The Dog That Bit People, a four-piece English band from Birmingham, was the follower band of Locomotive. After the break-up of their previous band, singer and bassist Mick Hincks and drummer Bob Lamb set out to find new musicians to form a new group. They found singer, keyboardist and guitarist Keith Millar as well as singer and guitarist John Caswell. The somewhat bizarre name The Dog That Bit People is the title of a short story written in 1933 by the American humourist and author James Thurber. With this four-piece line-up they recorded their eponymous debut album at EMI Studios, Abbey Road in late 1970, which was released in February 1971 on the major label Parlophone.

It offers a fairly varied collection of songs, ranging from American West Coast rock through soft folk-rock to harder progressive rock. Overall, it is a largely gentle album, which demonstrates the band’s versatility with a few powerful heavy rock tracks. Despite the support of producer Jim Simpson, a rock mogul from the West Midlands who also managed Black Sabbath, and sound engineer Peter Vince, who had worked with The Hollies and Donovan etc., the album sank without a trace. Consequently, the band split up at the end of 1971. Today, the original British pressing is considered one of the rarest releases on this label.