Sara Howie
ARTS EDITOR


After 13 years of working like their namesake, baroque pop band Dr. Dog teach themselves a few new tricks.

Last Tuesday marked the digital release of their new EP, Wild Race, and along with this being their second EP, the band has seven full-length albums under their belt.

“We plan to be in the recording studio in a few months, and hopefully we’ll have an album out by the end of next year,” said drummer Eric Slick. Dr. Dog is currently touring across North America, stopping in Detroit on Oct. 12.

The band originates from Philadelphia and spent their first few years playing local shows in and around Pennsylvania. It’s possible that they would have stayed local too, if it wasn’t for guitarist Scott McMicken’s then girlfriend.

She passed Dr. Dog’s second album, Toothbrush, to Jim James of My Morning Jacket. James liked it so much he asked Dr. Dog to tour with him. The rest, as they say, is history. 

Slick is quick to point out that although Dr. Dog’s first tour was not planned, their success is certainly not by accident. “Yeah, our first tour happened like that, but we’ve put a lot of hard work into subsequent tours and we’ve really done a lot to get to this point,” he said. 

Dr. Dog’s success can also be attributed to how close the band has been for over a decade. 

“We are best friends. We hang out every day; we want to hang out every day,” said Slick. “We really love to tour.” Research shows that Slick isn’t lying. It’s well documented that each band member has a series of constantly changing nicknames, often included in the liner notes, and the band obviously has a great time on stage together. 

Each member of the group has personal musical influences, but they unanimously agree that Floating Action, a band from Black Mountain, N.C., deserves more attention. “It’s really screwed up that they aren’t way bigger than they are, and we’re incredibly lucky to also be friends with them,” Slick said about the band. 

You can look for Dr. Dog’s new EP, Be The Void, a collection of crooning lyrics and nostalgia-inducing guitar riffs that didn’t make it on to their most recent album.

Dr. Dog play with opener Maryland-based singer/songwriter Michael Nau a.k.a. Cotton Jones at the Majestic Theatre in Detroit on Oct. 12. Tickets are $18 and doors are at 8 p.m.