Singled Out: Kenny Dubman's Old Dog (Feat Charlie Starr)

Keavin Wiggins | 03-11-2022

Photo courtesy TAG

New Jersey hard rocker Kenny Dubman recently released a video for his single "Old Dog" (featuring Charlie Starr of Blackberry Smoke), and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about that track, which coming from his forthcoming album, "Conflicted". Here is the story:

I have a friend that was in an abusive relationship with a long-time boyfriend. One night he was drunk and getting very violent, so finally she grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed him; he almost bled out and died. Because he had a documented history of physical abuse with her, it was ruled self-defense and she wasn't charged. He got the message.

This story is the one behind "Old Dog". If you push someone long and hard enough, even the meekest of people will come back and bite you, sometimes very hard. The thinking behind the song title is that even an old dog can learn a new trick; that is, to learn to fight back.

The song began with the verse riff, it was just something that sounded great cranked through my Marshall 100 watt JMP. It just conjured up a very aggressive vibe, and made me think of the story I just told you. Once that first line "out in the rain, tied to a tree....friends like you, he don't need no enemies" popped out, the rest of the song just spilled out like water. Later on, I decided that I liked the bridge riff (in D) as the way to open the track, it made it kinda Aerosmith-y to me...is that a word?

To top it all off, I got up the nerve to ask Charlie (Starr) from Blackberry Smoke to sing a verse, because he's such an incredibly badass songwriter and I'm a huge fan. He passed on the singing, but offered to play a guitar lead...I was like "HELL YEAH maybe that's even cooler!" His lead parts are just pure fire, and noted in the lyric video. Ultra nice guy and I still pinch myself that it really went down...just the icing on the cake!

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here

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