Fat Dog are a zany group of South London outliers who will soon be sprinkling audiences with a dash of their surrealist mix-match sound. Still in their relative infancy as a band, Fat Dog is made up of Joe Love (vocals), Chris Hughes (keys), Ben Harris (bass), Morgan Wallace (sax) and Johnny Hutch (drums), a quintet who have made impressive strides since forming in 2020 thanks to a bizarre, hard-to-pin-down blend of rock, pop, dance and klezmer (among other things). 

In case you were looking for a sense of the insouciant vein of humour coursing through the group, when asked over email what the country’s music scene was missing prior to their arrival, this came back: ‘6’4” inbred Canadians and impish Devonshire lasses dancing together hand in hand. We’ll bet you don’t see a lot of that on your average Tuesday night in Stockton-On-Tees... ’

Seemingly unphased by their lack of genre, Domino Records (home to the likes of Wet Leg and Arctic Monkeys) picked up the energetic Dog boys last year, leaving them ‘pretty happy’ with their relatively rapid success. ‘We would say, it’s either this or we’re cheesemongers, gardeners and kitchen porters for the foreseeable future, so we can’t really complain.’

Marking a significant first for the band, Fat Dog made their inaugural transatlantic voyage together this year, taking on Texas for the behemoth cultural gathering that is South By Southwest. In a similar, if significantly larger style to Stag & Dagger, SXSW provided Fat Dog with no less than ten performances crammed into just four days. The battle to try and win over unfamiliar crowds was uphill all the way, but a task that Fat Dog made the most of. ‘We always gave it 110% but obviously a lot of these people have never heard of us. But that’s when you just go balls to the wall and barge your way through the crowd, forcing them to at least put their fucking hands in the air.’

With just two official singles in the world at the time of writing, Fat Dog have done a good job of making their presence felt as some of Britain’s wildest performers. Explaining what summer crowds can expect from them, the klezmer aficionados kept things brutally honest: ‘from what we’ve heard from our close friends, we’re one of the worst smelling bands of all time, so expect a pungent set full of sweat, and a kinetic show where a sense of controlled chaos prevails.’
Fat Dog play Electric Brixton, London, Thursday 18 April; Mash House, Edinburgh, Saturday 4 May, and The Garage, Glasgow, Sunday 5 May, as part of Stag & Dagger; the band are then on tour Monday 6–Sunday 26 May; main picture: Holly Whitaker.