DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS ///
TEXT AND PHOTO: CAMERON COOK ///
DATE AUGUST 3, 2004 ///

"Is that deodorant or anti-perspirant?" Craig McIntosh, Dogs Die in Hot Cars' charismatic and curly-haired singer, asks his band's manager. As we sit down to conduct this interview, bassist Lee Worrall finds it imperative to comment on Craig's, um, questionable touring hygiene, regarding which can of anti-perspirant is brandished. "But is it anti-perspirant?" Craig insists. "I think that, surely if your body were designed to sweat, blocking it can't be good, right?" This is the kind of deduction you'd expect from someone who named their band Dogs Die in Hot Cars.

Dear Jaded, when was the last time you were truly excited about a band? I mean you, personally, not a magazine you like or your friend who's a record label scout. I'm talking, when was the last time you walked into a club, or read a website, or heard a DJ spin a record that made you perk up and say, "I'm happy to be alive right now, just so this band can infiltrate my brain and make me twist 'n' shout."

For me, that moment was approximately a month ago, when Dogs Die in Hot Cars finally hit America. I'll be frank: I am susceptible to excessive hyperbole. But, just like a middle-aged billionaire embarking on his seventh marriage, this time it's different. Dogs Die slapped a grin on my face the size of their native Scotland, and never before have I seen total strangers let loose on the dance floor to a band's first-ever American show. The band consists not only of Craig and Dan, but also Gary Smith on guitars, Laurence Davey on drums and the petite Ruth Quigley frenetically pounding ivories on a keyboard that must be twice her size. Onstage the quintet swell up to become dance-pop giants, hammering out songs that sound like Dexy's Midnight Runners and XTC throwing a wild party, only to have David Byrne show up and shoot everyone.

I first came across DDIHC when I saw their "Godhopping" video a few months ago, which could easily be described, at the very least, as a textbook display of frenzied '80s-style art-deco fashion and frantic robot dancing. Yet, the most surprising aspect of DDIHC is, well, their normalcy. They don't, for example, wear snappy suits everywhere they go, or say terribly ironic and confusing things in interviews, or beat people up for no reason at all (even the name is unremarkable once the origin is known: it's from a British anti-cruelty campaign). They don't really subscribe to any music sub-genre, except the one where the "tunes are really good." They almost have no ego to speak of, and they probably wouldn't recognize a trend if it bopped them over the head with a Yellowcard CD. You instinctively root for them because their lack of eccentricities makes them all the more likable. For Chrissakes, their favorite band is the Red Hot Chili Peppers! How much more down to Earth can you get?

Somehow, a children's playground across the street from the Mercury Lounge seemed like the ideal spot to interview Dogs Die in Hot Cars.

So, this is your first American show. What are your impressions of the journey so far?
Lee: We were talking about it a lot before we came out here, especially New York. I've never been to America before. I've kind of seen it on -
Craig: I haven't either.
Lee: I don't think any of us have, apart from Laurence, our drummer.
Craig: He lived in America.
Lee: Yeah, he lived in Boston when he was younger. You know, you see [America] on movies and TV and stuff, and then when you come, it's very familiar. It's quite surreal.
Craig: One thing I've noticed, one impression, and it's a lasting impression that I can't seem to shake - every corner I go to I smell rubbish.

Welcome to New York in the summertime.
Craig: We were walking along the street last night, and it was really weird, on the pavement, there was this squashed flat rat. Totally squashed flat into the ground (laughs). Like, pressed by some massive foot. But nah, I'm in pretty good spirits about it. It's great. It's exciting. When we were kids doing our stuff in Scotland, in a small town, this is the kind of shit you talked about - 'When we'll do our gig over in New York,' you know? When we got off the plane, it was just big grins and stuff. It's just great. You know, just going anywhere, leaving your country, seeing new places. It's one of the great gifts about playing music and touring.

What do you expect from the show tonight, and the New York crowd?
Lee: It's gonna be a weird crowd, because it's going to be mostly industry people. It'll be back to the days when we used to go out to London and a lot of the crowds were industry people. Hopefully there'll be lots of normal, real people there as well (laughs).
Craig: We've had "I Love You 'Cause I Have To," which is the last single out in the U.K., played on a couple of radio stations here, which is a promising sign. It's done its own work. But I feel
confident about tonight. We've really been looking forward
to it. I think they're going to love it.
Lee: Good times all around. Before we signed our record deal with V2, we signed a one-single deal with a small offshoot of EMI. We released "I Love You 'Cause I Have To" the first time around, and that was exactly a year ago yesterday.
Craig: It's a nice way to sort of round off the year by coming here.

