Rest assured: despite oil prices bouncing up and down like a yoyo, Oil on Fire has nothing to do with the hostilities playing out in the Middle East. The new song by Half Dollar Dog is far more personal, far more passionate. Born from an argument, it is about those uncontrollable emotions that blow everything up: anger, the rage that sleeps inside us and ignites so easily, fanned by turmoil, betrayal, fear or misunderstanding.

Yet the band looks beyond the explosion. These emotions overwhelm us and end up making us sick, often because we never managed to put them into words and let them out. So we replay the argument over and over… and pour more oil on the fire. “Please don’t try this at home,” the band warns.

A riff and the sound of the stage

Musically, it all started with the intro riff Hugo had in his head while reading the lyrics. With this sixth track, Half Dollar Dog go back to more grunge, more Seattle, more 90s leanings, while staying heavy, riff-driven and hard-hitting.

Like all of the band’s singles, Oil on Fire was recorded during the sessions for the album The Wrong Turn, in a studio in Marseille. The goal: to capture the sound the band delivers on stage. Hence a very stripped-back production, deliberately at odds with what is done today, going back to what defined the 90s. Perfection is not the point here; expressing emotion is. The album is out on 8 January 2027.

About the band

It’s a common story: it’s 7.22 pm and Hugo finds himself alone at home. His girlfriend has left him, taking all the furniture except the acoustic guitar, simply because she hated him playing music. On the other side of the Rhône, Xavier, who has also been left, puts down his bags after 25 years in Ireland. An online ad brings the two lost souls together, and they start Half Dollar Dog in February 2021.

A string of drummers, obstacles piling up: the band falls, gets back up and carries on, a true anthem to resilience. Two EPs and several singles later, including the very grunge Empty in October 2025, Half Dollar Dog — Hugo, Xavier, Killian and Xavier — claim the right to be different: it smells like punk but it’s not punk, a stench of grunge, some shoegaze leftovers, all deliberately mixed together. Raw rock with no claim to perfection, for the originals, the misfits, the stray dogs and everyone who doesn’t fit the mould.

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