PipemanRadio Interviews Dr Dog About Riotfest & More

0:04 Hey, you have unto Yes, that's sure see why crazy young row. Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipeman on W four c Y dot com. West pomp Beats is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the Pipe Man. We've got to night. We've got it. You've got me taking that. We took County Sciz, You've got the rest of miles. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio.

0:57 And I'm excited about our next guest because he and his band is going to be performing at riot Fest this weekend on Sunday. That's totally I can't wait for that. So let's welcome to the show. Eric Slick from Doctor Dog. How are you? I'm so great. How are you doing? I'm doing amazing. Actually, I'm probably doing better than you because we were talking before we started the interview that you know, you're like me, deep in in above ground pool, slop up it that way. Yeah yeah, I mean my shoes are currently soaked and I'm just breaking down the intex pool that we had up all summer and it's now covered in algae. So I'm trying to throw it away.

1:43 Oh my god, Like, listen, I was in that business for ten years on the work side that I had to do that crap all the time, and I have trauma. You just talking about it. I'm sure, I'm sure. Yeah, I say the word algae and your spine tingles a little bit. No doubt. And I love talking about this because you know, so many listeners they think of musicians of like, oh man, they're living a dream life. All they get to do is play all the time, and here you are, you know, dealing with above ground pool mess. Yeah, not sue. I get an hour and a half a day of absolute glory and then the rest of the day just stuff like this. When I'm on stage, I'm like, ah, no problems. I can run away from anything.

2:29 And then I come back home and I'm like, crap, the pool's covered in algae, you know, right. So like it's just so people know that, like, Okay, yeah, you do have a real life. Yeah, musicians are people. Musicians are humans too, exactly. Sometimes I'll be at the grocery store and maybe somebody recognizes me from Doctor Dogg and they're like, oh my god, you're at Kroger. I'm like, yeah, I mean that's where I get my groceries. They expect you to get that stuff makes me laugh and you know what else, maybe laughed. I really dug in your well of your newest videos, talk is Cheap playing the watermelon in the video, Yeah, it's funny as hell.

3:15 I loved it. I mean, we like to have fun, doctor Dog. I think all of our press photos before this record will lead you to believe that we're like the most awkward people ever, But we're just bad at photos. Like right, well, we're I think we're an incredibly fun group of people to be around, and we try to make everybody feel welcome, and we're a bunch of goofballs. You know. Hopefully that shines through at some point, but yeah, we're totally goofballs. I think it shines through in your music. And you know, because I'm somebody that you know, I look at bands, and you look at and people see this when you perform at riot Fest, Like they they look at you play, they can tell if you're, you know, just going through the steps or if you're just really having fun up there.

4:00 And the only band I want to see is the one that's really having fun up there. Man. I agree, and Actually, I think in the last couple of years, especially since COVID and everything, the kind of shows I want to see are joyous shows. I don't really I don't have much interest in like watching somebody, you know, sort of barrow through their emotional knots. You know. It's like I just want you know, it's funny. I saw earth Wind and Fire at the end of twenty twenty three and it's like's like fourteen people on stage all doing high kicks in their seventies, you know, and it's like, I love it. It's incredible. It's like that's the kind of show. I mean, I'm paying money to go see a show like I want to see.

4:42 Like we go to escape life, you know, and I think musicians it is the perfect opportunity for them to escape life too, absolutely, and it's the best therapy there is. I do have a great earth Wind and Fire story, actually I have two. It's so funny how earth Wind and always comes up because like years ago, I was interviewing Jacoby Shaddocks and we were talking about he was he was performing at a festival in Europe. It's like, yeah, the greatest things about performing Europe is here. I am performing, and then and then later on I'm standing on stage watching Earth Wind and Fire. Yes, you know, at the same festival.

5:23 Oh my god, it's one of the greatest things in the world. I mean, Doctor Dog's done that so many times, where you know, we get to see like nav Staples, you know, like people that you never dream of being able to catch, or Herbie Hancock, you know, like these legends of pillars of American music, and we are just so lucky to be playing festivals and getting to see living legends, and you have to go see them while you can, because it's a completely it's a completely lost art. I mean, my wife and I saw Shaka Khan last year and I was just like, she sounds just as good as she's always sounded, And you just need to pay your respects to these people who are, no doubt are the architects, you. Know, no doubt. Yeah, And speaking of respects for the other story, like, I've gone to a lot of shows, a lot of festivals, but one of the highlights of my life was standing on stage next to Kate from the B fifty two's Yeah, watching earth Wind and Fire.

