It was all a fairly low-key start to Dirty Pretty Things with you playing your first gigs in Italy and France - why did you decide to take that softly softly approach? We were not naive enough to want to go backwards into the fire of London or anywhere in the UK really despite the fact that we love it. We'd half written these songs that we were busking through every night and we needed to earn our spurs and check that it worked in front of people so we decided to do it a little bit of out of the way so we went to Italy, weirdly. I don't really know why. It sounds as though you were almost doing a rehearsal with an audience.
 | | Carl and Didz share a joke |
Yeah, it was kind of like that. We'd kind of got these vague melodies and three lyrics per song and we were just busking through them for a week. What feedback did you get and did that change the songs in anyway? Yeah, we didn't have suggestion boxes or anything but we tweaked them as we went through. Playing in front of people, the whole idea was to put a bit of pressure on ourselves. We moved things around a little bit but it was more deciding on little bits of the melody and things like that. Also away from the songs an important part of that trip was to see if it was going to work with the four of us. I think it did. Well, it obviously did because you've been on the road all of this year with the tour - how has that been? It's been good. I think halfway through the year we were on the verge of burnout. We stepped back from ourselves a little bit. We were full of the joys of spring when we started out and, having been friends for a while, we were excited about going out on the road as friends and being able to run around and be silly and get given free booze and doing all the things that people do on tour. I don't really know why the rest of them felt like that because they'd been on the road for two years with The Libertines. It sounds like a bit of a boys' road trip. Yeah. It kind of was and it went a bit sour by the time we started hitting the European festivals. We just hit it a bit hard and had to take a step back because we were all getting on each other's nerves and just running around being silly. A few months into things, have you had enough time where you've had distance from each other? Yeah, a little bit. I guess at the start the shadow of The Libertines was hanging over the band, but how do you think going out on tour has helped you cultivate your own fan base? We had a lot of people who still believed in Carl because of The Libertines, that made up the core, but it's a little bit different as well. Hopefully, we've picked up a few more people along the way. You're about to head off on tour, which takes in Norwich, why did you decide that it was good to go out again? We haven't been out for a while, but we didn't really decide, it was just like the natural thing to do. When performing out of all the stuff that you guys have pulled together what's the favourite song in the set? I like Playboys and Gentry Cove - I like the weirdo schizophrenic ones really. The schizophrenia makes them interesting and endearing to me! It's not the first time you've been to Norwich because you were here as part of Cooper Temple Clause - are you pleased to be coming back? Yeah, we're playing at the university, are we? Yeah. I've played there three or four times on various tours and that's a good venue. Someone tried to stitch me up live on Radio 1 the last time the Coopers played there - he went away with egg on his face. How do you find audiences here? Good. There are some of the most lunatic individuals that I've come across, actually. There's always a good atmosphere and it seems to be a town that's really up for music.
 | | Lead singer Carl Barat |
When you play the arts centre - I've played there a few times and it's amazing, the setting and being down in the building and that shows there's a bit of a music culture going on around your way. It's up close and personal - do you like those smaller gigs? Yeah, I suppose the big ones are better for the ego but the smaller ones where you can see the whites of people's eyes, that's what it is all about. You left Cooper Temple Clause to join Dirty Pretty Things - how and why did you end up joining them and was it difficult joining quite an established group? Once I made the decision it was quite natural really. It wasn't a decision I took lightly, I thought about it from a lot of different angles and took a while to get my head around. Once I decided to make the break it was fairly natural. Me and Carl had been knocking around for a while and I knew Gary from around the pubs and clubs in London and knocking into each other at festivals, but I didn't know Anthony at all. It was enormously difficult - these were people which I'd spent eight years with, 24 hours a day, living as brothers. It was a big one but it's all good and we're all still friends. Apart from the tour, you've just got on board with the Make Roads Safe campaign, why did you choose to back that particular cause? We had a gig three or four months ago and found out that three girls had been killed on the way back from the show in a car accident and then someone alerted us to the statistics of things like that and it was alarming. We had the opportunity to do something about it and it was a pleasure. In terms of the campaign, what kind of work are you doing? It's been just doing gigs - we did a big gig at the Coronet for it and Anthony's been on Sky News about it. Anthony's been the Make Roads Safe spokesman by proxy. Me and Gary seem to be ones who speak about Love Music Hate Racism and Stan gets the traffic. When you're not being a bassist with the band, you like to get behind the decks. Yeah. Is it relaxing doing that? Yeah, definitely. I've had the privilege to play with Zane [Lowe] a lot of times and he is a good person to watch because he turns it into a live show. I'm convinced that it's a I want-to-be-in-a-band frustration! It is a bit of a busman's holiday but if you're out in a pub or club and the music is s**t you want to be up there anyway so it's a pleasure really. Do you see that going further? No, not really I haven't thought about it like that although Burgess and McGee are running around the country earning a mint spinning records. Christmas isn't far away, so what are you and the guys up to? I'm going back to Reading for a couple of days before Christmas, then going up to Chester with my missus. We've got a couple of gigs in Inverness over New Year. It sounds like you won't see much of it because you'll be working. I'll probably see almost all of it - probably too much of it! | 
