Day of the Dog: Fat Dog, Working Men's Club + More

A Halloween Special - Day Of The Dog

Now Wave throw a massive Halloween party on the Day of the Dead – headlined by band of the moment Fat Dog playing their biggest show to date

Fat Dog came together in 2021, with singer Joe Love deciding to form a group and take the demos he had been making at home as a way to keep himself sane during lockdown out into the world.

Without releasing any music, Fat Dog started making a name for themselves with a series of exhilarating and/or wonky shows across south London – with those formative gigs formed the bedrock of what Fat Dog were all about. It didn’t take long for the kennel-dwellers to come flocking, with every Fat Dog show in London becoming a huge upgrade on the last.

Their debut album WOOF is a thrilling blend of electro-punk, rock’n’roll snarling, techno soundscapes, industrial-pop and rave euphoria, music for letting go to.Produced by Joe Love, James Ford and Jimmy Robertson, WOOF. passes by in a flash.

Influences include Bicep, I.R.O.K., Kamasi Washington and the Russian experimental EDM group Little Big. Follow up non-album single Peace Song might sign post a new direction for Fat Dog and it found itself nestled on the Radio 1 playlist for an astonishing nine weeks.

Catch them in the Warehouse at their biggest show yet for Day of the Dog – with more acts to be announced soon.

Announce 2025 headline shows.
Debut album WOOF. out September 6
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Photo credit: Pooneh Ghana

“They’re epic, raucous and ready for a mainstage slot” The Observer

“Their mix of electronica and punk is an adrenaline-pumping experience: one that makes you feel like
a teenager experiencing the bedlam of the moshpit for the first time. They possess all the promise,
charisma and youthful abandon that new bands are supposed to have” NME

“The unstoppable force that is Fat Dog” Clash

“A chaotic take on punk that made you think of a clown car driven by anarchists... Excellent” The

Times 4*

“Many of their songs, like the latest single ‘Running,’ begin with runaway rave intensity and somehow

ratchet it up even further as they proceed.” SPIN

"Fat Dog have a penchant for the grandiose. ‘All the Same’ is propelled by a menacing techno rhythm
in the drums and bass, but it’s at its best when that beat bursts open to reveal orchestral swells,

industrial electronics, and ‘eagle noises’” The FADER

“South London’s Fat Dog have already become legendary exponents of the sublime and ridiculous,
ripping up any preconceived notion of cool and righteously wiping their arses with it.” So Young
“They are without a doubt the most exhilarating thing I play on the show” Jack Saunders, Radio 1
“Some of the most exciting, thrilling, weird dark wave/post-punk stuff I’ve heard in a long time, maybe

even years” The Needle Drop

“This is one of the records I’ve been eagerly awaiting, particularly having stalked this band around

SXSW” Steve Lamacq, 6 Music

“Fat Dog creates a space for euphoria and discomfort, humour and unease” FLOOD
“You NEED to see this band... pure chaos” Matt Wilkinson, Apple 1

Fat Dog’s debut album will be unleashed on September 6

th via Domino and, having sold out most
2024 tour dates, they’ve just announced a run of headline shows in the UK and Europe in 2025.

--photo credit Frank Fieber

When the chaotic south London rabble known as Fat Dog formed, they made two rules: they were
going to be a healthy band who looked after themselves and there would be no saxophone presence
in their music. Two simple edicts to live by, and two things long-since broken by the Brixton five-piece.
“Yeah, it’s all gone out the window,” says Love.
Life is too short to stick to any plans you made in the unsettling, strait-jacketed times of 2021 anyway.
That was when Fat Dog came together, Love deciding to form a group and take the demos he had
been making at home as a way to keep himself sane during lockdown out into the world. In Chris
Hughes (keyboards/synths), Ben Harris (bass), Johnny Hutchinson (drums) and Morgan Wallace
(keyboards and, umm, saxophone), Love found like-minded mavericks to help bring the dream home.
“A lot of music at the moment is very cerebral and people won’t dance to it,” says Hughes. “Our music
is the polar opposite of thinking music.”
Hughes should know. He was a fan of the band, at that point making a name for themselves with a
series of exhilarating and/or wonky shows across south London, before he was in the band. Those
formative gigs formed the bedrock of what Fat Dog were all about, seizing the moment, drinking too
much with the moment, going home separately from the moment but making up with the moment
again the next day.
It didn’t take long for the kennel-dwellers to come flocking, every Fat Dog show in London becoming a
huge upgrade on the last. They sold out the Scala in October 2023 and, in April, played a triumphant
set to a sold-out Electric Brixton. There is something deeper going on here than the usual
punter-goes-to-gig situation. Everyone is in on it. “There’s a sense of community about Fat Dog,” says
Hutchinson. And it’s not just the capital who have been bitten; recently, the band completed an
ecstatically received tour of the US that included an all-conquering set at a taco joint. No lunches were
harmed. Fresh off a UK tour last month, their next run here is in November including London’s O2
Forum Kentish Town as well as performances at Glastonbury, Truck and Latitude festivals. They
will also return to North America in October.
The sound Fat Dog make, Love says, is screaming-into-a-pillow music. “I wanted to make something
ridiculous because I was so bored,” he declares. It’s a thrilling blend of electro-punk, rock’n’roll
snarling, techno soundscapes, industrial-pop and rave euphoria, music for letting go to. Produced by
Joe Love, James Ford and Jimmy Robertson, WOOF. passes by in a flash. Influences include
Bicep, I.R.O.K., Kamasi Washington and the Russian experimental EDM group Little Big.
The album is a visit into the mind of Joe Love - be thankful you have only been granted a temporary
pass. “Music is so vanilla,” says Love. “I don’t like sanitised music. Even this album is sanitised
compared to what’s in my head. I thought it would sound more fucked up.”