Barking up the right tree
Before they made their way to Southeast Asia, US indie band Dog Eat Dog did not expect to receive a great response from the region - but they underestimated the power of their music.
'Before we came here, we did not expect too much from the audience because we were too fresh, so we didn't expect to have a great crowd or people to know who we are, but we had a tremendous response,' said Dave Neabore, the band's bassist.
Formed in 1990 in New Jersey, the six-member band established themselves as one of the most popular US groups in Europe, after releasing their critically acclaimed first album All Boro Kings.
In 1995, the band received the award for 'Best Breakthrough Band' at the MTV Europe music awards and toured throughout Europe.
According to Neabore, the reason they were so popular was because they gave the audience something different.
'When we first went to Europe and started playing our music, I thought we showed a lot of hard-core European [fans] that we played with a lot of energy, and our our style was very different,' he said.
The musicians believe that while their music style is hard to categorise, their music is original. 'People have a problem in classifying you, they want to put [the band] in a special place but they can't because we jump around,' said vocalist John Connor.
'We don't mind that people try to classify or call us different names, from punk to pop, from rock to hip-hop. In a way the journalists and the public want to make it easier for them, it is nice to be classified as all these different things, which means Dog Eat Dog can fit into different sounds without being regulated to one scene or one type of music,' Connor continued.
The band agreed that their latest album, Play Games, was far better than its predecessor.
'I think we have grown up, we are better at what we do now. For example, John is a better vocalist than he was two or three years ago and I have a better sense of songwriting than before. I think the quality of the band has stepped up a lot in these years,' Neabore said.
Connor enjoyed collaborating with other musicians, including the Butcher Brothers and RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, on some of the tracks on the 11-cut album.
'When we recorded the RZA track, we went to a studio in New York on a Saturday night, we started at 6pm and ended at 2am with the written and recorded song on 24 tracks, which was very rare. There were no rehearsals, everything was from point A to point B. That was an interesting way of working, we never did a song under the pressure of recording it as you write it. That was a good experience,' Connor said.
Although the track is also a Neabore favourite, the bassist said he was impressed with Buggin'. 'That was the first time the band turned off the distortion and tried something experimental. Most of the time when we write songs, it is very controlled. But this was written in the studio and I wrote some lyrics first and had no idea of how the music was gonna go.
'Later everybody in the band came together and put a chord down and we created the song from nothing. It was different from anything we have ever tried.' After their Southeast Asian tour, the band will take a short break to recover before starting up again.
'When we did All Boro Kings, it was a lengthy album and it took us on 18 months of touring and promotion. When that was finished, we realised there were many places that had not heard from us during that time, so it was important not to take a break, get down to work and put out music for the fans and ourselves. So, we decided to give this album six months for promotion and afterwards, we would take a break and rest,' Neabore said.
'For the past year, we have been writing, recording and travelling non-stop, we had only two weeks for Christmas and New Year and other than that, we had been living, breathing, eating and sleeping like dog-eat-dog.
'I think it would kill us if we continued like this. I am not talking about a year's break, but maybe just a few weeks would be good for us,' Connor added.
