Pretty Things' unbreakable link with The Libertines
DIDZ Hammond has slightly more pressing matters to look forward to than coming back to Inverness with his band Dirty Pretty Things on Sunday.
As he speaks to The Courier, the birth of his second child is just three weeks away, while his daughter distracts him from answering questions over the telephone with questions of her own about the ant trap he has set in the garden. When she was born, the former Cooper Temple Clause bassist had to rush away on tour to the US.
"Which was a bit rude," he acknowledged.
Fortunately the arrival of the Hammond family's latest addition does not co-incide with such a hectic schedule. There is a return engagement at The Ironworks, where Dirty Pretty Things headlined the venue's first Hogmanay party last year, an appearance at the Isle of Skye Music Festival the day before, an engagement at another festival in Clapham and perhaps a couple of other gigs if the band can squeeze them in, but, other than that, the schedule is relatively light.
The last visit to Inverness was Hammond's first taste of a Scottish Hogmanay, which led to a mid-concert interruption while the audience welcomed in the bells in traditional manner.
"It was quite fun really, but it was kind of weird playing a gig in two parts when everyone stopped to kiss at New Year and then with the piper and things it was quite surreal, but we felt we were having an authentic modern Scottish experience," Hammond said.
At least the Inverness audience was more friendly than some of the Skye natives he had been warned to beware of on his first visit to the island.
"I've been made aware of the mozzies. Apparently they come out at exactly the same time the festival starts," Hammond said.
Such are the hazards of live performances, but recently Dirty Pretty Things have been in the safer ground of the studio, working on a follow-up to debut album "Waterloo to Anywhere", which was released last May, just eight months after the band came together.
"We've got 20 tracks, I suppose, in different stages of completion. It was quite nice to be able to take more of a considered approach because the last album was done in kind of a rush. We are happy with what we did and we're proud of that record, but we wanted to see what would happen if we took our time with it," Hammond said.
He explained that the writing process in the Dirty Pretty Things was a collaborative process, with guitarist Anthony Rossomando, frontman Carl Barat, himself and drummer Gary Powell all contributing.
"It's almost like we are working in stages at the moment. Anthony's the linchpin and Carl and me will come to him with ideas and we'll try and whack them around a bit. Now everyone's coming up with more original ideas and everyone's chipping in a bit," he explained.
It is a very different approach from The Cooper Temple Clause.
"Basically we'd have a 45-minute jam and then somebody would remember one of the ideas from it and put it down on the computer and then the next person would come in and kind of remember what they did on it and then finally we'd put words to it, whereas now it starts with the song and the melody," Hammond said.
The Dirty Pretty Things are still a relatively new band, but there was never any question about the group gelling. The four members have known each other for years, and Barat and Powell were bandmates in The Libertines, where they were joined by Rossomando as a replacement for the controversial Pete Doherty.
Hammond acknowledges it is inevitable the band will be seen by some as a Libertines off-shoot, though that has an advantage in furnishing them with a ready made fan base. At same time, however, the Dirty Pretty Things are forging their own identity.
"It is a different band," he insisted. "There is kind of a sound of The Libertines, we are always going to have a taste of that, but we are not deliberately setting out to be The Libertines Mark II."
Source:
The Inverness Courier
