If you think rock 'n' roll is dead, just go to a Fat Dog show.
Fat Dog – All the Same (Official Video)
Since 2021, the Brixton five-piece have been slowly but surely taking the London music scene by storm with their wild, animalistic concerts, led by frontman Joe Love (yes, that’s his real name) who directs the crowd into a leg-splitting mosh pit. I first witnessed this phenomenon at Glastonbury, when the band’s chaotic set on the small Strummerville stage was nearly halted when the crowd got too rowdy. Highlights included someone lighting a flare, having a foam brick thrown at Love’s head, and the band’s sound engineer standing right in the middle of it all, making sure Fat Dog’s unique blend of punk, electro-pop and funk penetrated everyone’s ears.
Love remembers thinking it was a real brick, but he didn't care. "I thought, 'OK, I've got a lot of adrenaline, so if it hits my head, I've got 10 minutes before I pass out,'" he tells Variety on a bench at a dog park in south London, because where else would we be? Along with bandmates Chris Hughes (synths and keys) and Morgan Wallace (saxophone and keys), we came here with the intention of drumming up some Fat-Dog-on-dog interaction, but it's almost suspiciously empty.
"It's funny, in some interviews I want to say, 'It's just a name, we're not all dog-related,'" Hughes says. "But it's all so dog-related now."
