Music, Style & Culture

Dum Dum Girls: ‘I’ve Always Wanted To Do This’

Huw Oliver grabs some time with bandleader Dee Dee in NY.

They've ditched the majority of the reverb and gone contagious pop. Dum Dum Girls are back with an amazing new record, and we're ecstatic. Huw Oliver grabbed some time with bandleader Dee Dee in NY to talk about the polished new sound, Sub Pop and their phenomenal karaoke skills.

Hey Dee Dee, what have you done today?
I got lost trying to find Park Slope in New York and my friend David just cut my hair. Now I’m walking around this neighbourhood. I like to walk around and look at things.

I’ve had a couple listens to your new album. It’s pretty intense. What’s it all about?
You know… a year of my life… I guess. I generally write songs about overwhelming emotion so it’s about grief and loneliness, and stuff like that.

So, why is it called ‘Only In Dreams’?
Because I felt like a lot of what I wanted to be doing, I couldn’t. I was nostalgic for things that had happened in the past. It’s just the deal where you’re dreaming away your day because you’re pretty separate from your ideal situation.

One thing I noticed was the clarity of your vocals. Your voice shines through a lot more than it does on ‘I Will Be’.
Definitely… that happened when I stopped recording by myself. I had lost control of being able to vary it beneath all that shitty digital reverb. I mean I guess I’ve always considered myself a singer and a songwriter more than anything else. I figured it was about time to show that I guess.

Do you write all the songs yourself?
Yes.

How did you go about writing the new material?
Generally how it works is if I’m on tour for a long time, I kind of set aside that part of my brain. The longer and longer the tour goes on, the more nagging ideas I have. I start to jot them down or record little snippets. I get home and I take a week off to decompress. Then I just jump into work on everything which has been waiting at the gates to get worked on. So, I wrote a lot of those songs in quick bursts during breaks between tours. I wrote on an acoustic guitar in my bedroom, as I always have.

‘Coming Down’ is a lot longer and mellower than previous singles like ‘Jail La La’ and ‘Bhang Bhang…’. Why did you decide to release that as the first single?
In my head, it’s not actually the single… I picked a song called ‘Bedroom Eyes’ as the single. But because ‘Coming Down’ was so long and a lot of people were drawn to it, they just wanted to give it a chance, you know, besides the person who hears it on the record and hears it within the context of the record. I’m happy it was released – it’s a special song to me, but the decision to put it out was more of a label thing than a personal choice. The single I picked is a catchy three minute pop song.

I've been listening to ‘Bedroom Eyes’ non-stop and you're right, it’s incredibly catchy. Is that your favourite song off the album?
Yeah. I think it was the last song I wrote which made it onto the record. I wrote it about a week before we started recording. I thought I'd captured exactly what I was feeling in that song. I suffered from terrible insomnia and I was sort of at the height of frustration with all of it. I was pleased I could turn it into that.

Have you always been into music?
I always have. I grew up in a house which had the radio on 24/7. My parents had good record collections and I had one at a pretty young age. Mainly American popstars, and then some grungier stuff when I was about 12. I think I’ve always felt I’ve wanted to do this more than anything else. I kind of had a feeling, not necessarily that I’d be successful at it, but that I wouldn’t be able to shake off the drive to do it.

You mentioned grunge, and you’re on Sub Pop. Did that legacy have an influence?
More than anything else, like most American teens in the 90s, I was a massive Nirvana fan. That may or may not be my only main Sub Pop influence when I was younger. I’m a true Nirvana fan. I saw the Vaselines, and they also became a huge deal to me. I was really into a collection of Dead Moon stuff they put out too. I guess I don’t necessarily think that we fit into their catalogue sonically, or what’s regarded as their ‘classic sound', but I do think we fit in somewhat, and I definitely can’t imagine another label which would feel so much like a family, so that’s cool.

You’re playing a solo show with Wavves in New York next week. Is it acoustic? I can’t really imagine Dum Dum Girls acoustic.
Hah I’m not sure what I’m going to do… I guess you should be able to imagine it if only because that’s how all the songs start, you know? But I have an acoustic/electric guitar which I’ll run through my amp and all my pedals. I guess they'll just be more intimate versions of the songs. Thankfully I only have to play for about 25 minutes so I shouldn't embarrass myself too badly.

Have you played any of the new stuff in front of an audience yet?
Yeah, on the last tour we played two songs off the new record. I just played in Texas with Jules and we played two new songs again I think. A lot of the songs weren't written when we were touring though. We start rehearsing for our next big tour in September. We'll probably play a chunk of the record - a good six songs or so.

You’re playing a slew of UK dates in November. Do you have any fond memories of gigs over here?
Yeah, definitely. I love London and Manchester. I have a lot of friends over there so it's always exciting to go to a different country and still have a crew, you know. And I'm really happy that we're taking Veronica Falls and Novella on tour with us. It should be really good fun. If we're doing our own tour and curating the night from start to finish that's just amazing. I could see those bands night after night.

Other than those two, are there any other smaller bands you presently dig?
Well... I feel like a lot of the bands which I've been championing have started to get some love on their own, but I would say Dirty Beaches, although I feel he's doing pretty well now. There's also a band called Punks On Mars - pretty glammy power-pop from Brooklyn. I really like the band Boyfriends too.

And now for two irrelevant ones. What’s the best band you’ve ever seen?
Spiritualized, Montreal 2005. It was the ‘Songs in A & E’ tour. They played a ton off 'Ladies and Gentleman'. They had gospel singers and five-piece bands and it was amazing.

Finally, please tell us an interesting or strange fact about Dum Dum Girls.
....*racks brain*.... We're really good at karaoke. I'm probably the worst. Jules does the best 'mother', almost better than Danzig, and Bambi does 'Candy', which also rivals the original.

Dum Dum Girls' new album 'Only In Dreams' will be released on 26th September via Sub Pop.