Dr. Dog swore off touring in 2021, but is making an exception for a date at the Mann
The Toby Leaman and Scott McMicken led band has a new album and is playing shows in Philly and Wilmington.
Dr. Dog decided it had had enough.
After two decades on the road, in which the Philadelphia indie band built a loyal following as a first-rate live act, the sometimes-psychedelic, always-melodic quintet announced their 2021 tour would be its last.
They closed it out in style with a five-show Philly farewell that included dates at the Fillmore and the TLA, and a New Year’s Eve blowout at Union Transfer. And with that, the Scott McMicken- and Toby Leaman-fronted band put an end to the endless album-followed-by-a-tour cycle that began with 2005′s Easy Beat.
The band never said it was breaking up, or hinted the members were tired of one another. But as McMicken, Leaman, and drummer Eric Slick put creative energies into solo projects, fans of the band had to wonder: Was Dr. Dog gone for good?
No need to worry: Dr. Dog is back.
The band is releasing its 11th studio album — simply titled Dr. Dog — on July 19. And while remaining true to its word and not going on an actual concert tour, the band is playing its biggest-ever Philly date.
It’ll headline a sold-out show at the Queen in Wilmington on July 11, then play the TD Pavilion at the Mann Center on a stellar bill with Kevin Morby and reunited Philly band the Teeth. Then it heads west for two shows in Colorado, including a sold-out night at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.
The band didn’t quit touring because the members were bored of playing together, Leaman says. It was because they wanted to stop before it got to that point.
“Scott and I had been talking about it for years,” said the bass player and songwriter, talking on the phone from Rehoboth, Del., where the Wilmington resident was on a family vacation.
“We didn’t want to be one of those bands doing it just for the money. We’ve always had a good time playing together. That’s been the guiding light for this band: Is this fun?”
McMicken and Leaman have been writing songs together since they were in eighth grade in West Grove, Pa. Leaman first picked up the bass when he realized the musically agile McMicken was already “like a little Hendrix” on guitar.
They arrived at the band name while freshmen at West Chester University “as two 18-year-olds stoned out of their gourds,” Leaman recalls.
That period in the band’s history produced their 2002 debut Toothbrush and also The Psychedelic Swamp, the trippy song cycle that later grew to legendary status and became a collaboration with Pig Iron Theater and the band’s eighth album in 2016.
» READ MORE: Dr. Dog and Pig Iron Theatre make 'Psychedelic Swamp' rise from the muck at Union Transfer
The members worked the road tirelessly, moving from tiny Philly venues like the Khyber Pass Pub and the Fire to selling out theaters across the U.S., with McMicken and Leaman joined by keyboard player Zach Miller and guitarist Frank McElroy, with Slick, who came aboard in 2009, on drums.
McElroy now lives in South Jersey and McMicken, in Asheville, N.C. Miller, a key player in the Eagles’ A Philly Special Christmas crew, resides in West Philly, and Slick — whose album New Age Rage came out this spring — is in Nashville.
The band members are in their mid-40s except for Slick, who’s a decade younger. Leaman, Miller, and McElroy each have two children. But adult responsibilities weren’t a prime motivator for quitting the road, Leaman said.
“The great thing about touring is, when you’re gone, you’re gone, but when you’re home, you’re home. I spend way more time with my kids than my parents ever did. Even when you’re gone for three or four months, when I’m home, I’m not doing anything.”
The band can envision a future without touring in part because its members have been astute in their business dealings.
“We own our masters, which is huge,” Leaman said. “If I could give advice to any musician, it would be: ‘Own your own masters.’ I actually do have a job — working as a stone mason — but it’s really just to stay sane.”
Money from music licensing comes in from movies, TV, and TikTok, where “Where’d All The Time Go?” from 2010′s Shame, Shame blew up in 2021. The song “100 Years,” from 2008′s Fate, was used in the trailer for the second season of Hulu’s Reservation Dogs in 2022.
Leaman released Military Application, his debut seven-song EP as a solo artist, in 2022. He was backed by a band that included Slick and Philly luminaries including Pat Finnerty and Eliza Hardy Jones.
He works slow, he says, and “as I get older” — he’ll turn 45 the night the band plays the Mann — “I’m moving at a snail’s pace. I like to have my songs to myself for a long time, just to have something private.” McMicken is a quicker creator — he released two full-length albums as Scott McMicken & the Ever-Expanding during the break.
But last August, both Leaman and McMicken were ready with batches of new songs when it was time to get back to work on what became Dr. Dog. The album is evenly divided with five songs each plus the tender, heartfelt “Tell Your Friends,” written and sung by Slick.
After 30 years, Leaman says his relationship with McMicken is more than just best friend or work partner. “It goes beyond both of those things. Artistically, we’ve always been on the same page. We’re still very, very close.”
But that doesn’t mean they always see eye to eye. “Scott doesn’t ever want to do the same thing twice,” Leaman said. So instead of recording at the band’s own studio in Delco, they headed to Leaman’s uncle’s cabin in Forksville, Pa., in Sullivan County, west of the Poconos.
McMicken produced, driving his recording equipment up from North Carolina, and the band worked and bunked in the cabin for two weeks.
McMicken’s contributions included the dreamy, delicate “What A Night’ll Do” and the most recent single “Love Struck,” which has some of the folkie, ramshackle feel of his work with the Ever-Expanding.
And Leaman — “not really a big love song guy,” he says — realized nearly all of his songs were written for his wife, Sarah, to whom he’s been married for 19 years. She is the “Handyman” on a lovely, shimmering tune which goes, “if you can’t help yourself, I know someone who can.”
“These songs all sort of come from the same thread,” Leaman says. “It’s like, thanks for being you, and for helping me out all the time.”
The album title fits a band that is back from their longest break in 20 years, and has returned with renewed camaraderie.
“We were all very psyched to get together,” Leaman said. “You know, making records is just so fun. And seeing each other, too. The five of us hadn’t been together in so long, after being together all the time for so many years.”
Dr. Dog is playing the Riot Fest outside Chicago in September because “we were offered an amount of money we could not turn down.”
And after that?
“I don’t know,” said Leaman. “We’re just going to take it as it comes. It’s an interesting time for the band. We’re just going to be putting this record out, and we’re not going to be touring it. That’s the one thing we’re not going to be doing.”
Dr. Dog with Kevin Morby and the Teeth at the Mann Center, 5201 Parkside Ave. at 8 p.m. on July 13. manncenter.org