Written in the toilets of the Wetherspoons pub in Forest Hill, the mecca for all artistic talent that supplants the 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur in the Latin Quarter of Paris for lyrical output, London-based Fat Dog release new song, the expansive epic I am the King. Listen here.
Joe Love’s confession of it being written in the toilet of a boozer surely justifies the ensuing proclamation that one day, the hideous merits of this song will ensure 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.
Alongside the pep-talk-in-the-mirror of I am the King, the group has confirmed a string of in-store shows in September to launch the album. Tickets on sale now from here.
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. All those preconceived ideas about what Fat Dog should be when they originally formed with Love deciding to create a group and take the demos he had been making at home was a method to keep himself sane during lockdown, eventually introducing those songs to 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.
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.”
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Check out the video for I am the King below:
Preorder WOOF. digitally (here) and physically (here)
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