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Resin Dogs.
Hailing from sunny Brisbane, Resin Dogs bring the party vibe to wherever they visit, whether it's a small inner city club, or playing to thousands at Livid and Big Day Out. DJ Katch nonchalantly mentions that he's been "doing a lot of office shit - the record label [Hydrofunk] and that. It's very interesting; running the record label is an interesting and intriguing part of being in a band. I'm just learning the ropes of all that, dealing with getting stuff out and deadlines. You gotta know what's going on with your business or else you're fucked," he laughs.
Speaking of the record label, they've been rather quiet of late, with no new signings but a few "potentials". But don't let that fool you into thinking it's a bad sign... quite the contrary, with acts like Katalyst and Downsyde supporting some of the bigger hip-hop events around Australia. "I think Katalyst and Downsyde getting huge exposure is great, more of it!" Katch enthuses, "for that style of music as well as the acts." I mention that I've heard the Resin Dogs on our 'different' Triple M. "I didn't even know Triple M played our stuff. Wow, this is great!" he exclaims.
One problem with becoming commercial is being pigeonholed and labelled. Katch is rather philosophical about this. "If it helps sell "that thing" to "that person", you know what I mean, it's just a description thing. If it helps sell it to the audience to help them get an understanding [of what we're about] I guess its OK. To me it's all beats, uptempo, downtempo, whatever. We are a "party" band," he adds, referring to the classification of the Resin Dogs being 'party hip-hop,' "we like people to have fun, but if we want to tell people about the reign of terror and stuff like that we can bring that along as well. But labels are labels these days - there's so many brands of t-shirts but it still just a t-shirt," he laughs. "This might sound wanky but even if you've made one person change, at least you've made a change. I've had people come up and say 'you've started me getting into Djing' and stuff. And I feel sorry for them, because now they're going to spend all their money on records."
Talk moves away from the "business side" into the makeup of the band for this tour. I had heard that the band rarely practices, and was rather astonished that they could sound so good together live. "Sometimes there's no rehearsals," Katch agrees. "When we brought Abstract Rude out we had a couple of rehearsals, to get him used to our songs, so he knew what he was doing and wouldn't be walking into it blind and put on the spot. If there's time we'll do it, but most of the people we tour with have a fair idea of the songs." The line up is quite variable, featuring different session players and different guests, ensuring a different experience each time. "We try and keep the main core of the band of course," Katch says, "but we bring guest acts out who we've worked with, or like to work with, friends of ours interstate."
Collaboration seems to be a big part of the Resin Dogs vibe, and they've collaborated with DJ Ransom, Ben Ely from Regurgitator, Abstract Rude, Lazy Grey from Brothers Stoney, Mad Doctor X, Kenny Dope, Barry Ashworth of the Dub Pistols and more recently The Pharcyde, Jungle Brothers and the wonderful vocal talents of the UK's Spikey Tee, who's on tour with them. "We've collaborated through the record company ringing up saying 'we've got a bunch of people who you may be interested in working with'", Katch explains. "Our first record was produced by Robert Reed from Trouble Funk because the record company said 'you sound like these guys, maybe you should contact this dude'. The Pharcyde were hooked up that way too... We've even simply looked at peoples records, found phone numbers on records and got in touch through that. It's amazing; you find records and they have numbers are for the actual artist, because they're underground or whatever, and it's quite a buzz!"
Katch is definitely looking forward to coming to Adelaide. "I've had some wicked nights there," he says, speaking of fondly remembered times at Minke. "Small and intimate is good, but sometimes it gets too hot," he says. "The Big Day Out and that are just massive. Good crowds and a massive audience to appeal to, but they both have their merits. If I had to I'd play in front of one person, or one hundred thousand it doesn't really matter, I'd still play my best."
Julian Cram
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Resin Dogs play Planet with Spikey T and King Kapisi on Fri 19 March.
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