Dr. Dog Hits The Reset Button
After a break from touring, the Philly alt-rock band returned this year with their 11th studio album. At Chicago’s Riot Fest, they put on one of their best performances to date—and drummer Eric Slick lets The Rockhound in on how they reached this point.
In 2021, I teared up as I hugged my friend Jordan after Dr. Dog wrapped up a sold-out show at Thalia Hall in Chicago—part of The Last Tour. Like other fans, I assumed this meant the band was breaking up. No more touring. No more music. But in March of this year, the Philadelphia-born alt rock band released their single Still Can’t Believe.
The song title was fitting because I thought to myself I can’t believe this—are they back?
“I think I speak for everyone, when maybe our messaging was a little clunky when it came to ceasing to end the touring operations,” said drummer Eric Slick in an interview with Luckbox before Riot Fest.
But in all fairness, that’s difficult to explain to fans who aren’t touring musicians themselves.
“All we were saying was that we just don’t want to be on a six-week stretch in the middle of winter anymore,” Slick said. “I feel like we’ve paid our dues in that respect. And it just wasn’t sustainable for us anymore.”
Looking around the photo pit as the band walked out for their set at Riot Fest on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024, the beaming smiles and giddy shuffles said it all.
The band’s short “break” sparked creativity and reframed their approach. And you can almost feel that new energy flying out from the stage, the band smiling, laughing and bouncing around through the entire set.
“When you’re in the cycle of you make an album and then you tour, make another album and you tour again, there’s not enough time to really live in between those things,” Slick said. “And I think, in the age of content creation, there’s so much emphasis on making as much stuff as humanly possible.”
The band had made the decision to stop long-term touring before the pandemic, but after over a year of not playing live shows they felt 2021 was the best time to get a final run in.
In July, Dr. Dog released their 11th studio album, though they have a handful of live albums and compilations, as well. Since then, they’ve played several one-off shows in Philadelphia, Colorado (Red Rocks) and this past weekend at Riot Fest.
“Those were the best Dr. Dog shows ever, in my opinion, because we were just so loving with each other,” Slick said.
The breather allowed all members of the band—Toby Leaman, Scott McMicken, Frank McElroy and Zach Miller—to come together with a more positive outlook as a band.
Though Slick said the recording process was the same as it ever was, something different is that none of them felt beholden to their own hang-ups about the way a Dr. Dog record should be. This included Slick bringing a song to the table, Tell Your Friends. He wrote it for his latest solo album, New Age Rage, but it didn’t fit with the rest of his songs.
“I sort of reworked it and then sent it to everybody with extreme trepidation, being like, ‘Hey, here’s a song I wrote. You know, love it or leave it. I just feel like I gotta throw a song in the mix,’” Slick said. “I feel like it might work with Dr. Dog. And then, the response was sort of like emphatic from everybody.”
Tell Your Friends is my favorite song off the new album. It maintains a catchy, yet relaxing, rhythm that sounds like what it feels like to walk through a park on a sunny, cool day. Each verse recounts a different phase in his life. He speaks of growing up in Philadelphia, dealing with his regrets and offering the message that we all make mistakes. But Slick said what endures is our relationships.
The band didn’t play the song live at Riot Fest, but it holds a special meaning for them as a group.
Dr. Dog recorded a total of 30 songs in one week, but only ended up putting 11 on the album. So, it’s likely we can expect more music from them in the near future.
“If we just focus and play together, the sky’s the limit,” Slick said. “I think we just walked away from it feeling so lucky and feeling a lot of gratitude.”
Slick described their Riot Fest performance as an ironclad kind of Dr. Dog show, playing a lot of hits and hoping to make people happy.
“We’ve all been joking because, like, Riot Fest is predominantly a punk rock festival,” he laughed. “So, we were all joking like, ‘We’re gonna go to Hot Topic beforehand and get fake tattoos and nose rings,’” he laughed.
Though they didn’t step out adorned in black clothing, piercings and fake tattoos, the band did deliver a captivating set full of hits, including: Shadow People, Nellie, Breeze, Talk Is Cheap, Where’d All The Time Go?, Lonesome, That Old Black Hole and Heart It Races, among many others.
During Nellie, one of Dr. Dog’s most popular songs, two guys behind me sang every word with as much vigor as humanly possible—even singing the doo-di-doo of guitar rhythms.
While critics often characterize Dr. Dog as a retro-sounding band, Slick notes how much inspiration the group pulls from indie artists like MJ Lenderman and Andy Shauf, and notes that they’re constantly sending each other new music. “We are all a culmination of our influences,” he said. And that includes inspiration outside of music, including books, art exhibits and A24 movies—the surrealist film Problemista and the rerelease of the Talking Heads movie Stop Making Sense.
Slick is a fan of big swings—sounds and art that come out of left field—like the experimental band Macula Dog, Björk and singer-songwriter Luke Temple.
As for their latest self-titled album, it highlights a culmination of creative output and hits the reset button.
“I hope people can hear the love and joy we put into making it, and I hope it takes people back to why they might like us in the first place,” Slick said.
As the band jammed through Breeze, a gust of wind blew rain sideways into our faces—yet we never stopped singing. Maybe we were invigorated by Leaman’s dramatic hand movements and bops around the stage. Or maybe we knew another Dr. Dog show in the near future wasn’t promised. But one thing was for sure: We could hear, feel and see the pure joy and love the band had for performing with each other on stage.
And with the band playing one-off shows here and there, we knew it was a special sight to behold.
Kendall Polidori is The Rockhound, Luckbox’s resident rock critic. Follow her reviews on Instagram and X @rockhoundlb, TikTok @rockhoundkp
