Once in awhile, when all the right elements align for a band, the potential for unyielding harmony between musicians and their instruments is in the air.
When singer-songwriter Toby Leaman first met fellow musician Scott McMicken ten years ago when the two were in eighth grade, it was more than a chance encounter or start of a casual interest in music. Their meeting provided a spark to an ever-evolving musical friendship –- one that's culminated into the two friends creating a singer-songwriter double whammy at the forefront of quickly rising Philadelphia band Dr. Dog.
With a sound drawing a variety of influences like '60s pop and rock music -- including but not limited to groups like The Beatles, The Band and the Beach Boys -– the group has found a harmony-soaked formula that works in perfect unison with the vocals of the two singers.
"The songs are really concise and there's not really much fat," says Leaman of their interest with 60s music. "The songwriting for me just seems really concise with no errors. It's not like a lot of other songs that depend on different things to make it good. The songwriting is good and they're in and out and they seem to have a heart to it."
With a new album, "Shame, Shame," in tow, the band continues to hone into a unique dynamic that increasingly has incorporated the energy of its live shows.
Dr. Dog returns to Turner Hall Ballroom Friday, with opener Here We Go Magic, to provide an encore harmony-filled evening full of rock and roll.
Creating a musical bond
Dr. Dog's growth from a rag-tag band of Philadelphia musicians into a nationally headlining act didn't happen over night. It came out of years of hard work and confidence-building ... and a little help from some famous friends.
Even before Dr. Dog became a full band, Leaman and McMicken had spent about a decade working together and, in a way, setting the framework to what was to come.
"Scott and I were pretty isolated for a long time," says Leaman. "It was just me and him playing for years and years, writing and recording together. For the half of the time we knew each other we were writing and recording and not really playing live at all. And then ten years later we got more guys and that's sort of where we are today."
At first, the friends had a formula down that McMicken would write the guitar chords and Leaman would handle the melody and lyrics. As they gained experience and confidence, they began to share the duties more and more. When they were in their late teens, McMicken started looking into singing and found it was something he was pretty good at. While many things changed, there was always an ideal way of working.
"There was never a time in the band that we weren't both working on separate songs or both working on the same song," says Leaman. "It didn't matter who wrote it."
As Dr. Dog came together in 1999, the two friends began to find that each could bring something unique to the songs that they wrote.
"Scott is a little more wordier than I am when it comes to lyrics," says Leaman. "I like to boil it down and have as few lyrics as possible and get more from the performance of the singing. Scott's lyrics are more visual and I guess more poetic in a way."
"And usually a little more on the upbeat side; his melodies and the production we do on his songs are usually a little more upbeat than what works for my stuff. Usually my stuff is darker in production wise, but lyrically the theme is the same. We just go about it in different ways."
Leaman says that having these contrasting styles is one of the keys for having the success they've had as a musical duo. Instead of it seeming like a competition of who can write the best songs, they do what makes them both feel good.
"I think its good having a pretty idea of what you want to do stylistically and having another person having a good idea of what they want to do and finding harmony in there; that definitely gives you deeper dimension of the songs you can record," says Leaman.
As Dr. Dog –- which currently features Leaman (bass), McMicken (guitar), Zach Miller (keyboard), Eric Slick (drums), and Frank McElroy (rhythm guitar) –- began playing more and more, the duo's special musical bond carried over to form a cohesive unit.
"We've all been playing for a while now," says Leaman. "We just got a new drummer but he's worked his way in pretty quickly. In the past few years I think we've all defined our roles pretty well, especially in the studio. Everyone understands what they're good at in the studio and what everyone else is good at giving enough space to flourish."
This helps in the band's goal of creating songs that Leaman says are "readily accessible to people," with "lots of harmonies and interesting stuff rhythmically and try to get the song moving."
The first thing the band tackles is the harmony, which it tries to get down as fast as possible. Everyone works together on fine tuning how they think the bass and drums should go and from there pick and choose what they want to do.
"If anybody has an idea for a guitar line they can do that or piano they can do that," says Leaman. "Usually we have it that you can do it or have someone better than you do it. It makes us work faster and makes people feel appreciated in what they're doing."
