INTERVIEW: Our Family Dog: Brighton's angriest band

A consistent fan favourite all around Brighton has been the loud and proud sex-tet of Our Family Dog. During this hibernating state, I catch up with the band's Billy and Tegg about songwriting, Star Wars and an ambitious festival in the works.

Billy Marsh and Harry “Tegg” Tegg have quickly come to be two of the most fascinating, and peculiar, individuals I have ever had the privilege to get to know. They’re one of those people you want to use an X-ray gun on to take a peek of what’s really going on in those minds of theirs.

We’re located in the backyard of Billy’s house. Debris of half-cut branches, empty beer cans and scattered half-smoked cigarette butts surround the area as the scorching afternoon sun shines directly down on us. The two of them occasionally got themselves off track during this interview, ramblings turning into conversations where they would eventually have to ask me to repeat the initial question.

Everywhere you look on Our Family Dog’s social media, you will find the colourful quote describing their sound as “the drunken ramblings of a man on a comedown from his own adolescence”. But what does this actually mean to them?

HT: We wrote that for my old band and it’s kind of stuck. That was my way I would write lyrics at the time, when I was the singer of that band.

BM: You know how you see people’s bios on Instagram and such where they would write “we’re indie-rock” or something, I don’t really like that because as soon as you do that, you’ve kind of defined your own sound and I don’t think it’s up to the person who writes the music to define it, I think it’s up to everyone else. Because they’re the ones hearing it, you know what I mean?

HT: I think that really describes the early sounds of the band, like when we were not thinking about it too much. Now it’s become a bit more directive and a bit more contrived and formulated, especially being a part of everyone. Everyone’s had their own sort of input, so the sound is on its way to becoming less frantic and less about the drunken ramblings.

BM: More sober ramblings.

It was in late 2018 Our Family Dog played their first ever gig at the long gone but greatly missed Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar. Since then, the band has steadily risen in popularity and gaining countless of fans on the way. Performing several times at venues like the Green Door Store, Prince Albert and Hope And Ruin alongside bigger and bigger artists each time, their music on the slight controversial side has reached audiences beyond Brighton. Their second single “Mouldy Stick” was released earlier this year on an EP sponsored by Love Thy Neighbour and features Happy Couple and Brighton legends Beach Riot. This, as well as their debut single “All My Friends” can be found on all streaming platforms for your enjoyment.

Knowing that Billy and Tegg are mostly in charge of the heavily opinionated and sometimes controversial lyricism, they are still quite a large band with their six members. This is what they had to say about whether the other members tend to contribute or not.

BM: Not at all really, to the lyrical side of it. Since Tegg was writing the lyrics in his old band, and I was writing the lyrics for my band, it kind of just made sense that we’d write the songs for this band together. I think we’ve always had the lyrical side of it down. I mean, Sean sometimes says he’s got lyrics, but I’ve never heard any…

Billy throws a glance at Tegg who then laughs and nods in agreement.

BM: So, I’ve never really felt that department needed input. I know that kind of sounds narcissistic, but I feel like we’ve always had some kind of direction.

HT: We both live fairly similar lifestyles, and we used to live together.

BM: Yeah, we lived together for two years.

HT: So we were kind of forced… To write together.

BM: But it worked! Originally, most of the music was still coming from Tegg, and then, I think the first song that we did that was mine was “Bobblehead” and “Mouldy Stick”.

Even though Billy and Tegg both have the lyrical aspect of the band in a bag, they don’t waste a second acknowledging the rest of Our Family Dog and speak highly about their fellow members.

BM: After that, we realised that the rest of the band are really good players, and they just started contributing more, especially Sean. Fair dos, “Bus” is like… I think we came to the conclusion that it was all of us that wrote it as kind of a collective, but if I do remember correctly, Sean always kind of had that (mimicking “Bus” drum beat) really driving kind of beat through the whole song, and that was the first time Sean’s really come and said “this is the way I want the song to go”. Noah had the bassline already, and then I remember you (nods at Tegg) started playing that part and you bought that fucking instrument, what was it called?

HT: The melodica.

BM: The melodica.

HT: I think that was the first time that we’ve ever, like all six of us, really co-wrote in the way that we used to sit down together, I think it’s the first time it’s felt that natural to do it, that song.

BM: We used to say that we’re quite lucky cause me and Tegg can’t really play music that well, but I don’t know how true that is, but they really are brilliant players. Noah, Sean, Ginge and Jake, their theory is amazing. I’m terrible at music theory and Tegg’s, no offence, not much better. It’s a good dynamic to have, the not knowing and the knowing. I think if someone knows too much theory, they’re always gonna write the way they’ve been taught, whereas someone knows nothing, there’s just gonna be shambles, so you’d think that the two together is a good mix. It’s not something you just find, I think we’re quite lucky. It’s not something we’ve thought of, they’ve just always been the members. Even now, Jake hasn’t even been in Brighton for a year, but he’s still a member of the band.

HT: Yeah, he was self-isolating before it was cool.

