Track By Track: Dip Road Dogs open up about their debut EP, ‘Shakshuka’

Ahead of its official release tomorrow, Dip Road Dogs singer Dave Chirnside has taken us through the tracks on their debut EP, Shakshuka.

Recorded in Nashville, Tennessee between The Amber Sound Studio, The Secret Genius Studio and producer Josh Frigo’s home studio, Dip Road Dogs’ debut EP has been a long time coming.

Over the last six months, Aussie music fans have eagerly devoured exceptional tracks from the Victorian outfit, with the likes of ‘Labour Day’, ‘Serenity Now’, and ‘Lazy’ proving the group are one of the most electrifying rock outfits on the Aussie scene today.

While Shakshuka is out officially on May 21st, Tone Deaf are honoured to be giving fans a sneak preview of the whole EP. To make things even more exciting though, singer Dave Chirnside has also had a chat with, offering up an intriguing insight into all of the EP’s fantastic tracks.

Check out ‘Labour Day’ by Dip Road Dogs:

Dip Road Dogs talk us through Shakshuka

‘Chaos In Kherson’

‘Chaos’ started as an acoustic track written at my old place in Abbotsford about five years ago and it sat forgotten on GarageBand for the next four years until Jack, Matt, and I spent a day to go through all our demos to see if there was anything worth developing.

We were really happy with what we came up with after a few hours working on it and recorded a demo for our producer Josh Frigo in Nashville. The finished product is quite different to the original demo as we got a bit excited having a synth at our disposal. The drums were tracked at The Amber Sound Studio owned by Ryan Youmans in Hermitage just out of Nashville.

The lyrics were written on the flight from Melbourne to Nashville and they follow the story of a night spent accompanying a local Ukrainian police officer to his mistress’s old dilapidated soviet era apartment in Kherson, Ukraine back in 2009.

‘Labour Day’

‘Labour Day’ is our first single off the EP but was the last we wrote for this release. It started off with a pretty simple drum beat written after a long weekend at Golden Plains. The drawn-out chords and drone sound are probably a reflection of our state of mind after a big weekend partying and listening to music.

I had no idea what to do with lyrics for this one so the night before tracking vocals we all sat on the porch of our Airbnb with the fireflies on a glorious Nashville night and nutted out some words to sing.

All vocals were tracked at the secret genius studios run by Spotify in Five Points, we may have gotten a bit carried away with the nightlife for the first few days, the novelty of smoking in bars and constant live music got the better of us.

Josh suggested that before tracking vocals it may be best do the opposite of whatever we were doing for a couple of days to get any vocal quality. The smoking inside laws definitely played a part in the EP’s sound.

‘Lazy’

‘Lazy’ is a song about a relationship where one partner is not pulling their weight with the household chores and the other becomes fed up with this behaviour and finally leaves for greener pastures.

The lyrics seemed to come to me very quickly whilst being berated by my amazing girlfriend for something I can’t quite remember one beautiful spring morning. Although I smartened up and am now the perfect partner, I thought I would write the rest of the song from the perspective of someone that wasn’t so lucky.

The song was originally quite up-tempo but we slowed it right down to give it a bit more of a melancholy feel. Once we had finished laying down the other instruments, Josh added his cello parts and really made it something special for us.

Sitting in the studio practising the song with just the acoustic and the cello was a beautiful experience.

Check out ‘Serenity Now’ by Dip Road Dogs:

‘Serenity Now’

‘Serenity’ is another one of the demos that came to us to not long before recording. We started this one off with just the guitar riff and the others added their parts and it turned into a bit more of a progressive number.

The sprinkling keys courtesy of Matt Close and the haunting lead guitar of Jack Pay makes this one of our favourites to play. Ross McReynolds is an amazing session drummer based in Nashville and we wanted to get him to record drums on this as our drummer Ollie couldn’t make it to Nashville due to the arrival of his newborn girl.

Once Ross played on this track we couldn’t get enough and he ended up tracking the drums for ‘Chaos In Kherson’, ‘Labour Day’, and another unreleased track that we had some fun with.

We had never intended to have such a heavy rock sound on the EP, but once in the studio it got the better of us and we decided to have one track to unleash.

‘Mclurkin Ave Blues’

The riff and the base of lyrics were written for this song back in 2014, but I was never happy with the sound. Once Jack got a chance to have a listen he really transformed the song. He played around with some synth parts to give it a nice ambience and he’s also the master behind the slide on the track.

Not happy with the working title, we thought we would name the song ‘Mclurkin Ave Blues’ as a nod to the house stayed at whilst recording in Nashville. The lyrics are based on the desire to get out and travel, which these days seems quite relevant.

‘Something New’

First recorded and last on the album. Not sure if you can hear the difference between this and the other tracks but we recorded this track completely remotely between Appin South and Nashville, not two places generally associated with each other.

This song was another written in Abbotsford back in 2015 and has taken many different turns to end up where it is today. It was almost complete back in 2018 but I decided to pull it apart and basically, we scrapped the previous lyrics and structure and started again.

The new lyrics were thought up harvesting some barley during the 2018 harvest and when we could, Matt, Jack, and I got in the studio at the farm and recorded some harmonies. This was the first time we had tried it as Jack had developed quite the ear for it and was keen to give it a go. We were pretty happy with what we came up with and sent it through to Josh.

Probably the most enjoyable and challenging song on the EP, as we all have a sing.

Dip Road Dogs’ Shakshuka EP is out on May 21st, with pre-saves available now.

Check out ‘Lazy’ by Dip Road Dogs:

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