Noisey Meets A Giant Dog

Bucking the trend of the word “The” being the preeminent article at the beginning of most bands’ names, Austin garage rockers A Giant Dog just dropped a new EP and are currently rigging up charges in your ears and getting ready to throw the switch to blow them off with a new album in February. Noisey got the chance to have a little heart-to-heart to talk to about a bunch of weird stuff, including, but not limited to: papier-maché monsters, snacks, reel-to-reel recording, and working with Spotify.

NOISEY: So, first off, is that a Xenomorph (the alien from the Alien movies) popping out of that pile of cute puppies on the cover of Fight?
I did the blue creature. It really should have a name. How ‘bout “Thug Newton.” I guess there was a little inspiration stolen from the Alien movies. I used to do that knife/finger trick in my kitchen when my parents weren’t looking. I’m surprised I still got all my digits. So I made it out of papier-maché and styrofoam. I think that’s a mountain lion mouth. I just wanted to make something really tacky—I think the original plan was to give it to my sister, who’s super into having her house be all interior decorated, but I end up growing attached. I made another one that’s going to be the cover of the new album, Bone. He looks like a proud toddler that you wanna smack in the mouth.

So, speaking of Bone, you guys recently just dropped a new EP, Dammit Pomegranate. Are the two tracks on that seven-inch like leftovers from Fight that we’re pulling out of the fridge for a late-night snack, or more of an amuse-bouche to set the table for Bone? Sorry for all the food metaphors, it’s almost lunch time.
You son of a bitch I just ate, now I’m gonna have to eat again! Anyways, it was kind of an in-between process. This guy Mike McCarthy asked us if we wanted to come record some tracks in his studio for free. That’s what came out. We were pretty used to recording everything in our garage with Orville and hadn’t been in a studio in a long time. We liked what [Mike] did a lot; it’s all reel-to-reel, which is what we are used to, so we went back in a couple months later and recorded the rest of the new album. So I guess you’d say its like the bag of M&Ms you eat before dessert.

I’d say peanut M&Ms, from the way the sweet chocolate and savory nuts harmonize with each other. Okay, I’m making it weird. Moving along, I stumbled onto you guys on Spotify, while I was looking through Apache Dropout’s related artists. Do you look at your own related artists tab and think, “Yeah, that makes sense,” or does it feel like more of an arbitrary Pin-the-tail-on-Thug-Newton kinda thing?
I’m a fan of Spotify as well as paying to subscribe to music. I check out our related artists and it’s pretty cool to see the recommendations are people that you play shows with here in Austin or on tour. Or maybe would have played with 30 years ago. We’re in other bands, including Bobby Jealousy and OBN III’s, and it’s cool to see they’re our first/second related artist. When you share band members, it doesn’t get more related than that. Spotify should pay us for this shit.

So are you guys seeing any kickback from putting your records up on Spotify? I’m not really even sure how it works. I pay my ten bucks a month so I can get it on my iPhone and rock out on the subway, but I, and I’m sure a lot of other subscribers, like the idea that some of that money is going back to the artists
Yeah, it’s fairly efficient. We get paid each time someone streams our song. If you can just leave our songs on repeat for a few weeks…years…we’d greatly appreciate it!

Look for ‘Bone’ in February 2013. Stream the new EP, ‘Dammit Pomegranate,’ here and check out ‘Fight’ on Spotify.

@theringadingkid