With a studio album, a live album, professional narrative videos, lots of live videos, and tours that took them as far from home as Iceland, Asbury Park-based Dogs in a Pile are the Makin Waves Band of the Year. PHOTO BY NICK CODINA
The sandy shores of Asbury Park are hallowed ground in the Northeast. The rolling waves have ushered generations of venerated musicians to worldwide acclaim.
Dogs in a Pile, an eclectic quintet, has emerged as heir apparent to the City by the Sea’s rich musical legacy. Merging funk, jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll with psychedelia, the quintet presents a completely original vibe built on kaleidoscopic soundscapes eerily reminiscent of yesteryear.
The Dogs employ a unified approach to performance and songwriting, crafting aural mosaics through adept instrumentation and humble precocity. As avid storytellers, they draw inspiration from personal experiences, balancing life’s foibles with ever-present youthful sanguinity.
Dogs began when Philadelphia University of the Arts guitar gun-slinger Jimmy Law began playing with young drummer Joe Babick, a student at the Count Basie Theatre music program in Red Bank. Lightning struck when they were introduced to Berklee School of Music bass player Sam Lucid, who immediately suggested fellow Berklee student and keyboard player Jeremy Kaplan. The addition of fellow Berklee student Brian Murray on guitar in 2019 made for the quintessential final piece in the Dogs’ puzzle.
A string of successful local shows drove the development of a massive Northeast fan base, affectionately known as The Dog Pound. The band’s astronomical growth culminated in an epic, sold-out performance during the summer of 2021 at Asbury Park’s legendary Stone Pony, where they’ll return for two homecoming shows on Dec. 15 and 16 in the wake of extensive national touring. Celebratory year-end shows also will include Dec. 28 at Sony Hall in New York City and Dec. 30 and 31 at Putnam Place in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Then the circus will roll out once again in January with Northeast, Southwest, Midwest, and West Coast dates sandwiching the recording of singles for their third studio album following this year’s “Bloom” and 2021’s “Not Your Average Beagle.” With also a live album, professional narrative videos, lots of live videos, and tours that took them as far from home as Iceland, Dogs in a Pile are the 2023 Makin Waves Band of the Year, having previously won Best Live Band two years in a row.
The rest of the 25th Annual Makin Waves Awards will be announced right around Christmas, but they roll out with the Makin Waves Band of the Year Interview for which I chatted with Jimmy, Jeremy, Brian and manager Ross Peterzell about their many accomplishments this year, plans for next year, and their love of The Dog Pound. Enjoy!
Dogs in a Pile accomplished a lot in 2023. What would you say was your greatest accomplishment?
Jeremy: Living through it (laughs). It’s been crazy … just the travel and driving, setting up every night. No one broke any bones. That’s pretty incredible.
Jimmy: Being able to play in front of all the people who haven’t seen us before is really cool. Also returning to a lot of fans who’ve seen us bunch and trying to change things up for them.
Jeremy: Also, going out with other bands, hanging with them, especially older bands who’ve been doing it longer. We learn from them how to do what we’re trying to do. We’re seeing it done at a high level.
Do you think 2024 will be even bigger and better, how and why?
Jeremy: That’s the idea … laying the groundwork for bigger shows, new stuff, exciting things all around. That’s supposed to be the natural order of things. You tour around small cities in every corner of the U.S., pick up a couple fans, then go to larger cities, picking up a couple more.
What future venue or event are you most looking forward to playing that you haven’t yet, and why are you looking forward to it?
Jimmy: I don’t think the gig is announced yet. Mission Ballroom was probably the biggest indoor venue we’ve played, probably with the biggest crowd.
Jeremy: Mission Ballroom was very exciting. Sea Hear Now or Peachfest were big crowds, but it’s a different feeling in an outdoor space versus concentrating all that energy inside a building.
Jimmy: When we do announce it early next year, it would be our biggest area show to date.
Have you toured outside of the United States, when, where, and how did that go? And do you plan to?
Jimmy: We did one gig in Iceland with Disco Biscuits. We did the pre-show, opened for them, and did the after show on May 20 and 21. That was really cool and really interesting.
