Prehistoric Dog

Album: Whales and Leeches (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Don't pay too much attention to the bestial sci-fi lyrics on this one - they were banged out by bass player/singer Aaron Beam once they had the track completed. "We tried putting some vocals on it that just weren't working," he explained. "So I said, 'Let me have a minute. I'm going to take it home, try to hash out something different. I have a vague idea of how to do this.' That was maybe the first song that I actually came up with my own vocal part on in the band." (Here's our full Aaron Beam interview.)
  • The riff on this song originated with a track Red Fang guitarist Bryan Giles came up with in his previous band, Party Time. They never released that song, so they brought it up when Red Fang was working on their third album, Whales and Leeches. Aaron Beam had the idea of repeating the riff throughout the song, which worked surprisingly well. He told us: "We knew almost immediately that that song was in a different league from the other things that we'd written up to that point. That was just a combination of Bryan's hyperactive writing style and me being kind of lazy and thinking, 'Hey, man, let's just hang out on this other part so that people can get a little rest. Their ears can rest for a little bit after that riff.'"
  • The video, which racked up over a million views on YouTube, has a unique concept: The band is downing beers when they get in a feud with some hardcore LARPers. They drink a lot more beer and fashion weapons from the cans, then return to challenge their adversaries in battle.

    The video was directed by Rob "Whitey" McConnaughy, who told the band to pour out most of the beer instead of drinking it. They didn't take this direction very well and ended up getting hammered. The puking in the clip is real.

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