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 In
December of 2004 revivalists of the British rock scene, the Libertines played their last gig in Paris without the troubled Pete Doherty.
Chaotic by nature anyway and famous for their impromptu gigs, relations in the
band were pretty volatile. Pete had already been jailed for breaking into band mate
Carl Barât’s flat and stealing several items and his various
attempts at rehabilitation were unsuccessful. Following yet another arrest,
this time for carrying an offensive weapon, Pete had to leave the band. So by the time of the final tour, it
was clear that the Libertines’ time was coming to an end.
“We knew at the end of that touring schedule
that it would be the end of the band the whole time we were on tour. There’s no future to what you’re doing on the
road, you’re just fulfilling an obligation, which was why Carl wanted to do it,
people were appreciative of that, that he made the effort to go and fulfil all
those gigs, and people were happy we went to far distant places to bring to people
the music that they really enjoyed,” recalls guitarist of Dirty Pretty
Things, Anthony Rossomando, who had replaced Pete for the Libs’ final tour. “I remember going back to the States and that
was right after the holidays, I went
home for Christmas and saw family I hadn’t seen in ages, then I woke up one
morning, I think the day after New Years’ kinda like ‘now what?’ I actually had
to have an operation and undertaking their first UK tour in February 2006.Carl had to have an operation in the same
month, and I was just kicking around, going back to my old ways of hanging
around doing nothing but get p*ssed”
Carl
had been offered a record deal by Vertigo Records, but did not want pursue a
solo career, so he gathered his ex band mates, Anthony and drummer Gary Powell
and The Cooper Temple Clause’s bassist Didz Hammond and Dirty Pretty Things was
born. Their first gigs were in Italy,
Mexico and Paris, away from prying eyes, before
“We knew that we couldn’t play our first
couple of gigs in London
like any normal band, because we’d people would be watch us under the
microscope. To be honest a lot of those first gigs we played were pretty sh*t a
lot of the time. A lot of the songs weren’t finished, Carl was scatting words,
and we were looking at each other for endings,” says Anthony. “We had to develop over a very short
gestation period, so that’s why did that. We wanted to keep it as organic as
possible. We didn’t want to go off and
rehearse for a month, become really tight and then expect to headline gig. I think every band has to earn that and we
felt we had to for ourselves to keep perspective on how it all goes down”.
Their
debut album Waterloo
to Anywhere, recorded in LA with producer Dave Sardy (Oasis, Jet) and Glasgow with
Tony Doogan, was released in May and entered the charts at number 3. “We didn’t have a lot of time to do it, so we
ended up with a fast sounding short songs, short album, which is kind of a
portrait of that time," explains Anthony. "Now we feel like we’re a real band and that we’ve moved on a bit from
post-Libertines and by next summer we’ll have a new record which will sound
different to this one”.
Pete
seems to find himself in the newspaper everyday thanks to his relationship with
supermodel Kate Moss and his many escapades with the police, but it’s not
something Anthony pays too much attention to.
“I try not to get to close to the tabloids.
Obviously you see them when you walk into newsagents and maybe you’ll flip over
to look at page 3 once in a while, but they are what they are. I’m really anti
tabloid culture, celebrity culture. It’s
just gotten out of hand and you’ve got people who are famous for absolutely
nothing. It’s just shallow vacuous
bullsh*t,” he fumes. “Obviously it’s become a big part of Pete’s
life. It’s become a storyline for them and the sad bit is they don’t give a
f*ck about him. They’re just looking for that story that carries on so they can
sell papers. Thing is, those papers are owned by right-wing f*cking maniacs
like Rupert Murdoch. It’s a weird twist if you actually put that together and
you think about that”.
And
along with many, Anthony hopes the Babyshambles singer will finally sort out
his drug addiction problems.
“He’s very talented. I’ve played his and
Carl’s music on and off for a couple of years all around the world and I grew
to really appreciate it and love the spirit of it. Frankly, I don’t think much has come out of
his ventures with Babyshambles. It
hasn’t really hit me as much. He’s got some cool lyrical ideas and stuff, but
musically it seems a bit scattered,” he reckons. “It’s very naïve to think that just because Lou Reed, Kurt Cobain,
John Lennon Jim Morrison and whoever, took heroin doesn’t mean that it was what
gave them the ability to create something. I really hope he pulls it together.
He’s not my friend, we’re acquainted only through friends, but I think it would
be good for the overall sense of ‘us versus them’. In the long run he is one of
us and you’d like to think that way. Maybe I’m a bit of an idealist, but we
have a community of bands right now”.
So
with one ear on the music scene, Anthony is enthusiastic about the current ‘new
rave’ craze headed by kings of day glo, Klaxons.
“Klaxons are amazing. I think their music is
an incredible example of how you can write big pop melodies over tear it up and
start again post punk format, and that to me is exciting music,” he says. ”I think new rave is joke, the title of it
was supposed to be a joke. I don’t think those guys take themselves super
seriously but I think they take what they do seriously and I think its f*cking
cool”.
But
don’t be expecting Dirty Pretty Things to copy the Horrors and go goth any time
soon.
“We found out yesterday we were called new
goth,” laughs Anthony. “We’ve got to
tell the tour manager we need some more eye make up! We’d do it if we could
afford the make up and if we didn’t get threatened to be beaten up enough as it
is”.
As
well as doing the rounds on their latest UK tour, they’re also busy working
on new material for album number two.
“It’s shaping well. We’re still into songs,
songs, songs, songwriting. I think Didz is going to do a little bit more
keyboard stuff, Carl is going to drop the guitar a little bit more often, we’re
probably going to minimalise it even a bit more. We’ve got some new stuff going
with different beats, and some dancey stuff. A couple of burners, we’re always
going to have a couple tracks that are just going to burn right through you
because that’s in our blood. I think after this tour we’re going to go in and
demo in January and everything will take shape,” he explains. “We’re working on the bus right now, so we’ll
probably be introducing some new songs throughout this tour. Probably by
Brixton, there’ll be definitely two new songs in the set, because we have one
day off right before then and we’ll have them sussed out, but we’re close on a
few. Carl’s got some great starts for
lyrics and stuff and we’re all really excited. It’s great to be back working
together in that format instead of us being on tour and turning into four
drunken monkeys.”
And
they’ll be hoping that there’ll be no repetition of Carl’s accident this
summer, when he fell off a motorbike and had to be temporarily replaced on the
guitar by Josh Hubbard of the Paddingtons.
“It’s pogo stick only. He’s not even allowed
to jump rope anymore,” says Anthony solemnly. “Like he ever jumped rope,” he adds with a laugh.
For more info:
www.dirtyprettythingsband.com
Words: Helen Duong
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