Fat Dog share new song “I am the King” – watch video here, announce instore run for September.
Debut album WOOF. out September 6th and Playing Glastonbury later this month, headline tour in November
Photo credit: Pooneh Ghana
“They’re epic, raucous and ready for a mainstage slot” The Observer
“Their mix of electronica and punk is an adrenaline-pumping experience: one that makes you feel like a teenager experiencing the bedlam of the moshpit for the first time. They possess all the promise, charisma and youthful abandon that new bands are supposed to have” NME
“The unstoppable force that is Fat Dog” Clash
“A chaotic take on punk that made you think of a clown car driven by anarchists… Excellent” The Times 4*
“Many of their songs, like the latest single ‘Running,’ begin with runaway rave intensity and somehow ratchet it up even further as they proceed.” SPIN
“[It’s] giving Nine Inch Nails have gone to a deep trance rave” Clara Amfo, Radio 1
“Fat Dog have a penchant for the grandiose. ‘All the Same’ is propelled by a menacing techno rhythm in the drums and bass, but it’s at its best when that beat bursts open to reveal orchestral swells, industrial electronics, and ‘eagle noises’” The FADER
“South London’s Fat Dog have already become legendary exponents of the sublime and ridiculous, ripping up any preconceived notion of cool and righteously wiping their arses with it.” So Young
“They are without a doubt the most exhilarating thing I play on the show” Jack Saunders, Radio 1
“Some of the most exciting, thrilling, weird dark wave/post-punk stuff I’ve heard in a long time, maybe even years” The Needle Drop
“From the gnarly, synthetic, industrial beats that underpin the track to the strangely euphoric crescendo that peaks midway through, Joe Love and co know exactly how to distil a seething sense of energy that feels like being trapped in the pulsing heartbeat of an underground club – somewhere in the middle ground of fun and scary” DIY on “All the Same”
“This is one of the records I’ve been eagerly awaiting, particularly having stalked this band around SXSW” SteveLamacq, 6 Music
“Fat Dog creates a space for euphoria and discomfort, humour and unease” FLOOD
“You NEED to see this band… pure chaos” Matt Wilkinson, Apple 1
The news of WOOF. is out! Fat Dog’s debut album will be unleashed on September 6th via Domino.
Ahead of that, the London band release new song, the expansive epic “I am the King”. “It was written in the toilets of the Wetherspoons pub in Forest Hill,” says frontman Joe Love, thereby ensuring the pub will one day get a blue plaque. “It was after I got broken up with.” With an orchestral opening, it sounds like a cross between Vangelis and Underworld, and is a poignant song, possibly the world’s only poignant song to namecheck The Karate Kid Part II.
Directed by Dylan Coates and Travis Barton, the video for “I am the King” opens on a scene of the band mourning and weeping at the side of Joe’s grave and progresses to the King himself parachuting from the sky out of a helicopter. Classic Fat Dog.
Watch the video for “I am the King” here.
Stream “I am the King” here.
“I am the King” video still
Alongside the pep-talk-in-the-mirror of “I am the King”, Fat Dog have confirmed a string of instore shows in September to launch the album. Tickets on sale now from here.
Saturday 7th September – Rough Trade East, London
Sunday 8th September – Rough Trade, Bristol
Monday 9th September – Rough Trade, Nottingham
Tuesday 10th September – Rough Trade, Liverpool
When the chaotic south London rabble known as Fat Dog formed, they made two rules: they were going to be a healthy band who looked after themselves and there would be no saxophone presence in their music. Two simple edicts to live by, and two things long-since broken by the Brixton five-piece. “Yeah, it’s all gone out the window,” says Love.
Life is too short to stick to any plans you made in the unsettling, strait-jacketed times of 2021 anyway. That was when Fat Dog came together, Love deciding to form a group and take the demos he had been making at home as a way to keep himself sane during lockdown out into the world. In Chris Hughes (keyboards/synths), Ben Harris (bass), Johnny Hutchinson (drums) and Morgan Wallace (keyboards and, umm, saxophone), Love found like-minded mavericks to help bring the dream home. “A lot of music at the moment is very cerebral and people won’t dance to it,” says Hughes. “Our music is the polar opposite of thinking music.”
Hughes should know. He was a fan of the band, at that point making a name for themselves with a series of exhilarating and/or wonky shows across south London, before he was in the band. Those formative gigs formed the bedrock of what Fat Dog 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.
