Dr Dog's B-Room — their eighth studio album — is the product of a complete reinvention of the band’s creative process.
“We overhauled the whole writing process and I just think it was this kind of inevitable thing with where we'd been going,” says vocalist and guitarist Scott McMicken.
The addition of two band members in the past two years is acknowledged as the catalyst for the newfound collaborative aspect of the band's writing and recording process. “They brought so much to the band,” McMicken says, “but on the most simple level I think they've made us a much more collaborative band. What that has certainly shown is that the more collaborative way is what's most compelling.”
{youtube}DUnpNq7U2Qk|560|420|0{/youtube}
Having recorded enough material to make the band strongly consider releasing a double album, they're confident in the tracks that made the cut for B-Room. “We were a hair away from making this album a double album,” McMicken confirms, “and with this one it actually felt like all of it was worth hearing. In the past it's been evident which ones just didn't get there, but this time around, so many of them felt like they got there.”
The album is tremendously eclectic and, in typical Dr Dog style, can't be pinned down to a specific sound. “I think our intention is always, not necessarily to specifically make sure that happens, but I think just due to the way we work, it tends to happen. Some bands, like The Strokes, have a 'sound'; we've never had a sound. So it's kind of always worked out to where any batch of tunes recorded by us has quite a wide array of flavours to it.”
With a shift towards recording more live takes and less demos, the band are looking to give listeners a more visceral experience. “My hope is that it makes it sound kind of live,” McMicken explains. “You try to track live more, you try to demo less, so that it further fosters that notion that something live is really happening. It's not just people running through the mechanics of an idea, but literally people performing, trying to make it real in the air around you.”
{youtube}ko-cpzA-hLs|560|420|0{/youtube}
Set to open shows for The Lumineers and then headline their own tour to promote the album, Dr Dog are non–stop right now. “We got a lot of practising to do to figure out what's the best way to do it live, and then we're going to New York to do a bunch of 'get your album ready to come out' type of business, play on some radio stations, pull some stunts, basically try and get some attention.”
With a revamped approach to making music and no format to stick to, B-Room stands to be their best record yet — even if just for the feelings it can inspire. “At the end of the day,” McMicken says, “there's something in that. That intangible feeling of something moving, even if it is just 'ah!'... Something was communicated. Something real.”
{youtube}sshW2Nz4_Rg|560|420|0{/youtube}
B-Room will be released on October 4 through Anti-.
