From Waterloo to Balado with Dirty Pretty Things

Man, I love Scotland, it's a blessing to come up here, Anthony Rossomando tells The Skinny - and he means it. One-time Pete stand in, now fully-fledged Dirty Pretty Thing, guitarist Rossomando is on fine and gracious form and yes, he really loves being north of the border. "The crowds in Scotland are the best, they come to have a fucking good time and that's the way it should be." On the eve of the 'Things first Edinburgh show and after a high-energy sound check, Rossomando is enjoying life.

Having recorded half of their debut album 'Waterloo to Anywhere' in a Glasgow studio, the boys, completed by ex-Libertines Carl Barat and Gary Powell (as if you didn't know), and ex-Cooper Temple Clause man Didz Hammond, are no strangers to Scottish hospitality. Rossomando even spent a night under the watchful eye of an Edinburgh security guard when he had nowhere else to go whilst on a support tour with his previous band. Now, and with the DPT star risen to a fair height, such slumming is unlikely.

By the end of this tour, the band will have plied their trade throughout the UK's small to mid-sized venues, culminating in a trio of sold-out dates at the Forum in London. "We're pretty nervous about those shows, we really want to make them special. Because we've only got the one record, we're gonna try and come up with something a little different at each show." Rossomando is refreshingly honest about the band's live limitations in terms of the relatively small repertoire of DPT material to draw from and he's also keen to stress the band's collective and individual attitude towards playing Libertines numbers to beef the set up. "(The Libertines) is not a subject any of us shy away from, especially Carl and Gary – they're immensely proud of what they achieved back then and they're cool about putting a few tunes in the set."

Sure enough, for their debutante Scottish performance a frenzied Liquid Room witnesses a tight and energetic set including former Libs favourites Death on the Stairs and I Get Along but most notable is the equally ecstatic reaction to DPT newies such as Doctors & Dealers and Bang, Bang You're Dead – the two most obvious Doherty-referencing tunes on the record and further signs of contentment and honesty within the band.

So has the black dog of the Libertines been removed from the band's shoulders? "I think it's somewhere in the middle right now. At first it was obviously a big deal and that's how we were able to sell out shows and get so much press interest, but now people have heard our stuff and seen us play and now the interest is all about the band, the album and what we've got planned, which is cool."

So here we are and with a busy summer schedule ahead of them, including some Chili Pepper support slots and an appearance at T in the Park, the Dirty Pretty Things have a lot to look forward to – Rossomando again feels blessed; "It's great man, they're such a cool bunch of dudes. We fight like brothers man but we're solid. We're loving it."