6:21 Oh my god, I mean, Kate Pearson, what a legend. I mean, the BC two's are another one where like I think they're so underrated as a band, like Rock. I mean, I obviously people know Rock Lobster and they know you know, Love Shock and everything, but like give Me Back My Man and all those songs Mesopotamia, like those mid eighties B fifty twos records are so incredible. Oh one hundred percent. So that's why, like I watch you guys on videos even and we're gonna see you at riot Fest, and I put you in the same league because one thing I've always found out, especially from the icons, they don't know their icons. They're just having fun, enjoying their life and doing what they do.

7:08 Yeah. Well, with Doctor Dog, I think we do put emphasis on making the shows as fun as humanly possible for us because we don't want to be up there suffering and struggling through it. And I think that now more than ever, because we've had a break from touring and because we've had time apart. When we get on stage, it really is about just having gratitude that we're all still here and that we all still play the way we do. And one thing that I always say about Doctor Dog that I heard from a mutual friend was that she was watching us play and she was like, you know, the gimmick about Doctor Dog is that you guys are just good. And I was like, oh man, that's the best compliment we could have ever received. This.

7:51 You know, we're not relying on like video walls or crazy lighting packages. Like the show is pretty simple and it's just reliant on our enthusiasm and like our abilities of are rather our competencies. You know, I don't I don't think that. I don't think that Doctor Dog. You know, I wouldn't say that we're like the most virtuosic band in the world, but like we we are competent and we have fun, and I mean that's that's pretty. Much it, and that's the way it should be. Listen. I say all the time, if you're a musician and you're not having fun, this is the wrong business. In twenty twenty four more than ever. Okay, yeah, because there's no other redeeming feature.

8:35 You know what's funny. My friend Peter, who's a manager, we were talking during COVID and he's like, you know, all these sunny people who who think that the music business is just is just all you know, fun and games. It's like it's gonna this COVID thing's gonna weed all the people out. Yeah, there's like. You know, at the time, I thought that might have been a cynical take, but now I'm like, you know, the people who are still doing it and still trying to make it work. I have no other choice but to play music, and it's a form of expression. It's your art, it's how you survive, and it's how you exist in the world. So you know, he might have had a little bit more of a cynical take, but he wasn't wrong in his assessment that, like the people who are still doing in twenty twenty four, I mean, great example, I just saw Green Day a week and a half ago, and they were unbelievable. Like, you know, maybe I didn't think of them so much as a live band. I just know them for the records and the singles and ye man, they were so enthusiastic and so high energy, and I was just like, this is what I'm talking about, this.

9:39 Is this is what I like to see, you know, And I love that that's still the case because they were the second show I went to cover when shows started in COVID yeah, and I was telling everybody, oh my god, they were unbelievable and unbelievable, and you never heard me say that about them before. I liked them, they were okay, but I'm also an old school punk rocker, so like the idea of pop punk kind of is weird to me. Oh of course. Yeah. But then I went to this show right after COVID, I'm like, oh my god, they're just amazing. And I probably couldn't say that about them if I saw them before COVID.

10:22 You know, it's it's it's so true. And they just had such excitement. I mean, it was kind of like seeing the Ramones or something like Yeah, you know, like seeing these like cartoon characters on stage, and they were there were no tracks, they were playing all their instruments like everything sounded immaculate, and they had so much stamina, and I was just like, man, this is like, this is the real deal. I feel like I'm watching like a legacy band at this point, like they are, They're they're legendary. It was amazing to watch and you never know, you know, you never know when you hear an artist first come on the scene whether or not they're going to have a career, or you know, maybe there are one hit wonder or whatever it is. But like the bands that have stood the test of time, it's because the songs are ironclad, you know, like Green Day songs like Welcome to Paradise and all those songs from Dookie, and then like you know, the tunes from American Idiots, like those songs are now canonized. They're part of the American songbook, you.

