Dogs Die In Hots Cars
Not only do they have possibly the best band name in pop history, they also have the best tunes. "I Love You 'Cause I Have To" is the soundtrack of the summer and Scotland's finest have plenty more where they came from. Designer Magazine caught up with singer Craig MacIntosh and bassist Lee Worral to find out more about the band formerly known as Robert Plant In Poo Poo Land.
Q: It's your first UK Tour. Introduce us to the world
of Dogs Die In Hot Cars?
Craig: Were from Fife, St Andrews - The home of
golf. About 3 years ago we moved to Glasgow because we decided if we were
going to do anything we'd do it there. We live together so were living
an environment where we just consume music and that's where we got our
stuff together.
Fife is a really nice area and I don't know whether it's encouraged or it's just our school, but there's a lot of creative people there. The Beta Band went to our school, James Yorkston, Lone Pigeon and Fench Records Collective. There's only limited things you can do there and in order to progress you really have to get away from that area.
Lee: Everyone is writing about this scene in Glasgow
and it's us and Franz Ferdinand they're all writing about. There's lots
of bands, but loads of them are still stuck in the rut of wanting to sound
like Oasis or Radiohead.
Q: Dogs Die In Hot Cars - possibly the greatest band
name ever. Where did that one come from?
Lee: Basically we were just messing about with
helium balloons one day and it just sort of slipped out. And then we saw
it in print it looks amazing...we even got in the Bizarre column in The
Sun which was always a personal dream of mine. You really don't want to
hear the suggestions we came up with before that but the one that sticks
out is Robert Plant in Poo Poo Land.
Craig: People are kind of abbreviating it to The
Dogs just now and that's kind of acceptable, but to actually call you name
The something. Nobody's indifferent about and they think it's bad or really
good and it's the same with the music as well.
Q: The single "I Love You Cause I Have To" is totally
different from the rest of the Dogs set. So it's not Ska pop all the way
is it?
Craig: It's just a total slap in the face disposable
pop song that's over in 2 minutes 30. The intention was basically to grab
the attention of the music industry but it's gone above all that now. We
found out yesterday were the 11th most played band in the the Clubs across
the UK but we haven't had the pleasure of dancing to it ourselves yet.
We've got a real pop sensibility to how we write. Upbeat,
catchy, good melodies that people can dance to.
It's very much us that the songs are diverse, were all
into different things. Were not the type of musicians that cottons onto
a good idea and sticks to it. You wake up one day and you want to do something
you inspired by and that can be any type of music.
Q: If you guys are the next big Scottish pop sensations.
Who were the last?
Craig: Orange Juice, but that was a long way back.
For what the Proclaimers do I think people are very nervous about expressing
their opinions on them. Maybe it's because they're uncool or whatever but
they're great songwriters and they do their thing bloody well. But it was
still quite strange when the NME compared us to them and said we were the
New Proclaimers...I think it was just because they come from Scotland.
Q: You do realize that one of your songs sounds like
the Proclaimers mashed up with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" don't you?
Craig: A lot of music I'm interested in is coming
out of South America and Peru...and also Wedding Band music from Bulgaria
so there's lots of different rhythms and patterns. I'm just really really
interested in vocals as an instruments rather than just to use them to
saying words and singing notes. I think it was this geezer called Ivo Papasvon
who sings this mad shit called "Maria Rosa Maria" or something.
A lot of people say we sound like an 80s band, but I think
if I sang in a Manc accent or an American one I don't think people would
say it's eighties. The vocals have a lot to do with and when I started
singing I made a conscience decision not to sound American and to sing
without any particular accent. And because it doesn't have a twang people
look back to when there was voices that were like that and it was in the
eighties. I think that it was basically that a lot of people in the eighties
did sing the way they spoke anyway.
Q: Apart from the Proclaimers comparisons you are one
of the unluckiest bands in the world. Didn't you get electrocuted on-stage
at The Cotton Club gig in Dundee last week?
Lee: It wasn't just an electric shock. It was
a full on electrocution - it started running through his hands as soon
as he touched the microphone. I thought it was a fight at first because
he came flying back into me and knocked me over.
Craig: There was a moment when I thought I was going to die. I really genuinely accepted the fact I was going to die and I was really pissed off - it was like what a way to go. What a f**king waste!!! You can wallow in that shit and I was really scared when I went up on-stage the next night.
Lee: Basically our lawyers are dealing with now so we can't say much more.
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"I Love You 'Cause I have To" is out now on Radiate
Records
Dogs Die In Hot Cars tour Universities through
October (Tour Dates TBC)
For more info
www.dogsdieinhotcars.com
www.radiaterecords.com
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