Posted February 25, 2008
By PATRICK EMERY
Mick Collins is more than just a pretty face. Lead singer, guitarist and songwriter with Detroit rock'n'roll band The Dirtbombs, Collins has been playing rock'n'roll band for more than 25 years. Having just released its fourth studio album (or fifth, if you count the band's compilation of singles, If You Don't Already Have A Look), The Dirtbombs, under Collins charismatic leadership continue to blaze a path as one of the world's most invigorating rock'n'roll acts. But it might all have been different had Collins pursued the filthy lucre promised by information technology, rather than his love of rock'n'roll.
"I used to work in IT,” Collins says. "All my IT friends went to become Internet millionaires, while I was just playing in bars,” Collins says. "Maybe in hindsight I should have stayed in IT and become an Internet millionaire,” he laughs.
The Dirtbombs started out as a casual project, with Collins planning on releasing a series of 7" singles, and not much else. Within a short time The Dirtbombs had released an album, Horndog Fest and established itself as one of the flag bearers for the Detroit rock revival (a media fuelled concept Collins arguably gave birth to with his seminal garage rock trio The Gories in the 1980s).
Fifteen years later, and Collins says The Dirtbombs are still fundamentally a singles band. "Yeah, generally speaking,” Collins says. "Most bands these days aren't good enough to release a whole good album. It's easier to record great singles. And plus my attention span isn't very long,” he laughs. And that attention span carries over to the band's live performances, with The Dirtbombs notorious for making up set lists over the courseof a night, or even attempting impromptu cover versions on a random whim. "We did a cover of New Order's Happy Monday,” Collins says. "There's no telling what we'll do".
Previous Dirtbombs albums have exhibited a particular theme. Horndog Fest was a festival of white rock noise, Ultraglide in Black indulged Collins' love of soul and funk and Dangerous Musical Noise put the Dirtbombs' spin on the glam rock sounds of the 1970s. For the band's new album, We Have You Surrounded, Collins has embraced a theme of a different type. "Urban paranoia is the overarching theme for the new album,” Collins says. Despite Detroit's reputation for violence and urban dysfunction, Collins says the album wasn't inspired by his home town. "It's not much to do with Detroit – it's about America in general,” Collins says.
Given the continuing growth in gated communities – huge sprawling compounds of citizens (generally white) that are protected from the outside world by prison strength walls – it's easy to note an increase in the type of urban paranoia that inspired We Have You Surrounded. Yet Collins believes the United States has a long way to go before it reaches maximum paranoia. "If that was the case the country wouldn't be going to hell in a hand basket,” he says. Collins' experiences travelling overseas to Europe, Asia and Australia have also put the United States urban experience into stark perspective. "The difference between the US and overseas is like night and day,” Collins says. "Overseas no-one is out to get you. I think it's much easier to live overseas,” he says.
And Collins isn't holding out much hope for a change via this year's US Presidential elections – whether it's Hillary Clinton's micro-engineered solution to the vast array of American social and economic problems, or Barack Obama's glistening rhetoric of hope and aspiration. "Most of the US politicians are career politicians, so what would they know about the real world,” Collins says.
All of the songs on We Have You Surrounded, a couple warrant particular inquiry. The first is Race to the Bottom, an extended moment of feedback, errant noise and deranged deep space sounds. Collins laughs at my reference to the song. "Race to the Bottom is defined as a nation state making it so easy for investors, that reaches the point where it can no longer support the concessions that it's given,” Collins explains. "But when it started out it was about girls and it had words,” he laughs.
The second track is the concluding song, La Fan Du Monde. The title, which translates to 'the end of the world' in French is also the name of a particularly potent (11%, if memory serves me correctly) Quebecois beer. While Collins is familiar with the beer ("my girlfriend insisted I drink one with her last week,” he says), the song itself wasn't inspired by the beer. "The song is based on the cover of a French political magazine,” he explains. "Last year after the French election there was a magazine which only had La Fan Du Monde on the cover. I thought that was great, and I decided I'd try and use it,” he says.
Despite the band's ongoing 'cult' status, The Dirtbombs are continuing to edge closer to mainstream awareness. In recent years The Dirtbombs have licensed songs for use in advertising campaigns for Wal-Mart (Trainwreck) and General Motors (I Can't Stop Thinking About It). While Collins acknowledges the flack he's copped for permitting the use of the tunes, he's not taking it to heart. "With the Wal-Mart offer, it came at a time when we hadn't toured for a while and we didn't have a record out, so it helped out. It was just a song had been released – they didn't ask me to write a song saying how good the Walton family is,” he says. Collins says the decision to license a song for the General Motors campaign was even easier.
"I'm a life long GM car driver, and my dad worked as a welder at GM,” Collins says. "They gave me a car – not a new car, mind you,” Collins laughs.
And the Dirtbombs have even been featured in the rarefied cinematic atmosphere of the Cannes Film Festival, courtesy of the use of the band's song Chains of Love in a Julian Schnabel film (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). The Dirtbombs travelled to Cannes in 2007 and played a gig as part of the festival. "That was quite a fun experience,” Collins says. "We spent exactly 56 hours there – but it was fun. And they laid it on – there lots of free Verve Cliquot,” Collins laughs.
Collins has been quoted in the past professing a desire to record a bubblegum pop album. Despite having failed again to produce such a record this time around, Collins says it's still a possibility – though to release such an album as follow-up to We Have You Surrounded might suggest a thematic progression that isn't intended. "I'd still like to do a bubblegum pop record,” Collins says. "But I know some people would think that it's supposed to be a direct contrast to this record, which it wouldn't be,” he says.
Yet there are couple of tracks hidden on the album – covers of INXS's Need You Tonight and Devil Inside – that suggest a pop album isn't too far away. "On the previous Australian tour single we'd done an obscure Bee Gees song,” Collins says. "For this tour we were in the studio doing the record and we thought 'hey, let's quit being cool, let's be funny'. But we thought we might be carrying the joke too far releasing these INXS songs,” Collins laughs. Despite the possibility of a backlash – what's a band like The Dirtbombs doing INXS songs – Collins' irreverent and idiosyncratic attitude to music will triumph.
"I actually think Kick is a great album,” says. "And I really like the last few Kylie Minogue records as well,” Collins laughs.
Dirtbombs Australian Tour
MELBOURNE
Friday 29th Feb 2008
The Tote
w/ Eddy Current Suppression Ring + The Stabs.
PERTH
Saturday 1st March
Amplifier
w/ The Manikins + White Swallows + The Trevallys
ADELAIDE
Sunday 2nd March
The Rocket Bar w/ Lady Strangelove + More TBA
GEELONG
Tuesday 4th March
The Barwon Club
w/ Rocket Science + Frowning Clouds
BRISBANE
Wednesday 5th March
Club Phoenix. Details TBA
HOBART
Thursday 6th March
The Brisbane
w/ The Nation Blue + The Roobs
MELBOURNE
Friday 7th March 2008
East Brunswick Club w/ Jay Reatard + Ooga Boogas + Circle Pit.
SYDNEY
Saturday 8th March
The Oxford Art Factory w/Rocket Science + The Disbelievers