“There’s a little bit more purpose now” – An Interview with Dictator

One of the most unique bands around right now, Scottish quartet Dictator blend indie, hip-hop, electro-pop and many other styles to create a spellbinding sound. Earlier this year they released a new EP “Middle of the Road” which features four incredible tracks which are now being reinterpreted, remixed and released by various artists.

They made the trip across the pond to play the New Colossus Festival in March and I met up with Michael, Zach, Joe and Allan before their Thursday evening show at Sour Mouse to talk about their music, Scottish football and the resurgence of great bands from Scotland.
(It goes without saying that AI has made amazing strides over the last few years but, as I found out, it still has huge strides to make when it comes to transcribing a chat with four blokes from West Lothian recorded in a noisy New York bar. Which is (part of) the reason this interview has taken so long to get posted)

IDOV – So how was your flight over to the U.S? 

Michael – It was actually all right, but Zach wasn’t feeling too well.

Zach – it was very rough for me, very rough for me, yeah. I think we all had different experiences that way. Joe was all right.

Michael – Joe hates flying. 

Joe – I was alright. I had a couple drinks to settle me for the flight!

IDOV – Is this your first time playing in the US? 

Michael – Yep. It’s our first gig and it’s the first time in America for me and the same for Joe. Allan goes often and Zach went when he was like three.

IDOV – And how was the show last night? I saw some videos online that looked like it was awesome.

Michael – It was like, the weirdest day yesterday because it felt like there was 72 hours in one day. Like, it was just perpetually daytime and I was kind of expecting us to be so tired that the show would be shit.  But it was actually really good; one of the best shows, I guess because of the vibe of just playing in New York.

IDOV – We ask everyone we interview a few questions. Here’s the first one. Which classic album cover artist is your current mood?  

Zach – So mine is obviously going to be New York themed. And I was thinking about this and I think probably The Beastie Boys To The 5 Boroughs. I felt like it kind of made sense. I’ve been listening to the Beastie Boys loads on the build up to this trip.

Allan – Just for the current vibe. Screamadelica by Primal Scream. For music it’s kind of genre hopping and just the whole vibe of trying to get people to move and dance and it’s such a creative, chaotic, album cover which kind of summarizes where we’re at right now. In New York City.

Michael – Mine’s Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not – Arctic Monkeys. You know, the guy’s smoking at the front of it and he just looks bust. That’s kinda how I feel.

Joe – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Because I was walking through a street in New York today. 

IDOV – How do you feel you’ve changed as a band since your first release in 2019? 

Michael – I’ll be honest, I think when we first came into this, our expectations were really high, and we were so dead set on getting somewhere, and then actually the more we’ve done it, the more places we’ve been, we’ve actually started understanding a little bit more about what we want. It’s kind of a weirdly mature way to be, but I think our expectations have changed. They’ve not came down at all, but we’re actually far happier with a lot less than we thought we would need when we first started this. When we first started, we were obviously bright eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to go into everything.

But that naivety, I think you need it to start something. Whereas, where we’re at just now, we focus on the stuff that we like, and it’s actually starting to pay off. So there’s a little bit more of a purpose now. At the start, we were just so excited and I think that carried us through. Now we know what we’re doing or at least what we’re trying to do, you know what I mean? 

Zach – Sonically, we’re definitely far more comfortable within ourselves and what we’re doing, what we’re trying to achieve and how we want to sound. This release is definitely how we want it to sound whereas, with our first releases, we were still very much trying to figure ourselves out. It was very much indie boys trying to learn how to do sort of hip-hop style music. But now I think we’re really comfortable with a sort of alternative, sort of futuristic hip-hop.

IDOV – That kind of leads into my next question as it’s difficult to pin down what your sound is. There’s a bit of Alt J, a bit of Primal Scream, a bit of Dodgy, even The Beatles. What did you listen to when you were growing up that made you want to make the music you’re currently producing?

Zach – Probably quite varied but you touched on Alt J for sure is one of them. Gorillaz is a massive influence. People like Beck, Eels as well and then there’s a lot of hip hop artists, DJ Premier, J Dilla, stuff like that. It all sort of fed into what we’re trying to achieve. Michael can probably elaborate on that a little bit more.

Michael – Aye, in terms of writing, when you think about the concept of Gorillaz rather the sonic sound of them, you start understanding why they’re so important. We don’t want to sound like them but the way that they approach making music is how we wanted to approach making music. So they go across everywhere and they have a kind of openness which is sort of what we do. When I was young, there was a lot I listened to. You mentioned Alt J, the Beatles, all of that. Everybody went through those phases.  There was a heavy indie influence there. Like Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, all of these types of things.

But also, madly, things like Calvin Harris – he was the first ever gig I went to. When you start understanding there’s like an element of kinda everything.  Zach’s got the massive hip hop influence but all of us individually are quite eclectic. That’s why I think whenever we do anything it doesn’t really pin down to one because we’re not trying to do one. We’re just kinda trying to see what we can come up with. A lot of the advice tells you not to do that but we’re like “fuck it, let’s see what happens!”

IDOV – You mentioned hip-hop and the last two records have both had collaborations with rappers (Bemz and Chef The Rapper). How did they come about?

IDOV – Did none of you guys feel like doing the rapping yourselves?

Joe – You’ve got to let other people have a go, do you know what I mean? it’s not my first choice of performance so I don’t want to be a guy that will come over and basically steal the thunder from everybody else that’s got a hit song. My day will come.