11:22 Know, no doubt, no doubt. And I also was saying like if you're if you're going to pull one thing positive of COVID, it's the fact that you know, you guys as musician were on this hamster wheel that you couldn't get off of. And I think the God bless you, thank you, thank you. The I think the you know, creativity wasn't the same anymore because you didn't have time to be creative. It's like, go do a show, write it, write songs on the tour bus on the way of show, blah blah blah blah. And it allowed all the musicians to low nownvaluate where they want their music to be and really grow into their music and probably create some of the best music that we ever had.

12:10 That's my I couldn't agree more. I kind of felt that way walking into the new Doctor Dog record too. You know, we had so much material backlog from six years of not recording together that when we did approach the material, it was like all of the hang ups of previous recordings were gone. Yeah, you know, it's like you can now assess material as if you were a beginner for most like that beginner's mind Zen mine kind of thing, Like we just approached it in this way of extreme love for playing together and that that mentality. It's like, I can't even really see making records any other way now. I'm like if I'm like, if you're having a hard time slogging through it, like you should abandoned the project.

12:53 You know, like agreed. It's like because even if you have sad songs or angry songs on the record, you should still be having fun while mate it, because that's the thing plus the songs being good now that there's a formula to making great music. But it's like, I mean, I saw Weezer two nights ago and it's like they played the Blue Album in full and I was like, man, every single, every single one of these songs, like this is like Bach. You know, it's like these songs are just like these songs will just be. It's like they've existed forever, you know. So I think with this last Doctor Dog record, we kind of not only came out of our hiatus, but came out of covid era just with a renewed sense of appreciating each other. And like I mean, in the sessions that we did the record, it was a week.

13:40 We did the whole record in a week, and then there were like twenty extra songs, so it was like so I mean, we were just burning through them every single day, it was, and it was so productive and so great, and we had so few distractions and just like barbecuing for each other laughing. It was. It was amazing. See. I love hearing that because I think in the need that as a band when you're a band for so long, because it starts geting, i don't know, tired, and then you have like the sit I call it the sibling rivalries. Oh totally, you know, and like you forget what it was like when you first started doing this stuff. You know, well, it's easy, it's what it is. It's easy to take it for granted. Yeah, it's easy to take anything for granted. I mean your relationships, your friendships, your day to day life. I mean, this is like why people get in a funk. You know, it's hard sometimes to see things from an aerial view. And I mean they say a distance makes the heart grow fonder.

14:38 I don't always think that's true, but in some cases it is. And in some cases you do need to have a reset. I mean, if you were working the same desk job for twenty five years and clocking in and clocking out, you're not you know, maybe you're not as happy as you could be, and maybe if you had some time away from it, you might actually go to appreciate it. I mean, who knows, it's like these kinds of things. Not to say that I ever have the h attention or the wherewithal to have a dust job. So I played drums in a rock band, but I do think that, like I mean, even time away from my drum kit is valuable time. You know, it's it's a time that's spent living and then you get back to your instrument and then you have that life experience.

15:19 You know, hopefully it's some kind of wisdom that you can impart into your instrument and vice versa. You know, one, I love it because you know, I would tend to think from all this plus the experience that your latest album, the self Towed eleventh studio album, Yeah, probably your best. Well, thank you so much for saying that. I mean, we're I certainly felt that way going into it, and I feel that way. I mean, it's definitely our best in years, and I think a lot of it just has to do with this new found appreciation for each other. And I mean that we text every day now and that wasn't the before. COVID like it. It's just amazing what that time will do for a group of people that you know, love each other. We loved each other even you know, ten years ago, five years ago, but now it's just a whole nother level of that.

