Dr Dog take us back to thefuture

Mon 8th Oct, 2007 in Features

“When it comes to recording, we feel most comfortable working in the
analog world,” says Zach Miller, the member of Dr Dog responsible for – œkeyboardings, some guitar and singing.’ In one line Zach has managed to summarise the sound of their entire career and new album We All Belong.

Delicious is the irony of the record’s second song, My Old Ways , where three-way harmonies declare happily – œI don’t ever wanna go back to the old days again’. With jaunty piano and beautifully textured instrumentation parading along with the vocals it genuinely feels that they never left the old days at all. Oft compared to the – œ60s sounds of The Beatles, The Band and The Beach Boys, it’s the romantic attachment to the – œanalog world’ that keeps Dr Dog’s Persian-carpet-and-rocking-chair-on-the-front-porch sound alive forty years after Sgt Pepper checked out.

This album marks the first time that the band has adopted the technological advancements of a 24-track machine. “We have [even] mixed digitally,” explains Zach, “but mostly because all the songs on We All Belong went through a lot of changes [during] recording and got pretty disorganised. That made it easier to mix. For example, we could unyoke a track with tambourine at one part of the song and quiet backing vocals at another and make them two separate tracks.”

Despite embracing technology, they were mindful to retain the classic sound that is their trademark. “Honestly, we have to muck it up a bit,” he says. “It gets to a point where things are sounding too clean. There is this perception that digital recordings are the best because it’s the newest latest thing and there’s no tape hiss, but if you think about your favorite sounding records, I’d bet at least 90 per cent are recorded to tape. Christ, listen to Hot Buttered Soul or the Chi Lites. Tape is still the best thing to record to.”

Why leave the four and eight-track in the first place? “We just wanted to see what would happen if we could flesh out all of our ideas,” he adds. “We’d always been restricted so when we finally got 24-tracks we went overboard and piled everything on there.”

Not surprisingly, the initial fervour and excitement in documenting all the sounds, ideas and sonic animation resulted in a cornucopia of tracks they had to wade through. “Mixing the record took us a long time,” concedes Zach. “On the computer you mull over one little sound wave and apply 150 different reverbs. That was another category of aesthetic decisions that had to be made.’ It is a pleasure to play We All Belong repeatedly – and you must, as you find something new each time – picking up vocal effects here, delightful percussion lines there.”

But as Zach points out, “It does get pretty tough making small decisions in the studio with five people contributing. Sometimes it is helpful to let someone else take over and then judge the final result.” This maturity means Dr Dog play well with others. Sharing tour stages with acts such as Dinosaur Jr, The Black Keys and The Magic Numbers, Dr Dog are currently doing shows with Wilco, which Zach admits is a little bit like a pinch-yourself moment in that, Wilco are “so highly revered in the independent music community [but] very cool, down to earth guys.”

Other ‘awesome folks who just cold asked us to tour with them’, are our own Architecture in Helsinki. “We all love them,” says Zach. Dr Dog did a cover of Heart it Races , which, naturally, sounds like the organic original.

While gorgeous, it is no match for the soulful Alaska , nor as inspired as The Girl – a psychedelic cowbell rock tune where distortion splashes a bit of dust over the lens. Of course, whatever musical inspiration Dr Dog have taken, it’s the lyrics that remind you that it is not 1962. A brilliant summer album for Australian music fans, grab it before or at one of their Oz shows in early December and take heed of Weekend ’s bongo-laden beat imploring you to “grab a case of lager, head down to the river.” As you’re making new memories, they’ll still feel a little bit like the good old ones.

Dr Dog’s We Belong is out now through Dew Process.