It didn’t take long for the kennel-dwellers to come flocking, every Fat Dog show in London becoming a huge upgrade on the last. They sold out the Scala in October 2023 and, in April, played a triumphant set to a sold-out Electric Brixton. There is something deeper going on here than the usual punter-goes-to-gig situation. Everyone is in on it. “There’s a sense of community about Fat Dog,” says Hutchinson. And it’s not just the capital who have been bitten; recently, the band completed an ecstatically received tour of the US that included an all-conquering set at a taco joint. No lunches were harmed. Fresh off a UK tour last month, their next run here is in November including London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town as well as performances at Glastonbury, Truck and Latitude festivals. They will also return to North America in October.
The sound Fat Dog make, Love says, is screaming-into-a-pillow music. “I wanted to make something ridiculous because I was so bored,” he declares. It’s a thrilling blend of electro-punk, rock’n’roll snarling, techno soundscapes, industrial-pop and rave euphoria, music for letting go to. Produced by Joe Love, James Ford and Jimmy Robertson, WOOF. passes by in a flash. Influences include Bicep, I.R.O.K., Kamasi Washington and the Russian experimental EDM group Little Big.
The album is a visit into the mind of Joe Love – be thankful you have only been granted a temporary pass. “Music is so vanilla,” says Love. “I don’t like sanitised music. Even this album is sanitised compared to what’s in my head. I thought it would sound more fucked up.”
Watch the video for “Running” here.
Watch the video for “All the Same” here.
Watch the video for “King of the Slugs” here.
WOOF. is available to pre-order on red vinyl, standard vinyl, CD and digitally. Pre-order: DomMart | Digital
Upcoming live dates
26th – 30th June – Glastonbury Festival, Somerset
Saturday 6th July – Eurockéenes, Belfort
10th-13th July – Trӕnafestivalen, Norway
11th–13th July – Pete The Monkey, Normandy
18th-20th July – Festival 66 Hodin, Smolnik
17th – 20th July – Colours of Ostrava, Ostrava
25th-28th July – Latitude Festival, Suffolk
26th-28th July – Truck Festival, Oxfordshire
26th-29th July – Deer Shed, North Yorkshire
Saturday 3rd August – Millenium Square, Leeds w/ Yard Act
Friday 9th August, Haldern Pop, Rees-Haldern
Saturday 10th August, Musikfestwochen, Winterthurer
Sunday 11th August – Ypsigrock Festival, Sicily
Friday 16th August – La Route Du Rock, Brittany
17th-18th August – Lowlands Festival, Netherlands
17th-18th August – Pukklepop Festival, Belgium
30th August – Into the Great Wide Open, Vlieland
Saturday 31st August – Manchester Psych Fest, Manchester
Saturday 7th September – Rough Trade East, London
Sunday 8th September – Rough Trade, Bristol
Monday 9th September – Rough Trade, Nottingham
Tuesday 10th September – Rough Trade, Liverpool
Saturday 14th September – Spring Attitude Festival, Rome
Sunday 15th September – Poplar Festival, Trento
Monday 16th September – ARCI Bellezza, Milan
Saturday 28th September – Float Along Festival, Sheffield
Thursday 3rd October – Le 106, Rouen
Friday 4th October – L’Antipode, Rennes
Saturday 5th October – Petit Bain, Paris
Sunday 6th October – Le Grand Mix, Tourcoing
Tuesday 8th October – Doornroosje, Nijmegen
Wednesday 9th October – Vera, Groningen
Thursday 10th October – Botanique, Brussels
Friday 11th October – Skatecafe, Amsterdam
Saturday 12th October – Here’s The Thing Festival, Tilburg
Monday 14th October – Bumann & Sohn, Cologne
Tuesday 15th October – Molotow, Hamburg
Wednesday 16th October – Urban Spree, Berlin
Saturday 19th October – The Baby G, Toronto
Monday 21st October – Songbyrd, Washington
Tuesday 22nd October – TV Eye, Brooklyn
Thursday 24th October – The Empty Bootle, Chicago
Saturday 26th October – Black Lodge, Seattle
Sunday 27th October – Polaris Hall, Portland
Tuesday 29th October – Popscene @ Brick & Mortar Music Hall, San Francisco
Wednesday 30th October – Zebulon, LA
Thursday 7th November – The Grand Social, Dublin
Friday 8th November – Empire Music Hall, Belfast
Saturday 9th November – Stereo, Glasgow
Sunday 10th November – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Tuesday 12th November – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
Wednesday 13th November – Band On The Wall, Manchester
Thursday 14th November – Crookes Social Club, Sheffield
Friday 15th November – Thekla, Bristol
Saturday 16th November – Mama Roux’s, Birmingham
Sunday 17th November – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Thursday 21st November – Papillon, Southampton
Friday 22nd November – Patterns, Brighton SOLD OUT
Saturday 23rd November – O2 Forum Kentish Town, London
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