Led by Joe Love, the rapidly rising London-based electronic act Fat Dog — Love (vocals, production), Chris Hughes (keys, synths), Ben Harris (bass), Johnny Hutchinson (drums) and Morgan Wallace (keyboards and sax) — can trace its origins back to 2021, when Love decided to form a group and take the demos he’d be making as a way to keep himself during lockdown out into the world. Initially, Love had two simple rules: Fat Dog was going to be a healthy band, who looked after themselves and there would be no saxophone presence in their music. But those two simple edicts have long-since been broken.
With Hughes, Harris, Hutchinson and Wallace, Love found like-minded mavericks to help bring the dream home. “A lot of music at the moment is very cerebral and people wonʼt dance to it,” says Hughes. “Our music is the polar opposite of thinking music.” The band’s Chris Hughes should know. He was originally a fan of the band, who at that point had been making a name for themselves with a series of exhilarating and/or wonky shows across South London before he joined.
Those early gigs formed the bedrock of what the rapidly rising British outfit were all about: seizing the moment, drinking too much with the moment, going home separately from the moment, but making up with the moment again the next day. Naturally, the rising British outfit quickly developed a following — and it helped that every show across London had become a huge upgrade on the last.
There’s something far deeper going on with the band. “Thereʼs a sense of community about Fat Dog,” says Hutchinson. And after completing their first shows in the US, including a set at a taco joint, the band has quickly built up a following Stateside. Building upon the buzz in their native UK, the Londoners will tour the UK next month and November, as well as make a run of the European festival circuit, playing sets at festivals in the UK and Europe over the summer.
Amazingly, the band’s breakthrough year or so, has come as the result of only two official singles under their collective belts: “King of the Slugs” and “All The Same,” propulsive, club rocking, industrial-inspired banger built around glistening synth arpeggios, and orchestral sample-driven hit, industrial clang and clatter paired with skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap, enormous shout along worthy hooks and a plaintive vocal delivery.
Fat Dog’s highly-anticipated full-length debut, WOOF is slated for a September 6, 2024 release through Domino Recording Co. Produced by the band’s Love, Jimmy Ford and Jimmy Robertson, WOOF‘s material is influenced by Bicep, I.R.O.K., Kamasi Washington and the Russian experimental EDM group Little Big. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the London upstarts firmly establishing music for letting go, anchored around a blend of electro punk, snarling rock, techno soundscapes, industrial electronica and rave euphoria. The sound that Fat Dog makes, according to Love is “screaming-into-a-pillow music.” He continues, “I wanted to make something ridiculous because I was so bored. I don’t like sanitized music. Even this album is sanitized compared to what’s in my head. I thought it would sound more fucked up.”
WOOF‘s latest single “Running” is a hook-driven bit of club rocking trance, built around glistening, razor sharp synth arpeggios, relentless four-on-the-floor, thumping club beats and shouted vocals. But underpinning the club friendly euphoria is a tense, paranoid unease that befits our corporate sponsored hellscape.
Directed by Stephen Agnew, the accompanying video for “Running” is a surreal, breathtakingly cinematic visual with hints to Ken Russell, Ingmar Herman and others that reveals the true origins of the cult of Fat Dog and their real leader.
