story by Justin Marciniak

Don't be surprised to hear a Dirtbombs song in a car commercial the next time you turn on the tube. When The Dirtbombs started to put together their third album, frontman Mick Collins said Dangerous Magical Noise would be filled with songs for car commercials. But drummer Ben Blackwell says the legendary Detroit rocker's statements all should come with a chunk of rock salt.

"Mick was going around and talking to everyone, saying that the next record was going to be a bubblegum record," Blackwell says in an interview with Chicago Innerview. "And everyone's like, 'Oh, bubblegum. Are you guys going to cover The Archies?'" The Dirtbombs doing bubblegum isn't inconceivable for a band whose second record, Ultraglide in Black, consisted of soul and funk covers. But Collins changed his mind.

"So then he comes back and says, 'It's not going to be a bubblegum record. It's going to be a pure radio-friendly record,'" Blackwell continues. "What the fuck does that mean? Radio-friendly has totally been a term that you can just throw out. When it comes down to it, he suffixed that with saying this is the car-commercial record, that this is The Dirtbombs trying to get a song in a car commercial. After he told me that and I had listened to it, I totally see it. I can see the songs now. I think he even was saying something like, 'Yeah, this one here is Mitsubishi.' He had the brands all picked out."

The Motor City 5-piece hasn't sold out to hawk cars for its neighbors the Big Three automakers yet. But if the band wanted to license its new tunes to advertisers, several songs would be fitting soundtracks for images of different cars speeding across the screen.

BLACKWELL'S INNER VIEW "It's a decision you need to make: Do you want to cover up your flaws, or do you want to accentuate them? The Dirtbombs is more about having a flaw and looking at it or hearing it and saying, 'That's not a flaw. That's what we've got going for us.'"

With several punk blasts, souped-up soul songs and catchy rock tunes mixed throughout the record, The Dirtbombs offer plenty of diverse material. "Start the Party" kicks off the album and pays homage to MC5's "Kick Out the Jams." "Sun Is Shining" is the sum of the spirit of Otis Redding singing over patches of fuzz. The simple bass line and straightforward structure of "Stop" calls to mind the Pixies' "Monkey Gone to Heaven." Imagining those three different songs in ads for a sports car, a simple sedan and a trendy SUV is not hard.

Blackwell attributes Dangerous Magical Noise's grab bag of rock styles to the availability of bass player Jim Diamond's Ghetto Recorders studio, where The White Stripes and Mooney Suzuki have recorded during Collins' periodic writing spurts. "He comes in with songs that sound like they're Motown covers, or he comes in with songs that sound like glam rock," Blackwell says.

After several different recording sessions of songs in a range of styles, the record sounded good to the band's label. But In the Red Records also thought the album actually needed "more garage-rock songs on there for the rockers," Blackwell says. So the band did what any rock band tired of being locked in the garage category would do: It recorded two passionate garage-rock songs "Don't Break My Heart" and "Stuck in Thee Garage."
"Mick and Jim each wrote a song in like two minutes and like one half-step difference from each other, almost the same chords," Blackwell says. "But Mick wrote it about - he always talks about how The Dirtbombs aren't a garage band. We're a dance band."
The result, "Stuck in Thee Garage," is a classic, feedback-fueled kiss-off to inauthentic imitators. "We were sitting in the studio when he was overdubbing the vocals, and hearing him yell the lyrics, 'No innovation/ Just imitation/…/ Stuck in thee garage,' I got chills," Blackwell says.

Even though In the Red requested more rock, The Dirtbombs' unusual lineup and recording aesthetic kept every song on Dangerous Magical Noise within rock 'n' roll's broad definition. Two drummers, two bass players and one guitarist play in the band. With Blackwell, Patrick Pantano plays drums. Ko Shih of Ko and the Knockouts is the new fuzz bass player. The two drummers make songs such as "Thunder in the Sky" rumble. In "Get It While You Can," the fuzz bass supports Collins' guitar and lets Diamond play bubbly lines on his clean bass until he sounds like a Motor City Paul McCartney.

The quintet keeps its songs raw and the speakers crackling by nailing tracks often on one take. The group shuns ProTools and fancy cut-and-paste editing. "It's a decision you need to make: Do you want to cover up your flaws, or do you want to accentuate them?" Blackwell says. "The Dirtbombs is more about having a flaw and looking at it or hearing it and saying, 'That's not a flaw. That's what we've got going for us.'…If something's feeding back, or if something's crackling, or if something's a little in the red, that's how things should be. Sgt. Pepper's was recorded on a 4-track."

Just as the band doesn't agonize over studio perfection, the members don't worry about making The Dirtbombs their only source of work. "It's fairly serious," Blackwell says. "It's not quit-your-job serious." Other projects keep the musicians busy, but Blackwell says The Dirtbombs is probably the principal musical project for each member. He took time off from school to tour into the spring.

But if The Dirtbombs' facetious attempt at car-commercial ubiquity succeeds, or backfires, as the case may be, the group might find itself outside Detroit longer. Australia's largest radio station has added The Dirtbombs' "Stop" to its playlist. And with strong, catchy songs ranging from soul to punk, ad agencies might try to add Dirtbombs tracks to commercials for anything from minivans to Mustangs.

The Dirtbombs will play with The Sights at Double Door Nov. 1.