INTERVIEW: Dog Eat Dog releases first album in more than a decade
Photo: Dog Eat Dog’s new album is called Free Radicals, out now from Metalville. Photo courtesy of Metaville / Provided by the band with permission.
Dog Eat Dog, the punk-rap-rock outfit from New Jersey, is back with a new album that has been in the works for years, and the band members couldn’t have chosen a better title. For this free-thinking, no-boundaries group, what better way to define their sound and attitude than the album name Free Radicals — because there has always been something radical about Dog Eat Dog’s approach to music and the industry they call home. Now, on new songs such as “Lit Up” and “Never Give In,” their wild spirits are having fun and not worried about the consequences.
Free Radicals was recently released on Metalville, and the band — which consists of John Connor on vocals, Roger Haemmerli on guitars, Dave Neabore on bass and Brandon Finely on drums — has plans to bring the new tunes around the touring circuit in the coming year. This will be welcome news to their legions of fans, many of whom are based in Europe, because it’s been more than 15 years since a full-length album was released by Dog Eat Dog.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox talked with Neabore about the band’s legacy, how the album came together and how one might categorize Dog Eat Dog’s sound. Here’s what he had to say …
On how Free Radicals began as a recording project …
“We actually began the process in 2015 when we started writing the Brand New Breed EP, which eventually came out in 2017. That was the first recording that we did with our new guitar player. We call him new; he’s been in the band for more than 15 years, but he’s the new guy. We had never written with him, so he was really considered a hired gun for us. We were just playing old songs with a new guitar player, but then when we said, ‘Hey, let’s see how the writing process would go.’ He’s an incredible musician, and we did the EP. And everybody was like, ‘OK, we can work’, and right after we released the EP, we said, ‘Let’s just do a full record because it was working pretty well.’ So that’s what happened, so we went into the studio in Prague and basically wrote the whole record over a course of two years in a studio in Prague.”
On how the pandemic delayed plans for Free Radicals’ release …
“We had written and recorded almost half the record before COVID hit, and then we had to basically sit around for almost a year and a half doing nothing. And then we were able to get back in the studio. … It’s not as easy to just work during COVID, so it stretched out that process quite a while. From start to finish, it ended up being five years on this record.”
On how the fans have been yearning for new songs …
“We constantly joke about it every year we tour, no matter whether we had a record or not. We’ve gone to Europe every year. So we’ve toured, and every year we say we’re working on a record and laugh about it. People don’t believe us, and they’re always asking. And now it feels so good to finally be like, ‘It’s real, and you can actually go to YouTube and listen to songs already, or Spotify or whatever.’ So it feels great to not have to say to someone, ‘We’re going to get to it or it’s coming.’ It’s really here.”
On how the band chose the album’s singles …
“There’s a strategy to it. Also, the record label has a say as well, so we kind of discussed among ourselves. And ‘Lit Up’ is the first song on the record, and we felt that it’s representing almost a new school rock Dog Eat Dog for us. High energy, but it has some new flavor to it, something that we hadn’t really tried before. That one seemed like a no-brainer. Everybody was kind of like, yeah, it’s the first song everyone’s going to hear anyway when they put the record on. Let’s get them used to it. ‘Never Give In’ was really chosen to follow that up with an old school sound for Dog Eat Dog. This is what people remember, kind of rappy with saxophone and heavy guitars and anthem-type chorus. That felt like our safety song. No matter what, people will identify it. The next single is called ‘Man’s Best Friend,’ and that was actually not a song that the band was really excited to release as a single. But the label was very much behind it and pushed us to please make that a single, and then the fourth single’s going to be ‘Bar Down.’ And that was our, OK, if you want ‘Man’s Best Friend,’ we’re going to try something completely different and try this very mellow, hip-hop-flavored soulful song. … You pick your favorites, but you also try to do something strategic. And it may fail, but we don’t care at this point. We’re like, let’s just do it. It doesn’t matter.”
On how to categorize the Dog Eat Dog sound …
“When we started the band, that was kind of one of the rules. We’re a democratic band. Everybody has a say. That was rule #1. Rule #2: We can do whatever we want. And we created our sound, but we’ve always maintained through the years that tastes change, influences change. I don’t want to have a band that stays exactly the same. We’re not the same people. We grow, and music should grow with those band members, in our opinion. So it really is how you’re feeling that day, and that can be an idea. There’s really no boundary to where we will or won’t go … and I think Free Radicals shows that we definitely pushed a little further than we have before in terms of just overall sounds and tempos and things like that.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Dog Eat Dog’s new album is called Free Radicals, and it’s now available from Metalville. Click here for more information.
