Dappled Cities Play Witness to Heinous NYC Crime

Band interviews are occasionally interrupted for a host of reasons: A publicist stops a certain question, the artist's cell phone cuts out or someone walks by they have to converse with. Australia's indie rockers Dappled Cities, however, had a unique reason to pause our interview Wednesday night: Co-vocalist Tim Derricourt witnessed a heinous crime.

Spinner was just about to get new song titles out of the co-singer/guitarist, new titles beyond their eclectically excellent album 'Granddance,' which dropped last month, when Derricourt witnessed one person hurting another on a New York street.

"We've got a couple of new songs and also we're sort of changing the way we're playing songs on the album -- one second," he said, pausing. "There's a guy ... I should call the cops or something. There's a guy kind of pushing this woman around ... Uhhhh, f***ing hell. Maybe I should call the cop number. What is it? 911?"

After confirming our Emergency Response number, he hung up to place his call. Half an hour later, we caught back up with Derricourt. Apparently, the response unit had a rather difficult time with his accent and he was forced to report the incident by spelling out his words. Still, the good indie-Samaritan got his message through in the end and an ambulance arrived for the woman.

Though he's slightly unnerved with the situation he just witnessed, the resolution of the incident allows Derricourt to focus back on our questions, mostly about Dappled's impending U.S. tour. Though they've made a few trips here before -- SXSW and the month they spent recording their LP in L.A. last year with Grandaddy's Jim Fairchild, among others -- their first real U.S. trek -- in a van -- begins next week.

"We're getting in the fifteen seater with the [cooler] filled with carrots and humus," he says. "That's the classy side and the feeling sick and vomiting [will happen] in the back of the van as well. We've got some pretty neat drives. We've got Phoenix to Milwaukee in one-and-a-half days, which I don't know if it's possible, but I'm interested to see if it is."

The first part of the band's tour, they'll be joined by Tokyo Police Club, while the latter half sees them touring with Scottish trio the Fratelli's. Hopefully, that leg won't involve anymore 911 calls.

"Yeah, yeah, Scottish and Australian [accents]," he sighs at the thought of going through tonight's incident again. "I have to say, Scottish accents are impossible to get ... impossible. It's like watching a [foreign film]. You just pick up the important bits."