Jeremy: As of right now, no, but we definitely look forward to it in the future.
Dogs in a Pile bassist Sam Lucid is pictured with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh at the Skull ‘n’ Roses Festival in April at Ventura County Fairgrounds. PHOTO COURTESY OF DOGS IN A PILE
What musical heroes did you get to meet this year, and what was that experience like?
Jimmy: Sam’s not here, but at Skull ‘n’ Roses he met Phil Lesh and said it was so cool. He’s our bass player, so it was super cool for him. He’s one of his biggest guys. He is for all of us, but him specifically.
What’s the wackiest or funniest thing that happened to the band while on the road this year?
Jeremy: We’ve had bad experiences in general with generators and mid-level touring vehicles that like to give up. We’d have to go a couple of days without any electricity in our vehicle. We’d be seating there freezing.
Jimmy: In Seattle, this deranged homeless man was throwing giant rocks at everyone in the crew because we were trying to load out on his tent property. We were loading in for Pigeons (Playing Ping Pong), and this guy was launching rocks at us. During the load out, the cops were called, and they arrested him.
Is Oh, You See? your own label?
Ross: More or less. We distributed our first two albums on.
When do you plan to record and release your next album, and do you expect it Will be on Oh, You See? or another label?
Jeremy: We’ll stick to indie releases for until Sony, Atlantic or Capitol starts to pay attention. That’s pretty much how it goes now with 95 percent of artists. It’s like a ghost kitchen when you go to Uber Eats and order from Joe Shmo Pizza, which doesn’t really exist.
We have some cuts recorded. We’re awaiting more overdubs for single releases ahead of the album. We have time set aside in March for recording much of the material with a release some time in 2024.
Are you performing any of the new songs for the next album live? If so, can you tell me a little bit about them?
Jeremy: Yes, the way we typically approach it is we write songs, play the songs, then figure out what goes on the album. We have a back log so large we could fill up two or three record lengths. We have to pick and choose.
Jimmy: With our first album, we just took songs that were in front of us, songs that felt most ready to go in the moment. We’re not yet in the journey to make this album of this specific stuff. We’ll go about what we have. I think it would be really exiting to release an album of songs that we never played before, but not in the near future.
Jeremy: That’s the opposite of the way we’ve done it. For years, people have been writing and recording albums and then touring albums. Albums are like landmarks in time, like ‘This record exists at that this time.’ That provides an opportunity to workshop tunes onstage and really try different things and learn different things about the way the song will operate.
Did you write songs with Hayley Jane, what are the release plans for them, what did you enjoy most about working with her, and do you expect to do so again?
Ross: There was a brief period of talks, but it hasn’t gotten past that.
Jimmy: We wrote a handful of tunes with her and performed them with her. We never actually made plans to record them. We just did it and kept moving, but at some point, we’ll make more and finish the ones we have.
Jeremy: We recorded all of our shows and performed the tunes. We briefly talked about compiling them all to release as a live recording.
Jimmy: She’s been in the scene for a little bit now. We’ve met quite a bunch of different musicians in the scene. She knows the ropes. She’s been around a while, so writing tunes with her was really cool, getting her perspective about songwriting. It was cool to get that side of it. Her being around a bit, we tried to hone in on that in our songwriting.
What other artists would you like to collaborate with and why?
Jeremy: There are a lot of great musicians out there, so that’s tough. Inside our scene -- the jam scene -- there are a plethora of brilliant minds, and just having an audience with any of them would be a treat.
Jimmy: We have been able to meet a lot of musicians within the scene. How that happened with Hayley Jane is a friendship sparked. We realized everybody in the scene has a similar mindset. Once we meet a group of people, that really clicks. That’s how songwriting starts. We know people who make good songs, but we don’t just hit them up and say, ‘Let’s write a song.’ It’s cooler to build a relationship.
Ross: Hayley was the first time the band was challenged by a sixth person to write new material. What came out is what you heard on tour. It was a major challenge for the band. We had seven days to get as much new material as we could with a new creative force. It was impressive. We were friends before, but we hadn’t worked in that space before. In a week’s time, we put everything together that you heard earlier this year.
