By Martin Popoff

Love the way these Scottish rock dogs NAZARETH are just, well, doggin’ it… around the world, from classic rock fests in rural North America, to all over Europe, regularly to their stronghold in Russia of all places. And they write vital and biting as well, Big Dogz being the follow-up to The Newz from not long ago, ’08 to be exact. The band consists of Jimmy Murrison on guitar, original members Pete Agnew (bass) and Dan McCafferty (vocals), plus Pete’s son, Lee, on drums. And it’s a family affair all ‘round, between staffers and banders, between rabid fans and the band’s classic anthems that never sound old, not as old as the seniors singing them, anyway.

And who would have thought that the guys would make such a provocative, snarling, menacing, bluesy record, at this point in their 42 year career? First listen, second listen, third, fourth… Big Dogz impresses one as (and then remains) a strange and strangely melancholy album, all while thudding along, hypnotic, even dirge-y, strangely uneasy, while Dan turns in one of his most caustic vocal performances ever. And not because the voice is weakening – far from it – but because the mind behind the voice seems menaced, harassed, focused on one thing like a mad dog.

“We were trying to not do The Newz again, but be a little bit more rhythm and blues, if you like,” explains the amiable Agnew, asked after the mission for this decidedly darker, more contemplative JOHNNY CASH of an album. “And we used very, very little overdubbing - it was kind of live in the studio, if you know what I mean. Obviously you’ve got to do overdubs for solos and stuff like that, but we didn’t go over-the-top with overdubs. We were trying to make it studio live, if you like. That’s what we tried to achieve, and I think we’ve kind of done it, because most people who’ve phoned me have kind of mentioned that.”

Still, Pete doesn’t really buy that the band is appreciably bluesier than the bulk of its past. “No, I don’t know, I think in the early days it was what you used to call hard rock, heavy rock, whatever it was. But it all came from the blues, rhythm and blues, and that’s the way we grew up. We grew up with CHUCK BERRY, playing the rhythm and blues stuff, so I think all our albums are like that. Things changed a little bit in the middle, maybe a bit more poppy in some cases. But this time we just felt we’d like to just go back and groove. And the songs that we laid out… well, we think they’re modern songs, but done with that approach - we wanted to sound like a three-piece Delta band. We did the songs, and we thought, ‘How would we have played those things in 1973?’ That’s how we wanted it to work.”

And the permeating, er, grimness?

“Well, there was a wee bit of that, because again, it’s all the different people that are writing here (laughs). They all have their own take on what they think... what Dan and me think is ancient. The two younger guys take it to a different level.”

Specifically and into the track list, Pete says, “I like ‘Big Dog’ obviously, as I just think it’s a good fun kind of track and I like ‘Radio’ because it tells you of a time, well, in our lives definitely. ‘Lifeboat’, I like because that one is commenting... we don’t like to get political, but I think that one kind of comments on how things are going these days, politically - that’s really one I think hits it on the head. ‘Claimed’… I like ‘Claimed’ because it’s a groovy number.”

And then there’s ‘Toast,’ which finds the band lightening up a bit, even though with Dan’s voice, even something this hooky has edge. “’Toast’ is actually kind of a funny one; that was Lee, our drummer, who wrote it. You see, we play a lot in Russia, and when you play in Russia, you play early, you play seven o’clock shows, and then everyone, the promoters, they always want to take you out to dinner, and dinner always takes about four or five hours, because it’s very slow service there. And they’re waiting to make a toast. These guys stand up, speaking in Russian, holding up a vodka glass, ‘I’d like to make a toast.’ And we have an interpreter who interprets for us, and it goes on forever and ever and ever. I think that’s the reason the dinners take so long because there are so many toasts. So Lee wrote it. I mean, we’ve always joked about that, ‘Oh, here we go; couldn’t we just go to McDonald’s? It would save a lot of time.’ ‘No, no, we’re going out.’ And we have 759 toasts. So that’s what the song is all about. It’s really about Russia.”

And there is indeed intimate, chummy toast talk on it, but it’s in English. “That’s Alan, our agent,” says Pete. “He’s a very funny guy. He’s 65 years old, and we just said to him… OK, we gave him a couple of beers and said, ‘You’ve got to put this thing on there.’ It was quite a fun night, actually, having him do it.”

After the blunt brunt of this record of vibe and thoughtfulness, the guys peal out with an uptempo rocker called ‘Sleep Talker,’ again, Dan going right to the edge of his vocals, as well as with lyrics more vivid than usual. But there’s a surprise come late in the track, a haunting, contemplative part that leaves you weirdly morose once it’s replaced by silence.

Explains Pete, “Well, the ‘Sleep Talker’ thing… it almost goes back to the ‘70s psychedelic thing, doesn’t it? A wee bit; it’s a bit retro, that one. But really, the whole song, Jimmy wrote that one, and he is a sleep-talker – he’s a big-time sleep-talker. I mean, if you get in the room next to him in a hotel, you really don’t want to be there, because the guy can talk and talk and talk all night - he does do this. So Lee actually wrote the thing about him, and what we did at the end of it, we put a sort of a sleep sequence, if you like, a dreamy kind of instrumental part, and we had a whole lot of people who knew us, coming in and saying a word here and a word there and a little line there. There was no other place, Martin, where you could do that on the album – it could only be at the end. You couldn’t do it in the middle, because it would be a bit weird. So we thought, well we could either end the album with a great big bang, or we can end the album with, ‘Oh, what’s this?’”

And we end our time with Pete with a question about working in a band with one’s son. Seems to work rather well, with Lee taking on a near co-management role these days with his old man. But he’s more than qualified to be pounding the skins as well…

“Well, I’ve got five sons, and four of them are musicians, and one can actually play a bit of guitar, and he works with a band as well,” explains Agnew. “But they’re all very, very good musicians, and they always played in our studio when they were growing up. And then Lee went – obviously later on – to college and he met up with Jimmy, our guitar player, and they played in the same band; they played in a band called TROUBLE IN DOGGIELAND. They played in that band for a few years, and Lee also used to come out with us when we were touring, when Darrell (Sweet, original drummer) was still alive. And actually Lee was one of Darrell’s favourite drummers. He used to go along and watch Lee playing; Darrell really liked Lee’s playing - they had sort of a mutual admiration society. So Lee used to come out with us; if he had six weeks where he wasn’t working, he would come out and be our drum tech and play percussion with the band, over the years, long before Darrell died. So when Darrell died it was the obvious choice, to bring on Lee as the drummer. And when we’re on stage and when we’re touring, these days, I mean, you know, I’m going on 65 and he’s 40 years old (laughs). It’s not like, ‘Hello dad,’ ‘Hello son.’ It’s really, we’re on a tour, and we’re a drummer and a bass player. Although the only... well, really, the only time it’s still, ‘Hello dad,’ ‘Hello son,’ is when he needs money (laughs).”