You always hear about British bands trying to 'break America.' It's supposedly really difficult. For example, I just saw Muse play Curiosa Fest, and they were playing this tiny second stage. And of course, in Europe, they're huge. What do you think it takes for a band to break America?
Craig: Maybe we can tell you that when we've broken it!
Lee: It certainly seems to be a good time, though. British bands seem to be in fashion at the moment. It's an exciting time to be involved. During the '90s, when you had Oasis and bands like that, they all kind
of struggled, no matter what they were doing. Good songs are everything.
Craig: Yeah, the way we work is, we love touring, we love to travel all around the place, and we love just trying to write really good tunes. You know what I mean? And if you keep on doing that... It's like the guy that we signed to for the small label last year, that we were just talking about, he said to me, you know, the phrase 'the good will out.' I think that whatever happens, we'll be doing it the right way. And I do love it, because I totally believe in it. It's not about ambitions, or 'breaking America.' People may regard that as 'taking over' and being the biggest band in America... no, it's not about that. I mean, we're just going to do it and hopefully people are going to like it. Who knows what will happen, but we're enjoying it, and that's what matters.

Why did you call your album Please Describe Yourself?
Craig: A few reasons, really (laughs).
Lee: I like how you didn't ask us why our name is Dogs Die in Hot Cars.

I promised myself I wouldn't.
Lee: You're a good friend.
Craig: We have a B-side on the "I Love You 'Cause I Have To" single called "Please Describe Yourself." It was inspired by this program we used to watch every so often on TV, on the Dating Channel. It's really funny. So that's where it comes from, 'Please describe yourself.' That's what the
song is about, pretty much. It starts like:
'Please describe yourself, only using five words. Be open and keep in concise. We're all the same, bubbly and friendly, and happy-go-lucky.' They're all so anal. Everyone always says the same things about themselves. No one ever says: 'Well, I'm also a manic-depressive, and I have one ball,' or 'I have strange little things I like to do in private.' Nobody ever mentions those things. So that's what that song was about, but also about how, over the past year-and-a-half, lots of people have been trying to describe us. It's just really funny what we read that people say about us.
Lee: Or asking us to describe ourselves. We thought we'd ask everyone else to describe themselves as well.
Craig: Yeah, and see how much people like it! I'd like to think that saying 'please describe yourself' brings up the subject that, I don't like to describe myself, we don't like to describe ourselves; we just do what we do.

So, while we're on the subject of not describing ourselves, I've played your EP for a bunch of people, and most of the comments leaned towards you guys taking influence from British '80s pop bands, like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and XTC.
Lee: Frankie Goes to Hollywood is a new one.
Craig: Yeah, that's another new one. The biggest band that's influenced us is probably the Red Hot Chili Peppers, collectively.

Really?
Craig: Yeah. In 1991, when BloodSugarSexMagic came out, we were all listening to that, and from there, we've all, collectively, regarded the Chilis as our biggest influence. The Pixies, Nirvana - these were big things for us. I dunno. I just remember when I was a kid, and I'd watch the Saturday morning children's shows, and they'd have bands on, and I hated '80s music. I absolutely hated it. I think people find similarities between ['80s music] and these bands that are coming out recently writing short pop songs, that are actually dancey, and quite melodic and hooky. Lyrically, they're a bit more challenging than 'I love you, the sky is blue.' That's common ground with what bands were about in that period. So, there lie the similarities. But in terms of influences, we're not influenced by '80s bands. Yeah, there are bands from the '80s we like, just as much as there are from the '90s, and the '60s and '70s.

It seems with new bands, the ''80s influence' comment is almost automatic.
Craig: Things go in cycles. Things repeat themselves in music, but obviously they progress with time and are new for each generation. Like choosing the album name Please Describe Yourself. It's born out of frustration. A lot of what you do isn't born out of the things you really like; it's just as much born out of the things you get fucking pissed off about. We were really frustrated with the bands we were hearing all the time on the radio, who were writing songs that didn't have much rhythm. It was just 'bang, bang, bang, bang' on the beat, and they went on for too long. They'd get to the second chorus and then do this really boring thing and you'd just be like, 'Fuck it, let's go on to the next track.' And they'd have loads of distortion and things. These were the things we were frustrated with. So we were like, 'We don't want to use distortion, because we're fucking sick and tired of hearing it. And we want to write short songs, because we don't have the patience to listen to these tunes that go on for five minutes. And we want to have rhythm, because we enjoy dancing.' You know what I mean? In a few years time, if what we're doing becomes very popular, it'll go in the cycle again, and people will be pissed off with this type of music, and then it'll change around again... it'll just always move forward.
Lee: Distortion pedals will come out of the cupboards. ///