor’s version in 10 years’ time”

This summer might have been BRAT, but autumn is gearing up to be positively barking. Fat Dog’s debut album ‘WOOF.’ isn’t just here to keep the party going. With raw, unfiltered bangers that bottle the band’s live chaos, they aren’t just asking for your attention; they’re grabbing you by the tail and refusing to let go.

Words: Neive McCarthy.
Photos: Pooneh Ghana.

This article is currently only available to Dork supporters. Sign up to read now here. If you’re already a member and are still seeing the paywall message, log in to Steady here.

At some point, the brattiest summer of our lives will unfortunately draw to a close. We don’t want to admit it, and you probably don’t want to either, and of course, the mentality will live forever. The heat will fade, the leaves will start to turn, the jumpers will come out. But that doesn’t mean the fun has to grind to a halt. After all, ‘WOOF.’ Winter is coming, and that can only mean one thing – a really, really good time. 

Granted, the debut album by Fat Dog drops in September, but someone has to see us through those colder months, and who better for the job? Plus, the other naming options aren’t the best, as becomes clear very quickly. “Fat Dog Fall. I carved a pumpkin of Joe Love’s face. Made a sweet pumpkin pie…” muses Chris Hughes, the band’s keyboardist and synth player. Frontman Joe Love quickly puts a stop to that: “Too much.”

Whether there is such thing as too much for Fat Dog is up for debate. Later that evening, they will play a characteristically riotous set in Leeds’s Millenium Square, opening for Yard Act. In line with their usual reputation-building live shows, it’ll see long-time listeners and newcomers alike unite in chaotic, sweaty pits, with Joe at the helm acting as puppeteer for the masses. Nothing is out of bounds here. 

Their crowds of late have got that memo, too. “Recently, there was a guy holding up Easter Island statues,” recalls Chris. “There was that Viking guy, too…” Morgan Wallace, resident saxophonist and keyboardist chips in. 

“Weren’t you putting suncream on some guy’s head, Joe?” says Jacqui Wheeler, the group’s live bassist. 

“Yeah, you were slowly smearing it all over him,” Chris confirms. Anything goes, especially Factor 50.  

It’s a testament to the kind of community the band – who are completed by Johnny Hutchinson on the drums – have built. They’ve gained some diehard fans in the last few years, selling out shows of rapidly rising capacities. And they’ve done so far without a debut album out in the world, until now. 

Creating ‘WOOF.’ was always going to be a bit of a challenge – how, exactly, do you capture the energy of a Fat Dog set in a studio? Somehow, they’ve managed to bring that fervour and excitement to the album’s nine tracks in droves. It wasn’t always an easy ride, though.

“Yeah, it was pain in the arse, pain in the arse, pain in the arse, ‘You’ve got to finish in the next ten minutes’, done,” Joe reflects on the process.

“You were getting heart palpitations,” says Chris.

“It wasn’t heart palpitations; I just started getting a weird shoulder,” corrects Joe. “It was all good in the end. It had to be done. I don’t know why it had to be done…”

“It wasn’t heart palpitations; I just started getting a weird shoulder”

Joe Love

Let’s just be grateful it got there in the end, and managed to be every bit as fun as you would want it to be. Opening with an ominous introduction from Neil Bell (yep, Corrie’s finest – and Dune, too), it is abundantly clear that the band were pulling out all the stops. Neil Bell’s words on ‘Vigilante’ give way to typical Fat Dog carnage – walls of synths, taunting basslines, the need to dance along unshakeable throughout it all. 

“I think we reigned it in a bit. Does it sound like it’s reigned in?” Joe ponders. “It does sound a little bit reigned in.” 

Chris adds: “It does have rain noises in it. It’s a hard thing to do. When you have the live feeling, when you’re playing it on stage, you have this intensity that is kind of fuelled by the audience going crazy. Doing a studio thing it is hard to get that exact feeling that causes you to play in a certain way. It’s a different experience to the live show, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s well put together. At the best of times, that’s what it feels like.” 

“I think it still encapsulates that live feeling, though,” says Jacqui. “It makes you want to dance for sure.”

The first single, ‘King of the Slugs’, set the precedent for disorienting, delirious fun. What followed took that and amplified it to the max. ‘Vigilante’ is only the beginning. The album pushes these tracks, many of which have been on their setlist from early on, into something bigger and louder but also impossibly more gleeful. 

“I think we were just like, we’ve got something here. Let’s make it sound like something good,” Joe explains. “You just go in the direction you think it’s going to go in, and if it gets there, it’s good. You just give it 110%. You get up in the morning and you’re like, ‘Right, didn’t sound good yesterday, how are we going to make that sound good?’ and do it again. It’s problem-solving a lot of the time. You have to be brutal with yourself if it doesn’t sound good or get someone to be brutal to you.” 

Working alongside James Ford and Jimmy Robertson to produce the album, that brutality and commitment to getting these songs there allowed the album to be refined into what it is today. From the fast-paced glee of ‘Running’ to the spatial, futuristic ‘Clowns’, it’s relentless in what it throws at you. By the end of it, there’s no room to think – each track begins to consume your entire brain capacity. Their live shows have that immersive quality; the five of them come on stage, and you’re lost to the world of Fat Dog. The album impressively captures that enveloping sensation that has become such a mainstay with the band.