Eventually as the sound came together they, people on the outside began appreciating what the band was doing. The band got the attention of Jim James of My Morning Jacket after McMicken's then-girlfriend slipped a copy of the band's first record that contained homemade recordings. James liked what Dr. Dog were doing (not to mention he knew Leaman and McMicken from their pre-Dr. Dog band Raccoon) and handpicked Dr. Dog to open for his band.
"They took us out before anybody. That was the first tour we ever did with them because they asked us and we were very happy to do it," says Leaman. "We've been fortunate to have bands with success helping us along the way."
The band's fascination with jumping into the limelight was met with everyone earning a nickname based on personalities to differentiate the musician from the everyday person. Over time though, the band has fully become their life.
"The nicknames were sort of a way to separate yourself from your day-to-day life," says Leaman. "You feel that once you're in the band you're doing a cool separate thing where your name wasn't even the same. But we don't really do that anymore so much now. Now our life is the band so we don't really need an actual separation."
Taking music to a new level
The band's latest album "Shame, Shame" is a collection of songs that puts together all that the band has learned and is physical proof of the band's jettison to the next level.
While the band's early albums featured a more lo-fi, homemade sound and become more polished as time went on, they were always made in the familiar confines of their home studio. But after the success of their album "Fate," the band knew it was time to try a new approach.
This approach involved working with a producer, outside the home studio. For "Shame, Shame," the band's ANTI- record label debut, the goal was to make a more modern sounding record, with more guitars and feature more of the live energy of the band's live shows. In other words, an arrangement that could replicate easily in the live setting of two guitars, keys, bass and drums.
With producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith) Dr. Dog found a producer who had knowledge about the band's past way of working and could help achieve the desired sound.
"Recording in New York with Rob was really a learning experience for us," says Leaman. "We sort of hit a wall in our studio, and wanted to go someplace else and work with somebody who maybe knew a little more than we did and had a different approach. It was difficult at first especially when you're working with someone new and so invested it."
With Schnapf's help, the band was able to record everything, including the guitars properly, something that challenged the band on previous albums. On many of the band's previous records the only time you'd hear guitar was often on a solo. Leaman says that based on what the band knew guitars would take up too much space and their guitars and amps weren't the best.
"Rob was really good at getting really good guitar sounds. We had fifteen guitars to choose from and I believe that many amps," says Leaman. "It was really easy to throw it down and go 'Oh, we sound great' because we didn't have to think about it on our end."
The songs for "Shame, Shame," like many of their previous songs, examine being detached and confused and trying to figure out your surroundings. The music might feel darker in tone from previous efforts but Leaman says it's more due to how well the lyrics fit with the surrounding music.
"I think on our new album the music definitely follows the lyrics a little better," says Leaman. "Normally we'd have a song with very dark lyrics on paper and pair it was a bouncy, exuberant production so it didn't sound like a dark song at all. The music follows the lyrics more and I feel that's why this album came out darker; not because it was any darker than any of our other albums lyrically but because the music is."
Some of the songs are the most autobiographical the band's written, including McMicken's exploration of West Philadelphia's life between the shadows in "Shadow People" and his account of two soul-bearing late night conversations in "Jackie Wants a Black Eye."
All the songs are soaked in brightly shining harmonies, muscular guitar riffs and high flying melodies. While the band fell short of getting the true live album it set out to get, Leaman feels it's getting closer.
"We had to abandon a lot of that idea early on because that's not really the way we do it. We're not particularly good at recording and playing live at the same time because everyone's so involved in everyone else's part," says Leaman.
"You end up concentrating on your part as opposed to what everybody's doing at the same time. So it was a little difficult at first getting the live feel. I think we have a lot of work to do if our band wants to go and cut an album live. We'd like to do it at some point."
The band plans to continue its progression with the next record, as soon as this tour finishes.
"That's pretty much the only two things we can do as a band," says Leaman. "As soon as we're done touring we'll start working on the next record, which I'm really excited about."
