The first time I heard the Dirtbombs’ cover of “Underdog” from Sly and the Family Stone’s A Whole New Thing, I needed a shower afterwards. It was just that filthy. “Given some rehearsal, the Dirt- bombs could probably do that entire LP front to back,” says the group’s founder, guitarist, and lead vocalist, Mick Collins. Collins sees similarities between the Dirtbombs and Sly’s thing, especially in the notion of having just one kind of music. “The things that made his music great—especially the pre-Riot stuff—was the fact that it was kind of soul, kind of rock,” Collins explains. “It was brassy, but there was still balls-out distortion, heavy beats, and songs were still songs. There was a little bit of everything.”

There is a little bit of everything in what the Dirtbombs do, too, despite being mistakenly categorized as a garage-rock band for much of their career. This is probably due, in part, to Collins being a for- mer member of seminal Detroit garage outfit, the Gories, whom the White Stripes’ Jack White has acknowledged as a major influence. White is also the uncle of Dirtbombs drummer Ben Blackwell.

The Dirtbombs are very close to the Grammy Award–winning White Stripes and the garage-rock revival that duo is associated with, but, for Collins, it is a friendship and professional relationship and nothing else. He shuns being labeled as something he hasn’t been an active part of since the Gories disbanded in 1993, but does consider the motivation for critics and fans who feel the need to gift wrap his music.

“I chalk it up to the human need to categorize everything,” says Collins, who, at forty-two, grew up not only with prototypical Nuggets-era garage rock, but also classic soul and 1950s rock, R&B, and blues. “If we can’t label something, we get mad. It’s just part of human nature, really.”

So Collins understands but still admits his annoyance with tags attached to the Dirtbombs style over the years. To him and any- one who knows the quintet and its dual-drum, dual-bass, single guitar setup, the sound is hardly garage rock, but more like a heavier, high-octane upgrade of Sly’s kaleidoscope of funk, rock, and soul. “Except for the heroic drug use,” Collins says of his relation to the irrepressible Sylvester Stewart, “we’ve had a pretty similar career trajectory.”

Collins the solo artist stays in the woodshed while not on tour and comes up with outside-the-box projects like the three-track The OC EP—raw, electronic dance music released on producer Kenny Dixon Jr.’s Mahogani label—and the late-era, heavily Parliament- influenced I Sing the Booty Electric, recorded as one-half of the Vol- taire Brothers with childhood friend Jerome Gray.

In fact, all of the Dirtbombs have their hands in other projects. “Not to say it’s inertia, but we still like doing it,” says Collins, who has spent twenty-eight years of his life as a professional musician. “I told Ben once that there was a time when I would have been unwill- ing to stop. These days, I’m unable to stop.”

By Ronnie Reese