By DJ Dave Hoffenberg
Who Brought The Dog is bringing the party to the Pickle Barrel Nightclub this Saturday, Nov. 13 at 8 p.m. The band hails from New Jersey and this is their first trip to Killington. They play all the top clubs back home to rave reviews and are looking forward to making new fans here. They’re proudly managed by Rob Monte from Monte Entertainment.
The band is made up of Joe (lead vocals), Mikey (vocals/bass/tracks), Jay (drums), Chris (vocals/guitar/tracks) and Franko (vocals/guitar). (Editor’s note: the band does not publish their last names.) The band recently added two female singers of whom they use either Kayla from Boston or Caroline from New Jersey. For the Pickle Barrel, Caroline.
Being able to add female vocals has been great for Who Brought The Dog. Bands are lucky if they have one good singer yet Who Brought The Dog has five total singers. I had a chance to speak with Chris about the band and after talking to him, I’m really looking forward to the show. Chris said in addition to all of them singing, Mikey is a “master rapper.” Joe also plays the saxophone and Caroline plays the keyboards.
Describing the band, Chris said: “We’re a party. You want to have a good time and have a party? We’re a party waiting to happen.”
Their shows are full of adrenaline and fun. If you go to one you’ll see the crowd singing along to every song. They play a wide variety of songs. They also play with a fully synchronized light show.
The four guys, minus the lead singer, were in a band called Whiskey Fueled until about three years ago when they split to form a new band. That band needed a name.
“We were doing the typical thousand names of a band list,” Chris said of having difficulty deciding on one. “We’d run them back and forth with Monte and we’d run them back and forth with everyone in the band and one day Monte said ‘I always liked that name Who Brought The Dog, you guys should use that.’ I said OK, we’ll use it so that was it,” he explained.
Being given the name Who Brought The Dog is an honor. That was the name of Monte’s first cover band. Who Brought The Dog was big for Monte in the 90s, playing to jam packed bars every night in New Jersey and really making each one a party. Chris told Monte to sleep on it and really decide if he wanted to give them the name. Chris said to him, “Once you donate this, so to speak, it’s pretty permanent. There’s not going to be a big takesie-backsie going on. We go out and start playing as Who Brought The Dog, we’re Who Brought The Dog.”
Monte is cool with it because he knows this band will do him proud and they have the same attitude his band did.
Chris and Franko are also in an acoustic duo called Who Brought The Duo. They do a lot of classics including songs from The Eagles, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen.
Who Brought The Dog is constantly adding songs to their list. Chris said, “Now that we have the sax, we’re adding some Ska songs. It just depends on who’s in front of us. We have a feeler of tunes that work no matter where we are and then we’ll just start calling audibles and change the set as we go. Plus we take requests. Nowadays, people will make requests from their phones. They’ll put up giant memes that you can see from five rows back. You gotta keep everyone happy. At the end of the day, we’re not just a bunch of friends who decided we wanted to be in a rock band and just want to go stroke our own egos. We’re entertainment professionals. We respect what it is we’re supposed to be doing for the club and the patrons.”
They did start out that way. Chris used to do a gig in a duo at the South River Pub that Mikey’s dad owned. He asked Chris to teach Mikey the bass and Franko was the bartender. That’s how they started the band, 17 years ago. They added Jay on drums and have known him forever and later met Joe on a ski trip in Killington. Chris said, “We’re going back to the place of the crime.”
Chris really enjoys all of this. He said, “I love doing what I love to do which is play guitar. I personally play guitar and perform. Love doing that. I love doing it with my friends that I have known for a long, long time. I love people enjoying it. I love when people are engaged and involved and having a good time because the music moves them.”
They’ve been busy this past summer and have played about 60 shows between Memorial Day and Labor Day between both the band and the duo. For more information visit: whobroughtthedog.com.
