Dogs Die in Hot Cars

Leaders of the pack and loving it

Dogs Die in Hot Cars are in their element playing music that puts a smile on people's faces, they tell Kevin Harley

09 July 2004

"It's like, 'Hmmm, thinking man's pop band'," says Craig Macintosh, the lead singer of Dogs Die in Hot Cars, with a healthy degree of suspicion and a voice hoarse from a recent 54-date, profile-building UK tour. He's talking about what he thinks of his band being dubbed "clever", and the tendency to rank them among the kind of art-pop, ranging from Scissor Sisters to Franz Ferdinand, that seems to have blossomed following the post-Britpop plod-rock period's doldrums (see Travis, Coldplay) and the ferocious dumbings-down of the Pop Idol set. "As far as clever pop goes," he adds, "for me, musically, Missy Elliott and Outkast are the ones that have it all. They've got the humour and the wit, and their production sounds are, like, ahead of ahead. They're my kind of thinking man's music in the pop world."

"We just write pop records about things that interest us," says Lee Worrall, Dogs' affable bassist. "People characterise it as an early 1980s thing, what's happening right now, but maybe that's just about trying to get your head around it. Where is it all coming from? I don't know. The humour we have and the music we write, we've been doing it like that for 10 years. It's just kind of getting popular now."

It's easy to see why some people have lumped Dogs in with a sort of smart-pop revival. They're quick, clever and, well, Scottish enough to foment hopes of a Franz Ferdinand-sized splash. In their brightly inventive debut album, Please Describe Yourself, they've made a classically sized 10-song record of classically sized, fabulously catchy three-and-a-half-minute pop songs that nail the art of the socially observational British pop song just as early 1980s bands such as XTC and Madness did. Throw in the requisite Talking Heads-ish angularity, and a Dexy's Midnight Runners vibe courtesy of Macintosh's exuberant neo-yodel and production by the near-legendary Clive Langer/Alan Winstanley team, and the point seems to have been made: the early 1980s are back, again, and this time, it's clever.

But Dogs have it in them to be more than mere pack animals. They're no Johnny- come-latelies on a revivalist bandwagon, for starters. All in their mid-twenties, Worrall, Macintosh, Gary Smith (guitars) and Laurence Davey (drums) have been playing together since they were teenagers, when Macintosh invited himself to Davey's house after a game of rugby. (Keyboardist Ruth Quigley joined a little later.) "I was watching them play," Macintosh says, "and I got this little microphone and started squealing into it. Poor Laurence's parents were probably trying to have |a relaxing weekend, listening to Radio 4, and we were making all this noise!" He looks sheepish: "Then they heard it every week for the next 10 years."

Alongside a couple of their own tunes ("Two-chord wonders," Worrall says), their first gigs boasted covers of "Foxy Lady", Cypress Hill's "I Ain't Goin' Out Like That" and Nirvana's "Rape Me". All good, teenage mischief, but what about the XTC, Orange Juice, Dexy's and Madness comparisons? "Obviously we were aware of Madness," Worrall muses, "and my dad probably had a Madness record. But I never owned or heard much Dexy's, and that goes for all of us. As for XTC, we did a gig in London about three years ago and the billing said, 'In the mode of XTC.' We'd only heard 'Making Plans for Nigel', so we had to buy loads of XTC records."

As for the Winstanley and Langer contribution, their presence behind the album doesn't stem from an encyclopaedic knowledge of early 1980s pop on Dogs' part. "It does sort of fuel that impression, I know," says Worrall. "But we just met a whole bunch of producers. When Alan came in he had this tiny wee scrap of paper and he said, 'I've got these ideas for the songs.' He had all these tiny little notes next to each song! And we were like," he adds, without a hint of reverence, "'What the fuck?' But he'd obviously sat down and given it all a lot of thought, and he was basically just along the same wavelength as us."

"I think the bands we were influenced by were more aware of what was coming out of that period than us," Macintosh adds. "The Red Hot Chili Peppers were influenced by Talking Heads and Blur by XTC. Blur's Leisure album was originally going to be produced by Andy Partridge of XTC. Two bands that I miss being mentioned from that impressionable period are the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and a band called Firehose, from LA. They had that kind of Calypso guitar sound, really nice and creamy, really rhythmic. They were doing similar funky stuff to the Chilis but with a real jive to it. That was an influence on us. We didn't want to have distortion, we wanted to have rhythm and make things a bit lighter."

If much decent pop music stems from an enthusiastic desire to flush out all the irritants that have gone before them, Dogs are no exception. There's something almost cleansing about their sound, making it no surprise that they stumbled on it themselves on the basis of what they didn't want to hear as much as what they did.

"A lot of what shapes us as a band is things that frustrate us," Macintosh says. "We got frustrated with songs that went on too long, where you get to the point after the end of the second chorus and want to skip to the end. We wanted to write tunes where the song would reach its conclusion and you might even want to play it again."

"Songs where when you get to the chorus you don't need to hit the distortion pedal to make it big," Worrall adds, "because they are big already. And which don't stop three-quarters of the way through to make room for the guitar solo."

"Which has now been replaced," Macintosh says, leaning forward excitably and not a little conspiratorially, "in a lot of manufactured pop by 'the rap'. That's the new guitar solo! It's about things we thought were unnecessary. We wanted to take them out and make short, precise pop songs, which was born out of a frustration with hearing too much of the opposite. Also, there's been a lot of bands over the past few years that have had no rhythm. It's just been, like, 'dum tch-tch, dum tch-tch'. We wanted to put in a few offbeats."

"We used to spend ages doing 'funky jams'," Worrall adds, clearly relishing the phrase, "to make it music you can dance to with a smile on your face."