IDOV – Second question I sent you. If you could only listen to one record, what would it be? 

Joe – It would change from month to month

Michael – I would go to Dreamland by Glass Animals, their second last album. Yeah. 

IDOV – That’s a good record but I didn’t like the last album.

Michael – Nah, I don’t think anyone did. I don’t even think they liked it themselves, man! 

Allan – It’s not one I listen to all the time, but when I hear it, I listen to it on repeat for a long time and love it. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Howl. 

Joe – I’ll go Something Else by The Kinks. It’s probably my favorite Kinks album and I just like every song.

Michael – Joe was in about four bands at the time. He was hot property so we thought he was not going to come but we convinced him.

IDOV – “Dictator” must be one of the most googled words over the last couple of weeks. Where did the name come from and is all publicity good publicity?  

Zach – It was Allan’s idea. He’s a massive fan of Sacha Baron Cohen and loves his movie “The Dictator”.

Allan – When the name came about, I hated it. I was like, “nah boys, this is a disaster, we can’t do it, we can’t do it, we can’t do it!” I think that their stubbornness made them want it even more.

Zach – We were just shopping around, like, what are we going to call this project? And we needed to pick something that grabs somebody’s attention. It didn’t really mean much, it was kind of supposed to emphasize our attitude at the time, which was that we just wanted to do everything on our own terms. The Control Freak was also shopped around but I don’t think anyone liked that. I still like it, I think it’s a cool name for a label, by the way. 

But Dictator was shopped around, we all kind of liked it and we thought it was like a strong, powerful, eye grabbing name, but Allan absolutely hated it, nearly left the band because of it. But now he recognizes it was actually a great name.

Allan – And I think it’s the fact that they stuck to their guns plays into the name itself.

Michael – Aye, we told him “Shut up. it’s Dictator” 

Michael – To be fair, that is a classic but the thing with football songs is they’re so entrenched in like the 70s, 80s and 90s that they’ve just played the same songs every single time. So it’s a dangerous territory to get into because no one adopts it. But it kinda went down quite well when we done it. 

IDOV – There’s so many good Scottish bands out there at the moment like Spyres, Dead Pony, Uninvited, Cloth, Swim School. What do you think is causing all this great music right now?

Michael – So we’re playing a gig with Spyres and Dead Pony in a couple of months, right? They’ve been going about for so long and actually, this is the fascinating thing, is that as the dial turns, it’s like they come up from nowhere, right? But it’s been five or six years.

Zach – We all kind of started at the same time.

Joe – I think it’s the case that these bands have always been here but there has been something within the last few years that’s just kind of brought a new light to Scottish music.

Zach – I agree. The bands have always been there but the spotlight’s now on Scotland for whatever reason.

Allan – It’s hard to put your finger on it man. I don’t know if it’s because within Scotland there’s not as many promotion companies compared to England. So there’s smaller pools of people that can support you and get you on these platforms, I don’t know if that’s helping us, we’ve got a smaller sort of community that’s kind of all pulling together and pushing these bands. I absolutely feel like in Scotland, we all champion each other. I feel it’s a strong community within the Scotland music scene.

Michael – See as well though, if you’re in England, you’ve got Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool, London. You’ve got so many major cities with major scenes. We’ve got Edinburgh and Glasgow. Glasgow’s the main music scene I would say in Scotland. There is obviously a bit of different cities who have the beginnings of a scene. When you actually look at it, Glasgow is the main source of talent the music scene in Scotland compared to maybe seven or eight vessels in England, right? 

So if you’re bringing bands from Scotland, you’re picking these guys. And actually what’s probably happening in England is there’s amazing bands that maybe aren’t on the radar. It’s nothing to do with talent, it’s just that the spotlight’s there and the radar’s there, and it’s like. “We’ve got these guys, and these guys, and these guys” and we keep popping up in the same thing. It used to be a disadvantage, because there’s not as many people, you can’t sell as many shows and stuff like that. I actually think it’s a bit of an advantage now because you’re not playing in this wider pool.

IDOV – What would go on your signature pizza and what would it be called?

Zach – I’ve been thinking about this one. All Sausages. Pepperoni, Chorizo, Smoked Sausage and it would be called “The Big Dick” 

Allan – We’ve had a couple of pizza slices in New York and I’m actually a vegetarian, but these past couple of days I’ve been like flexitarian. So I would agree with Zach. All the spiciest sausages, but, I would add on haggis. if you’ve never tried it, it is incredible. “The Big Scott Dick!”

Michael – For me, it’s a bit weird, but I would have corned beef and beans and cheese over the top. The reason for that is I had a toastie with corned beef, cheese and beans in it and it was unbelievable. And I reckon on a pizza, if you grilled the top so the cheese went bubbly, and it had the beans and the corned beef underneath it, I genuinely think it would taste phenomenal. It would be called “Kownzil Pizza” (Note – Council for those not from Scotland)

IDOV – Final question. What else is going to happen in 2025 for Dictator?

Zach – There’s absolutely loads and we cannae talk about any of it really but there’s definitely festivals. We’re playing Paris in May. Okay. We’ve got a few festivals in Scotland and England and we’re hopefully going to get back out on the road and play our own shows later on in the year. There’s a few big festivals but we can’t announce them until we get them but it’s looking like it’s going to be a class year.  

Allan – We’re going to release a remix EP as well. So the remixes of the four tracks that we’ve just released. We’re working on that at the moment.