BM: Yeah… Wait what was the question? Right, the lyrics. The lyrics have always been just me and Tegg really. We haven’t as of yet had any lyrical input from any other member, and I don’t see, for any foreseeable future, for that to be the case. I should’ve just said that at the start.

“Bus” is one of the newer additions to their setlist. It is not yet released on any platform, but rumours say that it may or may not be their next released song.

It’s difficult to explain who Our Family Dog is to someone who hasn’t been lucky enough to experience them. They’re bold, and not afraid to voice their opinions. They’re relevant, writing catchy songs about somewhat controversial and even sensitive topics. Sometimes they don’t write about anything at all, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever comes out on the other side of those strange minds of theirs, it’s always catchy bangers to either get the crowd dancing, calmly swaying or intensely moshing.

HT: I want people to take away what they take away from it. I’d like for people to read into it for themselves and then I’d like to hear what they actually think about it. I know what the stance, or what the opinion is because I wrote it. I’d rather have someone come back to me and say what their interpretation of it is.

BM: I think that’s what’s such a good thing about some of the songs, not all of them, but some of them are good at giving people a kind of difference of opinion. I mean, “[Underneath The] Yew Tree” is always a good one to see what people think of the band. I think it was when we played London for the first time, these two old men are standing right at the back and we played that and I said the thing, like “This is about the naughty people at the BBC”, and one them was like “hell yeah”, and the other one just scoffed and walked out.

HT: I think the songs are less opinionated and more about characters and plots. I want people to kind of watch it how they watch a movie. Like, if you go and watch a movie, if you go and watch like Star Wars or something…

Billy looks at Tegg with confusion before bursting into laughter.

HT: I’ve been watching a lot of Star Wars… You’re not immediately thinking of the subtext of Star Wars, are you? Enjoy it for what it is, and listen to the stories within the song, if you can find any deeper meaning in that, I think… That would be good.

BM: I think stories are a big part of it as well. I don’t like writing songs about myself all that much, and we never really wrote about love apart from “Dirty Blinds”. The good thing about people is that everyone thinks in a different way, and I like that. It’s good for us to see what people think, because half the time I write something it’s kind of just one of our opinions about a situation that we put in a song. It’s interesting to see what people find from your music sometimes. It constantly amazes me that people have an actual opinion on me. I’d rather people just left because they thought it was shit, than just stand there with no opinion on it. It’s just interesting, people’s opinions on things, I think.

The early summer heat has taken its toll on the two members who are not especially used to getting interviewed, so we take a pause for hydration. It is clear that they have a lot to say about a lot of things. It’s something that is prominent in most of their music, but also when you hold a simple conversation with them. They’re a goofy pair, with lots and lots of chemistry. One second they could be discussing the solution of achieving world peace, and the other going on a rant about how sticky their weed is.

Billy has previously shared his plans of putting together a small festival for Brighton bands once the pandemic is over, which is something I have been dying of asking him.

BM: That’s just ramblings really, but I want to do it.

HT: The drunken ramblings of a man on a comedown from his adolescence?

BM: it’s just me and this other guy I know, Helix, his dad owns a bit of forest because he’s a survival expert… Which is just… He’s a very interesting guy, Helix. You put that in your magazine, that should be the headline. it’s still very far out, because as soon as you call something a festival, it becomes a health and safety nightmare. So if someone dies, or if something like that happens… I’m fucked, like I’ll go to jail. And I don’t want that to happen so I want to do it properly, with Helix obviously, cause it’s his dad’s land. The idea of it is to get every band we like from Brighton to play in one group, because that hasn’t happened and I really don’t see that happening anytime soon unless someone’s really pushing for it. The interesting thing about Brighton is… I don’t know the right word for it. Correlation? That’s not right. It won’t record that, but that…

Billy holds up his hands and intertwines his fingers.

BM: That gesture, a lot of bands playing different music are pretty much saying the same thing. Not in a bad way, I think it’s really good.. It would be nice to have them all on one line-up, it’s more of an idea, kind of dreamy thing at the moment, but it’s not unfeasible that it could happen. Brighton for me, when I first came here was kind of a brilliant place. I’ve seen some of the best bands, I’ve learnt about new bands. I’m not the same person I was when I first came back as I was, in terms of writing. And I think that’s important cause I’ve been influenced by all these amazing people around me playing different kinds of music and I think it would be nice to have them all on the same stage at some point. Even if no one else enjoyed it apart from me. And I could just sit there in a forest and watch them all play. That would be nice. But yeah, it’s an idea and it would be nice for it to happen. There are so many things involved in just playing a festival right now and it seems just convoluted to me and I’d like to just be able to be like “you’re a good band – do you wanna play a festival?” instead of like, how many Facebook followers do you have? When’s your next release date? How many songs have you got out already, are they good quality? You know what I mean, all these fucking questions. It just doesn’t make sense to me, if the songs are good, if someone sounds good, surely you could just put them on. And that’s what I’d like to do. But it probably won’t happen. But it might. You gotta live in the “might”, I guess, rather than the “might not”. I guess I’ll finish it like that.