CR:: You recently added multi-instrumentalist Dmitri Manos and drummer Eric Slick to the band. How has that impacted your sound?



TL: I don’t think it can be overstated how much they’ve changed the band. Our drummer is better than pretty much anyone in the band, and he makes everyone better. He plays harder. He’s really fast in the studio. He doesn’t really mess up. That definitely would have a huge influence on making the record, because a lot of the songs are really visceral songs that work right off the bat. And that was because of his ability to sort of get in the pocket and drive it home. And then Dmitri, he’s got a really good sense of things that are great. It’s just a really positive force in the band. He works as hard as anybody, and he comes up with great ideas pretty much all the time. The addition of those two guys has made a huge difference, and it’s made the band really fun.



CR:: How do you maintain a signature Dr. Dog sound while changing band members?


TL: I think it’s a couple of things. We’ve always sort of written songs, we’ve never really tried to be the band of the moment. There was never a time when we said, “We need to sound like this because this is what people sound like nowadays.” We’ve sort of always just written and recorded, and been drawn to sounds that have stayed pretty consistent over time. There’s internal aspects of anything in music. If it’s truly good and it’s truly quality, then in my mind it’s not all that subjective. It’s just good, it’s inherently good on its own. And so far, changing up productions and doing things that, to me, just doesn’t sound real. This is what sounds good to us, and we’re not going to stop doing it just because maybe it’s not the most popular thing to do at the time. There’s that, and there’s that we’ve always had the same approach to songwriting. I mean, I think we’re better songwriters now, but I think the approach has always been the same. Which is to have a song that you can sit down with an acoustic guitar or on a piano and play by yourself, and it’s going to hold up on its own as a song. It doesn’t need a bunch of whistles and bells or heavy production to stand on its own. There’s a lot of great songs where you really can’t do that, but in our band, ideally I think a good song is one that other people can play without relying on a certain keyboard sound or vocal effect or drum loop.

CR:: [Dmitri Manos] is the only person in your band without a nickname. Why is that?



TL: Yeah, I don’t know, we’re sort of shying away from that. It seems kind of tired. We started doing that probably 10 or 12 years ago at this point. It’s just sort of gotten old to us.



CR:: [Eric] Slick is up for Best New Drummer in Modern Drummer Magazine. How did you hook up with him?



TL: He’s been a fan of the band for a long time, he’s out of Philly too. We were friends with him, and when we needed to get a new drummer he was the only guy we called. He came over and he knew every single song, better than us. He and I have fit together, as a bass player, from really that first practice on. He’s just awesome. 



CR:: How does the band feel about a member being recognized for individual instrumentation like that?



TL: I don‘t know, those lists are kind of bullshit. I mean, I feel like Eric is way, way entitled to whatever accolades he gets, but I feel like in general they’re really not… You know what I mean, it doesn’t really mean that much… I think it would mean something to him. I don’t know, it’s great! I’m going to change my answer. Because he definitely is the best drummer out there, so he deserves it. But as far as the rest of us, I mean, I feel like Scott is the best guitar player around. And he doesn’t really get any accolades. 



CR:: You guys get compared to The Beach Boys and The Beatles a lot. Does that ever get tiresome or annoying? 



TL: It definitely gets tiresome for us. I mean, we definitely listen to those bands, but we’ve been our own band for a long time. I guess it’s helpful as a reference, but I feel like people saying that is not really putting much effort into actually coming up with adjectives that describe what we sound like.



CR:: Who are some of your less obvious influences?



TL: I know everyone in the band is a big Clash fan, and I think that sort of comes through a little more on this record. Pretty much anything you can name, we listen to. We like a bunch of Motown stuff. Everybody loves pop music in the band, and so every era has definitely been given a once-over in the band. 



CR:: Jim James from My Morning Jacket invited you guys to tour with the band in 2004, after hearing your album Toothbrush. What sort of relationship does the band have with MMJ?



TL: We have a good one. We’re still really good buddies. Obviously we don’t see them as much because we haven’t toured together in awhile, but we see them when we’re in Nashville or Louisville or wherever they’re living at the time. Every once in awhile we’ll see them at a festival. But I love those guys. Doing that first tour with them, it was really good for that to really be our first experience on the road with some guys who were passionate and worked hard. They didn’t really mess around, and they treated what they were doing with respect. They know what they’re doing is good, and they also know that they’re privileged to be doing it. That’s a really good attitude to see when you have no idea what touring is like at all, and you see that they’ve got it together. That’s definitely been a big influence on us.



CR:: Your older records are known for being lo-fi. Do you ever plan to return to that recording style now that you have the money to afford nice studio equipment?



TL: I think we get that bug out when we’re doing demos and stuff. There’s sort of always a certain charm to that aspect, it’s just a person in a room doing their own thing. But as a band I don’t think we would want to put something out there that would sound intentionally lo-fi. I don’t think that is appealing to us. This idea of hi-fi and lo-fi is kind of a sticky wicket, because it doesn‘t really exist. You can make stuff sound shitty on amazing equipment and you can make stuff sound great on cheaper stuff, to a degree. Really what it comes down to is whatever sound your ear is gravitating to, that’s what you’re going to do. So it doesn’t really matter what the equipment is, you‘re just going to do that because that’s what you want to hear. I just don‘t imagine us intentionally doing something that sounds like it was recorded on a boom box.



CR:: Is it ever tough having two lead singers?



TL: No, it’s great. I love it. It makes it so we always have plenty of material. And it’s also great because playing live, you don’t have to sing every single song. I mean, we do harmonies on the songs, but you don’t have to sing lead. But yeah, it’s never really been an issue to us. I think we’ve always been pretty honest with each other when it comes to whether or not we feel like something is working. And I don’t think there’s ever been a time when either one of us has felt like a song of ours is getting pushed off a record because of another song of somebody else’s. I feel like he and I have a really good understanding of what our songs are. And then when the song enters the band, it sort of stops being your song. It becomes the band’s song.



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