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Local band Dr. Dog sticks, stays - and thrives

Philadelphia pop-rock band Dr. Dog's new album, Be the Void, comes out Tuesday. It's the fifth collection by the sextet led by Scott McMicken and Toby Leaman since the group, known for its harmonies and '60s psychedelic flavoring, first gained notoriety with its 2005 self-released set Easy Beat.

Philadelphia pop-rock band Dr. Dog's new album, Be the Void, comes out Tuesday. It's the fifth collection by the sextet led by Scott McMicken and Toby Leaman since the group, known for its harmonies and '60s psychedelic flavoring, first gained notoriety with its 2005 self-released set Easy Beat.

Since then, Dr. Dog has grown into one of Philadelphia's most successful touring units, big enough to play two shows at the 2,500-capacity Electric Factory, where the band will perform March 24-25.

Be the Void (Anti- ***) demonstrates why.

Self-produced at the group's Kensington studio, it imparts more raw energy that its 2009 predecessor, Shame, Shame.

The propulsive "These Days" qualifies as the first Dr. Dog song that could be mistaken for a Strokes song, and "Warrior Man" is a full-blown psych-pop guitar jam, while "That Old Black Hole" answers existential dilemmas with a brightly melodic counterpoint.

With the two most recent additions to the band in tow - drummer Eric Slick and multi-instrumentalist Dmitri Manos - Dr. Dog came to Ardmore's Range Recording Studios in January for an "In the Mix Live" recording session.

Songwriters McMicken and Leaman sat for an interview, and the six-piece band played songs from Be the Void. The video interview and recordings can be seen at philly.com/inthemixlive. An edited version of the interview follows.

Question: Before we get to Be the Void, let's talk Shame, Shame. You began that album at a fancy studio in Upstate New York, with producer Rob Schnapf. And then you came back to Philadelphia to finish it at your studio in Kensington.

Scott McMicken: Which is also pretty fancy.

Q: Obviously. What were the lessons learned from that experience?

Toby Leaman: There were a lot. We did not understand that people didn't work on our schedule. . . . [We do] everything all at once. Just do it, do it, do it. Naively, I think we thought the way we did stuff was the way everybody does it, which is stupid to think in any aspect of your life.

McMicken: Every year that goes by, the goal is to become more and more performance-based, like a live thing . . . to capture more of the subtleties. Almost like getting a better image from a camera, to see more.

Q: Was Be the Void recorded quickly?

Leaman: For the most part. It took a while because we had so many songs. We had 30, and mixed about 21, thinking any one of these could make the record. And then cut it to 12. We had the luxury of being able to do it exactly the way we wanted to do it. . . . The songs that worked immediately are the ones that we didn't have to spend too much time deliberating.

Q: In "Vampire," Toby sings, "There's a black mask in shadows, behind your veil / You're as tempting and as savage as Marcellus Shale." Is Dr. Dog an anti-fracking band?

Leaman: Oh, yeah.

Q: What do the two new guys contribute to the band?

McMicken: There's no way to overstate the importance of Eric. He's been with us for two years, and this is the first batch of tunes we put together with him. And it's all on his clock. He's pushing us forward. We would love to have been moving like that five years ago, but he wasn't in the band.

Q: What does Dmitri do?

McMicken: Dmitri really helps us with the free thinking and the creativity.

Q: He's playing percussion and keyboards?

Leaman: He's exceedingly competent musically. He knows what he's doing musically, he's not just a vibes guy. That's always been the band we're trying to get, guys that are fully committed to whatever we're doing - not that we could ever exactly say what it is we're trying to do - but guys that just understand intrinsically what you're trying to do.

Q: As songwriters, how are the two of you different from each other?

Leaman: The line between the two of us is so blurred. . . . I think lyrically he's a little more adventurous. That's the only thing to me that is really that much different. The idea of him liking a band and me not liking it - I can't think of a band I'd say that about.

Q: I was just reading about how, at the height of the grunge era, you bonded over a Ben Folds Five song you heard on the radio in 1995.

McMicken: Yeah, to Toby and Scott in West Grove, Pa., when that record came out, it was pretty earth-shattering. So exciting.

Q: What was the song?

Leaman: "Philosophy." I think about the stuff that was popular at the same time, there was not that much pop music.

Q: Where does the title Be the Void come from?

McMicken: It's from a song we cut from the album. It was a cool song, but we didn't finish it. It's about attacking a lot of the attachments that you find yourself locked to in life, and the desire to let go of your own doubts and insecurities and fears. . . . "Become the one, become the all, become the big, become the small, become complete, become destroyed, become nothing, be the void." It's a pretty simple, self-motivational kind of notion. And it sounds like a title.

Q: With every album, Dr. Dog has become a little more popular. You've become one of the standard-bearers of the Philadelphia scene.

Leaman: A lot of it has to do with the fact that we stuck around. When we were coming up, you lived in Philly, you played in Philly, and then you moved to New York. I think that's what bands did. And we just never did that. I think people just stopped doing it because it's pointless to do. You don't need to live in New York.

Read his blog, "In the Mix,"