Dogs' current single, "I Love You 'Cause I Have To", fulfils that remit with spadesful of indie-ska exuberance. "Godhopping", too, is a jauntily piano-driven slip of white funk, which got them to a respectable No. 24 in the charts, while "Apples & Oranges" and "Lounger" - the latter of which is becoming their signature tune live - have all the vim and zip of early Talking Heads. David Byrne-ish wiggle, then, or Madness-styled, knees-first manoeuvre? Either way, you can't accuse Dogs of not trying to have something for all.

And things to say, too. Macintosh labours over his lyrics, and the mix of Dogs' sound with his top-of-the-range bawl is designed to lend a clarity to them. He confesses a little sheepishly, and with a little coaxing, to overdoing it with a few "cool/ school" rhymes on Please Describe Yourself, but much of the album stands up well in a tradition of throwing a spotlight on to contemporary British life, via a look at the options people are confronted with.

"It's not about wrestling with options," Macintosh says, "so much as welcoming that there are options. It frustrated me when lyricists preached, like they were answering things and saying there was one specific way of thinking. I don't believe that and I try to argue with myself in lyrics. I'll make up a point of view, like in 'Lounger', which is about the benefits of being ignorant and lazy. I want to write lyrics that start a conversation and keep it open."

You can hear it in the way he makes light of issues-laden pop. On "Celebrity Sanctum", a fixation on unattainable stars is satirised next to a startlingly yearning, Pulp-ish chorus that begs to be heard as a single.


"Well, we're contemporary, we're of the moment," Macintosh says. "We're inspired by what's happening now. Celebrity's everywhere, in the media, in the clubs we go to, too, everybody's mimicking the moves. As soon as that Beyoncé song comes on, everyone's doing a Beyoncé!" After a creditable impression of someone doing a not-so-creditable Beyoncé impression, he adds: "Celebrity's been around for ever, but it just seems to be getting a bit sordid now."

As for whether Dogs are about to join the ranks of the famous, it's not entirely impossible. They may not sport Franz Ferdinand's desperate trousers, but they've got the songs, the approachability and a singer with a real voice. "Godhopping" was decently near enough to a proper hit, too, and it's probably among the least of the potential singles on their album. "We really wanted to get into the Top 40 to make a mark with that one," says Worrall. "It was 17 midweek, so we were like, 'Wow, we could be on Top of the Pops!' But obviously, later on in the week all the kids get their pocket money and go out and buy Britney Spears or whatever. So 24 was great. See if we can better it with the next one."

Whether they have the name seems to be the only moot point so far: for some critics, it's the worst band name in pop history, while for others, it's one of the best. Memorably, one feature even categorised them as "emo" (as in the kind of "emotional punk" that, despite being fractious, is, like, totally sensitive beneath); a misstep surely based less on listening to the band than on "die" being in their name (emo kids are deep, see). Were they a little worried that somebody expected them to sound like goateed, short-wearing, suburban American kids with skateboards and an angst-strop on?

"I think that means it's working, though," says Macintosh. "It's the perfect name for us because we're a band who get a kick out of surprising people and not feeling that we can be pinned down just like that. Besides, nobody says to me, 'Craig's a rubbish name.' Well, aside from Lee. Lee thinks that if there was a name for a bird stool it would be a Craig. Y'know, like, 'A pigeon's just done a Craig on you.'" And he adds, emphatically: "I'm not going to change my name to Rollo or anything, though."

Clearly, a whiff of success isn't about to get the better of anyone who's been told their name has an excremental factor to it. It's the kind of banter that comes from the band having known each other for years. They even shared a house in Glasgow for the last few of these, and despite going their separate ways two weeks back, in readiness for the weeks of touring to come, it's prepared them for long-term intimacy and other band pressures. "Well, we're ready for anything, really," says Worrall.

"I think we're happy with the slow build, though," Macintosh adds. "It's been happening a bit in the right way, through gigs and making records and more gigs. And because we've lived together, it's not overwhelming. I think if we continue like that, there won't be any problems in terms of how we deal with things. Maybe that's naive, but who knows? I think because we've known each other since we were kids, it keeps everyone grounded. It's not like having loads of yes people around you. If things really kick off, we are all here for each other."

Pack animals, then? Maybe, but it's a pack of their own.

'Please Describe Yourself' (V2) is released on Monday; Dogs Die in Hot Cars play T in the Park, Kinross, Scotland, 10 July; Oxegen Festival, Punchestown, Ireland, 11 July; Summer Sundae, Leicester, 14 August; Reading Festival, 27 August; Leeds Festival, 29 August

Album: Dogs Die in Hot Cars

Please Describe Yourself, V2

By Andy Gill

16 July 2004

And while we're considering old new-wave pastiches, the question must be asked: is there room enough in the world for a second XTC, when there doesn't appear to have been enough to keep the original one fully operational over the last decade? Because Dogs Die In Hot Cars are to XTC what Gene were to The Smiths: a copy so closely modelled on the original that it should send shivers down the spines of Swindon's finest. It's really quite creepy, something like the musical equivalent of stalking: lots of nimble rhythm guitars and tricksy keyboard fills and lyrics which hint at deep themes, but which turn out to have hidden shallows. The farthest DDIHC stray from this template is when they adopt a brittle Talking Heads manner on tracks such as "Apples & Oranges" and "Pastimes & Lifestyles", which is hardly worth the bother at all, really. There's lots of name-dropping in songs such as "Paul Newman's Eyes" and "Celebrity Sanctum" - basically a list of film starlets the singer fancies - while further student approval is guaranteed by "Lounger", a song about an overeducated, lazy bohemian: "I get up when I want/ Don't have to eat my greens/ Or keep my bedroom tidy." An oddly hollow experience.