Paddingtons guitarist 'honoured ' to help out Dirty Pretty Things

The Paddingtons guitarist Josh Hubbard has described his recent touring stint with Dirty Pretty Things as “unbelievable” and said he felt “honoured” to step in when frontman Carl Barât broke his collarbone.

Hubbard, who enjoyed a short tour of the States before appearing at the Carling Weekend: Reading And Leeds Festivals in August, was decorating his house when he got the emergency call asking him to play guitar with Dirty Pretty Things.

“It was a laugh. I was glad I could be of service to ‘em. It was ace touring the States too 'cos it’s the first time I’ve been over there," he told NME.COM. "Even if it was a quick whistle stop tour, it was a great experience. There were so many people out there shouting for the band, it was unbelievable. At first I shit meself, 'cos I’ve never had to do anything like that before. It went fine though, it was all plain sailing."

Although Hubbard's stint went smoothly for the most part, The Paddingtons guitarist took a turn for the worst during a trip to France on the eve of the Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds Festivals.

“We played a gig at the Rock En Seine Festival in Paris which was pretty cool, but I was a bit ill from the ferry journey and was puking up as I was going up onstage," he explained. "I walked out, saw 50,000 people there and I just thought, ‘Fuck!’.”

Hubbard, who is now set to tour with his own band, confirmed that The Paddingtons are working on their second album and that they’ve been offered a helping hand by singer Tim Burgess.

“We’ve been demoing and recording stuff in our own studio and we’ve got about 10 songs together already, but Tim has offered to let us use their studio, so we’re trying to sort something out because obviously their studio will be better than ours,” he said. “We’ve chilled out quite a bit on this album. We’re a lot less full-on but it's still us."

Songs slated to appear on their as-yet-untitled second LP due out early next year, are ‘Gangs’, ’Broken Man’, ‘You And I’, ‘Rock n Roll Ratrace’ and ‘Give It Up’.

The Paddingtons kicked off a mammoth tour of the UK at Keele University last night (October 19).

They now play:

Leicester University (October 21)
Sheffield Leadmill (23)
Oxford Zodiac (24)
Norwich Waterfront (25)
Northumbria University (26)
Aberdeen Moshulu (27)
Edinburgh Liquid Rooms (28)
Manchester Academy 2 (30)
Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall (31)
Bristol Anson Rooms (November 1)
Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms (2)
Hull Yo Yo at Welly (4)
Preston 53 Degrees (5)
Nottingham Rescue Rooms (6)
Reading The Fez (7)
Brighton Concorde (8)
London ULU (9)

For ticket availability go to NME.COM/Gigs.