Dum Dum Girls Aim for Surprise and Shock With Smiths Cover

When it comes to doing cover songs, the Dum Dum Girls don't go with the obvious. Their dark, dramatic version of the Rolling Stones' 'Play With Fire' has become a live anchor, but the band hopes that their 'He Gets Me High' EP, which is out now Sub Pop, goes further out on a limb with its torchy cover of the Smiths' 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.'

"I like my covers to be surprising or even a little shocking," says singer Dee Dee. "If it definitely accomplishes either of those two things then that's the song we want to do." The EP comes just short of a year after their captivating Sub Pop debut album, 'I Will Be,' and was recorded last summer in Brooklyn during a tour lull.

"I hadn't anticipated putting out an EP at all. I thought we'd do one record and then do another," says Dee Dee. "But we toured a lot and it didn't seem like we'd have enough time to put out a full album a year later. I wanted to have something out there to kind of fill in the gap between records. I was going to do a cover as well. I abandoned our initial idea and the Smiths cover was sort of an experiment that ended up being used."

The original cover choice was 'Those Eyes' by the Vagrants, but Dee Dee felt it didn't have enough shock and surprise. "It would have been more typical of us to do that," she says. "It's a garage classic off the 'Nuggets' box set sort of thing. We [recorded] it, but it felt too expected. I didn't feel like it came out well. The Smiths seemed risky for us. I ended up loving how it turned out. It's one of my favorite songs anyway. If no one knew beforehand that I'm a huge Smiths and Morrissey fan, maybe they will now."

Dum Dum Girls Perform 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out'


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