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Through the back rooms and corridors of the Liverpool 02 Academy, past sound-checking bands and beer guzzling blokes, Purple Revolver grabbed a few minutes in the dressing room with Ali Ross, lead singer of Cars on Fire.
Kate: We hear that you played with the New York Dolls, what was that like?
Ali: Amazing. We played with them in Bristol in December and we were their only support act so that was pretty good.
We didn’t get to see much of the Dolls though. They’re all getting on a bit now and they all look a little bit like Iggy Pop. It must be all the hard-living and that.
But they smoke copious amounts of weed. We could smell the fumes wafting down the hallway from their dressing room and that’s about as much as we saw of them really.
Kate: How is the Fightstar tour going?
Ali: Great, all the kids in the audience seem really up for it so that’s always good to see. The best show so far was definitely Brighton but we’ll see what Liverpool has to offer tonight.
Kate: Any wild nights with the other bands so far?
Ali: Haha. No. I’m good and I don’t drink too much as it really affects my voice. We’ve been hanging out with the boys from All Forgotten and The Excerts a lot.
The most eventful night we had involved a vat of chilli con carne that ended up food poisoning the whole lot of All Forgotten, they had to pull out of the show in Edinburgh the next day it was that bad.
So I’ve been avoiding the food since then. We haven’t hung out with Fightstar. Things are fairly separate.
Kate:‘Burn the Suits’ was your first single, what is that all about?
Ali: It’s a song about the rubbish jobs we all have to do to get by. We all work full-time in the band and you know it’s hard when you have to go into the workplace and no-one is up for a laugh. Sometimes there’s no sense of fun and you need that.
I think a lot of people can relate to that. Sharks our new single is completely different though. That’s more of a personal song about a hard time that I went through. Lots of things went wrong at the same time when I started writing that song, so it’s all about that really.
Kate: What have you been listening to recently?
Ali: Ah, that’s a hard one, because we listen to all kinds of stuff. Alexisonfire, The Excerts. Dead and Devine. We’ve been listening to a bit of Jimmy Eat World today too.
Kate: Valentines night gig tonight, will you be playing any ballads for the ladies? (sarcastically)
Ali: No. Never. Haha.
Kate: So what’s next for you in 2010?
Ali: Well our next single Sharks is out in February and we’re playing at Hammerfest in March so you’ve got all of that to look forward to from us.