Fat Dog have announced news of their second album Cancel Me (I’m Tired) alongside the release of its title track. Due out on 2 October Fat Dog have created an exhilarating, swaggering, panoramic, inventive, re-inventive, re-re-inventive electro-punk-art-pop-rock’n’roll-space-country triumph that deserves all the adjectives. Over ten mind-bending and melodic tracks, it blends electro-pop anthems, cascading rave bangers, bombastic strings, cowboy-tinged pitstops and swirling psychedelia.
Title track ‘Cancel Me (I’m Tired)’ was inspired by John Lennon’s ‘How Do You Sleep’ combined with frontman/songwriter Joe Love imagining what Anatolian rock experimentalists Altın Gün would sound like if they were under siege from a thumping club beat. The title track begins with a riotous declaration. “If you wanna cancel me/Then go ahead and do it please“. It’s the sound of what happens when people push your buttons and your buttons start pushing back. The video shot with director James Winstanley on the hottest day of the year, sees Fat Dog trying to avoid getting cancelled on an actual night out in London’s Soho.
‘Cancel Me (I’m Tired)’ follows the release of propulsive, jubilant electro-pop single ‘Go Fuck Urself’ in May and the band’s storming support for Kneecap’s Crystal Palace gig last weekend, the only English band on the bill no less. This week, Fat Dog join Foo Fighters on a run of stadium shows and ahead of their headline UK & European tour starting late October, they have announced an instore tour.
After releasing their debut album WOOF. in 2024 and becoming one of the UK’s most exciting breakthrough bands in the process, South London seven-piece Fat Dog have a good reason to be tired. They’ve spent the period since WOOF.’s release spreading their raucous, infectious and irresistible bark around the world. The reason that they want you to cancel them is that they’ve been around the world and they’re tired. But if Fat Dog are tired with the world, the world is not tired of them. In fact, the world can’t get enough of them. Wherever they went on the tour to support WOOF., new diehards emerged out of the carnage. “Show of the weekend,” raved The Times after they played four shows in 27 hours at Glastonbury last year. “Unserious, unhinged and sensational,” marvelled NME. Their message spread far and wide.
When it was time to think about album 2, the band’s ringleader threw himself into recording sessions a day after landing home from a chaotic US tour in which each member of the band took turns in unravelling. “At some point on that tour, everyone had a small breakdown of some sort,” says Chris, who remembers losing his mind in LA, bashing his head against a wall whilst wearing an American Football helmet. It wasn’t all nervous meltdowns. Romance was also in the air and, midway through the trek, Fat Dog’s frontman got married in Vegas after proposing to his girlfriend in San Francisco. “We played a gig to two people in Vegas,” Joe recalls, “and then the next day I got married.”
And so, it was with depressed Elvis ringing in his ears that Joe got home and began work on the second Fat Dog album. On their debut, Love had left the lyrics until last, letting the heady momentum of the music lead the way, but this time he felt he had much more to say. Into its lyrical orbit, the record pulls mentions of addiction, family ties, love, AI, ancestry, extra-terrestrials, Chris Tarrant, S&M, B&M, H&M and M&Ms. Cancel Me (I’m Tired) possesses all the rabid frenzy and electrifying excitement of their debut but now delivered on a grand and glorious scale. Big, big things are ahead. Fat Dog are only just getting going.
Fat Dog Instore tour
October
2 – Kingston @ Circuit (via Banquet)
3 – Bristol @ Rough Trade Bristol
4 – London @ Rough Trade East
5 – Sheffield @ Foundry (via Bear Tree)
6 – Nottingham @ Rough Trade Nottingham
7 – Liverpool @ Rough Trade Liverpool
8 – Edinburgh @ Cab Voltaire (via Assai)
9 – Newcastle @ HMV Newcastle
Fat Dog Live Dates
July
1 – Olympiastadion, Berlin, DE (supporting Foo Fighters)
3 – Ernst-Happel-Stadion, Vienna, AT (supporting Foo Fighters)
5 – Ippodromo Snai La Maura, Milan, IT (supporting Foo Fighters)
10 – Pohoda Festival, Trenčín, SL
11 – Décibulles Festival, Neuve-Église, Alsace, FR
12 – Chauffeer Dans La Noirceur, Normandy, FR
17 – Rock Herk, Herk-de-Stag, BE
18 – Dour Festival, Dour, BE
23 – SEI Festival, Brindisi, IT
24 – TV Spenta, Siena, IT
25 – Deershed, Topcliffe, UK
August
8 – Pop Messe, Brno, CZ
29 – Rock’n’Roll Circus, Sheffield, UK
September
4 – PHE Festival, Tenerife, ES
5 – End of the Road Festival, Larmer Tree Gardens, UK
12- Baroeg Open Air, Rotterdam, NL
17 – 19 September – Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg, DE
October
24 – O2 Academy Brixton, London, UK
29 – De Roma, Antwerp, BE
30 – Tivoli, Utrecht, NL
31 – Elysee Montmarte, Paris, FR
November
1 – Stereolux, Nantes FR
3 – Le Grand Mix, Tourcoing, FR
4 – Die Kantine, Cologne, DE
6 – Festsaal Kreuzberg, Berlin, DE
7 – Loppen, Copenhagen, DK
14 – Victoria Warehouse, Manchester, UK
18 – Whelans, Dublin, IE
19 – Whelans, Dublin, IE
20 – Limelight, Belfast, UK
24 – Depot, Cardiff, UK
25 – O2 Academy, Bristol, UK
26 – O2 Institute, Birmingham, UK
27 – O2 Academy, Leeds, UK
28 – Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow, UK
December
3 – Rock City, Nottingham, UK
Bold = UK dates
For more information on Fat Dog please check their facebook and instagram.