16:17 I love hearing that because there are so many bands friends of the mine that I know that they're like, Yeah, when we get off tour, we're not recording, we don't even really talk. We just do our lives and then reconvene sometime later. And it's a bummer. It's a bumber. You are a family. That's why use a term sibling rivalry, because it's kind of what it's like in a band. Well, you know, it's interesting because I've been seeing so many things pieces online lately about like is it the end of bands? And I'm like, no, not necessarily, not necessarily, I don't think so. I don't think it's the end of bands. I mean, I saw my Morning Jacket last night, and I saw Nathaniel Rate Left and the Nights. But those are bands, and these are bands that are playing huge venues. What I do think is true is that, yeah, it's getting harder for bands to have resources, It's getting harder for all artists to have resources. But like, I don't think anything can really come close to the chemistry and sort of spur of the moment in magic that a band can bring to the table, right. I mean, it's like the difference of seeing a show that has a lot of backing tracks and to a metronome versus like seeing a band play without a net, you know, And like I mean, think about all your favorite live recordings and just how frenetic those can be. And think about all the all your favorite live performances that you saw.

17:35 I mean, my dad, like when I was growing up, he would talk about seeing the Kinks, and he's like, he's like, the Kinks were so amazing because they're so volatile, and maybe it's not the healthiest thing, but like you can't necessarily argue with the fact that like they have not I mean, that's a true sibling rivalry. But you know, Ray and Dave Davies. But I think, you know, there is just something inherently special about watching a bunch of people play music together on stage and the tension and release of that, and it's a magical thing. It's there's no words for it. It'll be very interesting to see Oasis speaking. Oh my god, Oh my god. I mean I hope that.

18:15 I hope they can make it through one song. But I think, uh, you know, at a certain point, you do have to do what's right for each other. I mean, they're they're brothers. I only wish the best for them. Honestly. It's like I pine, in life, you just got to set crap aside. That's my viewpoint. Oh definitely. And there's things, there's life things that happen that kind of force you into that. You know, maybe losing a parent, losing a best friend. I mean, you really learn how to not sweat the small stuff when that happens. You know, I've been to I've been playing music with my sisters since I was eleven years old. She plays bass, and uh, you know, we've had to take time off from playing with each other, and we love each other and our best friends, and you know, we're fifteen months apart. So it's like you no matter how it's it's almost like the more you value your relationship and your friend and your friendship as siblings, like, the more you you do need to carve out that time to do your own thing. So, yes, I'm very curious about A Waysis as well. I hope all the shows go off without a hitch. I hope it's not a Jen's addiction situation. I hope it's not. I mean I was on tour this last weekend. I was doing some some solo shows and man, I mean, like everybody pointed their phone at me at one minute was like have you seen what just happened? And I'm just like, oh, you know, And at that point, I'm like, you know what, they should stop because because it's clearly not good for the health of the band, and like you need to

19:47 assess and make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons and maybe they're just not ready. So I after dogs doing it for the right reasons. Well, hell yeah, I mean at this point, you know, I think I don't think we have a choice. I think, like we now see how it is to exist as a healthy band. So man, I mean now it's like the sky's the limits. Like I'm so curious to see where we go next. And you know how we can maintain this level of just joy with each other? For sure? Absolutely? Well, can't wait Sunday Riot. Yes, tell everybody. Also how they can connect to you guys on the web on socials? Get Yeah, we're check out. Also your vinyl label Least Records.

20:37 Oh my god, it's not you know, it's funny. I don't have that label anymore. It's no Slick Records. Oh okay, well Slip Records, then Slick Records. I operate it through Thirty Tigers. So that's how I've been putting out all my solo music as of late. And they're phenomenal distributor out of Nashville. I love working with them. Nice. And then so how do we connect to doctor Doug on the web? Oh? Yeah, and all that. Yeah, it's all Doctor Dog Music, So Instagram, doctordog music, dot com, Twitter, doctor dog Music, it's all the same handle. It's all pretty organized in that way. So Doctor Dog Music. D R d o G not d O g G not like not like Snoop Dogg. Sometimes so people have gotten it wrong. So yeah, d R d O G.

21:20 I bet you. There's some people even said doctor Doug. Doctor Doug. Why why not? But it's doctor Doug and you'll be Sunday at riot Fest killing it and everybody's got to check out the new album. Thanks for taking your time away from your pool funk. Yeah, I'm about to go drag it to the trash can. So uh, I wish wish me. Luck, I wish you luck. And thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Yeah, thanks pipe Man. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of pipe Man. I'm w for c u I Radio.