Chatting With Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog

Formed 20-some years ago in Philadelphia, PA, always charming neo-psychedelic rockers Dr. Dog have managed to craft everything from low-fi pop ala Guided By Voices and R. Stevie Moore to bristly, guitar-fueled punk rock (the band’s 2010 album Shame, Shame,) to the artfully polished, entirely analog-recorded Critical Equation, released earlier this year by We Buy Gold Records.

The album was recorded with producer Gus Seyffert (Bedouine, Beck) in Los Angeles after the band went on a brief hiatus following the 2016 release of The Psychedelic Swamp, an album that had been in works since before the group’s debut 2002 album Toothbrush. Critical Equation marks a major departure for the group in that the outfit made a determined choose in working with someone they weren’t entirely familiar with.

“(The making of Critical Equation) was preceded by a whole lot of thinking, and for a while there had been this sort of spirit developing inside the band, this sense that maybe it was time to start thinking about things from a different angle,” said Scott McMicken, the band’s guitarist, in an interview with WOUB Public Media about four month’s after the album’s release and about a week before the band’s Friday, August 10 performance at the inaugural Bellwether Festival in Waynesville, OH. “I feel like when you have been doing something for a long time you start to fall into a certain understanding of it, into certain patterns or habits. And it’s still a band I am referring to, so there is always some spontaneity and exploration, but this was really more of an (examination) of some more interpersonal things like how we all work together. More than anything else it was kind of putting on the breaks for a second and examining who we are as a band right now — like if we started this band right now how would we do that? Who would we be? And what would that work? Rather than constantly stepping into the inertia that this band has kind of created for itself over the years.”

WOUB’s Emily Votaw spoke to McMicken in the interview embedded above, touching on the creation of Critical Equation, as well as the recently released video for “Heart Killer.”

Dr. Dog will perform on Friday, August 10 at the Bellwether Music Festival in Waynesville, OH.