PHOTO BY NICK CODINA
How does each element of your team help you succeed?
Jeremy: It is the big picture to the smallest detail. Kieran Tooker is a longtime friend, our tour manger, chief roadie, and video producer. And he makes sure we have water onstage.
The team is hugely important. We’re getting by with just a skeleton crew, but we have people on board who ensure that we’re always comfortable getting into a space creatively.
Ross is Mr. Manager.
Jimmy: But he’s also a longtime friend.
Ross: I was at the second Dog show. I was at the first show with the current lineup. Brian joined the summer after officially.
Jeremy: Ross was the first one on board, then Kieran. Our photographer is Nick Codina. He had a decent social media following before he started taking pictures. Then he got into photography.
Charlie Horne is picking up on some of the tour managing responsibilities because one of Kiernan’s goals is to just be the video guy. Charlie is picking up routing and advancing, making sure other bands and venues know what’s coming in with us. And he sells our merch.
Brian: He worked with Gov’t Mule and different venues even though he’s a young guy.
Jimmy: At this point in the game, it’s pretty much all these guys have loose titles. They’re all just picking up the slack every way they can. Every one of them does a little bit of everything just to make sure the job gets done. Our goal here is to make those jobs with positions that are more fleshed out and everybody doing their thing. The important thing is that everyone is all hands on deck. That’s the only way we can make it work right now.
Ross: And then there’s our sound guy.
Jeremy: Brian Masella, our sound engineer, is a very important mind to have on the road. He has a logistical brain and a golden set of ears.
Ross: And he loves smoking pot.
Brian: He never seems high though.
Jeremy: I’ve found that the best sound engineers are huge pot heads (all laugh).
What do you love most about the Dog Pound and why?
Jeremy: They’re so supportive and welcoming. It’s great to see familiar faces up front in random-ass cities. And it’s super cool to see them be welcoming. We have people come to every show in the tristate area. But then they’ll come out to a show in California, and the Dog Pond on the West Coast is so welcoming to that East Coaster that they become friends. Everyone is really tight. It’s amazing to see that positivity and friendship develop across the whole country.
Jimmy: It’s really co0l to see. I noticed all these things when I was watching the old Dead videos. All the kids coming out see the shows. Some kids come out and the hit tour heavy. They’re looking for something to let that energy out. Everybody seemed to need an outlet, and a lot of these kids seemed to br finding it. One kid you’d see on the West Coast. It was his first Dog show. I thought he was this hippy kid growing up with hippy parents and knew all this stuff. But he saw Dark Star Orchestra and dosed for the first time the week before he saw us. It’s really great seeing these people find their purpose. That’s a really good feeling.
PHOTO BY BRYAN LASKY
Your December is stacked with three high-profile regional shows, including a homecoming at the Stone Pony. After such an intense year of national touring, how does it feel to end the year close to home with family and friends?
Jimmy: Like nothing else.
Jeremy: It’s a super exciting feeling. This will be our second homecoming end-of-the-year type deal. It’s really satisfying. To be able to play a very exciting show, then drive 20 minutes and sleep in our own beds is spectacular.
Any plans for any solo recording projects or more solo live appearances?
Brian: No recordings as of yet. I did my first solo show the other day at The Bitter End. It was fun to do during the holidays. The Dog Pound came out. I was able to play some Dog songs. It’s something that could happen every once in a while.
Jimmy: We went to see Brian. My girlfriend and parents surprised Brian, and we made a night of it. To see that side of The Dog Pound and that side of creativity, it was a special kind of thing. I’d like to do one with Brian, and other members of the band, and one with myself.
Brian: During the pandemic, we did Otherwise Useless Children, but we didn’t have official shows.
Ross: Otherwise Useless Children is OUC, which is the name of our record label, but spelled out.
Is there anything I didn’t ask on which you would like to comment?
Jeremy: We definitely want people to be excited, to stay tuned. We have more stuff coming, more recordings, more gigs.
Bob Makin has produced Makin Waves since 1988. Follow Makin Waves on Facebook and contact Bob at makinwaves64@yahoo.com.
