In the world of itinerant musicians, what separates van-touring dilettantes from true hardened road dogs?
Having your own address.
"I gave up my apartment in '90, '91 and I don't have a place, really," says Mick Collins, singer, guitarist and leader of the Detroit garage band The Dirtbombs. "I realized that paying for a dwelling that I lived in at the most a few months out of the year was just not a reasonable expense."
Collins bunks with his dad, a retired auto worker, when he finds himself in the Motor City, but it's not as if he's always underfoot. The last Dirtbombs tour lasted, Collins says, from Oct. 17, 2003 to Oct. 24, 2004, with "June off for lunch."
Collins, whose musical career has lasted a quarter century, is one of those hardscrabble lifers who will not submit to the whims of the biz, who still climbs in the van (albeit with certain trepidation), who prefers making records (for small indies) to touring, but is adamant that those who turn out for his gigs should get a real show for their cover charge. "If anything I do was inspired by the R&B/soul world," he says, "it's that you don't just get up on stage and stand there."
Pundits have claimed that Collins has the kind of charisma and vocal chops that could've made him a star in the world of polished R&B. He is a black man who grew up in one of the country's most black-identified cities, and listened to the same black music that his peers did. "In R&B, the market is very competitive," he posits. "I'm not that great a singer. I'm fair to middling; it wouldn't have been worth my while to even try. If it wasn't for punk rock, I'd have never bothered pursuing a career in music."
Collins first made his mark in the '80s and '90s with The Gories, which he says was decidedly patterned after "R&B-influenced rock from 1964 to 1967." Which means The Gories were a garage rock band.
When asked if he considers The Dirtbombs a garage rock band, Collins says, flatly, "No." After a pause, he adds, "Our main inspiration was U.K. punk rock from 1977 to 1981."
These sonic interpretations are always subjective, and my subjective ears hear the Dirtbombs as a garage rock band, albeit one with unique instrumentation: two drummers, two bassists and Collins on guitar and vocals. The group delivers a raw, catchy, fuzzed-out pummel with a specific American-ness much more reminiscent of Nuggets than Pistols. One suspects that Mick Collins would prefer not to be endlessly lumped in with that other Detroit garage rock act: The White Stripes. Be that as it may – on the subject of the Dirtbombs vis-a-vis genre, Mick Collins and I will just have to agree to disagree.
The Dirtbombs existed for three years as more idea than band. "In '92, The Gories had broken up and I made a list of projects I wanted to do," Collins explains. "The two basses and two drummers thing just seemed like something interesting; there was really no reason behind it. I thought, 'Who can be in this?' Three out of five of them said yeah.'"
It wasn't until '95 that the Dirtbombs became an actual entity. In the Red Records fronted Collins a small budget to cut a 7-inch EP and he quickly assembled his sludgy quintet. "There never was a rehearsal, actually," he says. "I started rolling tape. We cut All Geeked Up; it was the first thing we did as a band."
Like most of Detroit's underground rock acts, The Dirtbombs's lineup has been fluid. Current member Ben Blackwell came into the fold when Collins found himself in the studio short a drummer. He called long-time friend Jack White (of the White Stripes) in hopes that he'd fill in. "Jack handed the phone to Ben and that was it," Collins says with a rueful laugh.
He adds – with a bit of pride and a lot of relief – that the lineup has held steady for about a year. No more scouring Motown for a bass player two days before hitting the road.
Collins cleared yet another stability milestone a couple of years ago. "I started playing music professionally in 1980, and in 2003 I was finally able, for the first time, to pay my bills with money from playing music," he says. "It's kinda sad, but I'll take it."
This article appears in May 4-10, 2005.