“Not one of them have actually seen a proper gig of ours,” Joe notes on working with James and Jimmy. “James went to one, and it was the one in Elephant and Castle where we didn’t really play a note in the end, and he said, ‘Yeah, I love it’.” Morgan explains: “That gig was 90% technical difficulties.”

“It’s nice having someone who has never heard you play live to say, ‘How can we make this sound good on a record?’” Joe continues. “That’s nice, as well, because they’re not trying to make it sound like the live version; they’re just making the songs themselves,” agrees Morgan.

It offers their listeners a new way of experiencing and understanding the band – those who have seen the band live pre-album will be familiar with some of its material, but it takes on fresh life in a recorded setting. 

“It’s interesting to see what people who discover us through the album will think of the live set,” Chris says. “It’s the other way around right now. Most people discover us live first, and having the flipside will be interesting.” Morgan agrees: “Maybe they’ll like a different song on the album than they did live.” 

Still, the tables could continue to turn in that manner, as the songs are still transforming and developing live even after being recorded. “It’s always a bit in flux,” Chris confirms. 

“That’s annoying, though,” says Joe. “Because now I’ve finished the album, I’m like, ‘Fuck, wish I’d put that on there’. Once it’s done, it’s fucking done.” 

“We could do a Taylor’s version in 10 years’ time,” Morgan suggests. 

“We could do a Taylor’s version in 10 years’ time”

Morgan Wallace

At just 33 minutes, ‘WOOF.’ is a whirlwind experience. It storms in, makes a statement, encompasses you in this world, then leaves you in the lurch. There’s absolutely no messing about. 

“I didn’t want it to drag on for too long,” Joe says. “I didn’t want to make an album where people were like, ‘I’ve heard it all; I’m going to turn it off before it finishes’. My favourite albums are all that sort of length. I don’t want to get sick of something.” 

There’s no danger of that whatsoever. The pace never relents for a second. ‘All The Same’, arguably one of the album’s strongest moments, is thundering, its synth line a force to be reckoned with. It slides into ‘I am the King’ – a track written whilst sat on the toilet in Wetherspoons (not written on the toilet walls, as Joe takes pains to clarify). Orchestral and distorted, it sees the album widen out into newer expanses. Though their live sets can descend into much longer passages of chaos, the album keeps things brief but blistering. 

“We did a half an hour set the other day, though,” Morgan notes. “That was really nice. It was nice to do it with no gaps.” 

“There’s certain exceptions,” Joe says. “When people talk to the audience, funny people, I don’t mind it. I don’t mind when The Mary Wallopers do it. Dolly Parton is really good at talking to the audience. You show all your cards then.”

Fat Dog’s songs often speak for themselves, without the need for much discussion in between tracks. When you’re waxing lyrical about Karate Kid II, is there any room or need to say much else? Probably not. 

“My pet peeve when I go to a gig is when they explain the song before they play every song,” Jacqui adds. “They’re explaining their full life story. I don’t mind a bit of it, but every single song…” 

“Imagine if we did that,” Chris laughs. “’This song is about a slug’. If Bob Dylan did it, I’d think, ‘Yes, tell me more’.” 

“Nah, fuck off, Bob Dylan,” Joe argues. “I wouldn’t really give a shit. It’s boring, start the song. Stop getting people to not bring their phones in as well.” 

“You tell them, buddy,” Chris says. “This guy went to see Shrek the Musical recently, and just didn’t get musicals. He wanted them to get to the plot.” “Shrek is a great plot, just fucking get on with it.” 

It’s always straight to business in the world of Fat Dog, naturally, apart from when they’re inspiring a frenzy. That elation that bleeds through everything they do – in every thrumming bassline and delicious saxophone solo – makes it difficult for them to be all business, all the time. By the time ‘And so it Came to Pass’ rolls around, there’s no business on the agenda at all – what has come to pass is pure, full-throttle fun, instead. It lingers though, leaving you pondering what just occurred. 

“It’s definitely funny,” Chris says. “People come up with stories, and they have whole narratives in their heads about what this album is about, and I think that’s great. I think that’s really funny. It’s kind of why Neil Bell is on the album. If you have someone doing a narration at the beginning of an album or the end, it seems like a concept album, and people start wracking their brains trying to work out the concept. But we’ll never tell. One day, someone will figure it out and get it right, and I’ll still say nothing.”

Moving in silence just doesn’t seem like Fat Dog’s style, though. ‘WOOF.’ is nothing if not noisy, but in the absolute best way possible. Every second is brimming over with energy, and you’re left with little choice but to accept that getting caught up in this world is inevitable. Every dog has its day after all, and with the release of ‘WOOF.’, Fat Dog’s is undeniably here. ■

Taken from the September 2024 issue of Dork. Fat Dog’s album ‘WOOF.’ is out 6th September.