DUM DUM GIRLS - An interview with Dee Dee

Dum Dum Girls have come a long way in the last year. Their sophomore album 'Only In Dreams', whilst maintaining that surf-pop over fuzz-guitars formula, demonstrated a big leap forward worthy of the Chairman himself. Many listeners at first took it as standard teen-angst fare, only to realise there was something hidden in plain sight, this being the emotional pain that Dee Dee, aka Kristen Gundred, had experienced as the progress of her mother's illness and death ran alongside the writing and recording process.

There was more to it than this. Dum Dum Girls originally was more or less just Dee Dee with the rest of the goth-melodrama band developing as a touring adjunct. That's now a long way from the case, and the album is all the finer for truly being a collaboration of all four members.

I first caught the Girls around 18 months ago on a festival stage in Shoreditch, then saw them headlining around the time of their 'He Gets Me High' EP in March last year. To bring it full circle, we made it three times lucky only a few weeks ago when they were touring the new album with Veronica Falls in tow (review HERE). Always assured, the Girls were now looking much more majestic and in control, not a foot wrong.

Dee Dee Dum Dum, Dee Dee Penny, Kristen? We started off by asking some convoluted question about identity and got some short shrift.

-- You can call me Dee Dee.

How was the UK for you? I got to one of the gigs, rumour was you had a touch of tonsillitis, but it seemed pretty damn good on the night?

-- It's the worst to get sick on tour as the singer because the voice can be the first thing to go.  But I always love the UK and I'll always play through it.

 I'm told you've had your share of stage fright? 

-- Stage fright was a bigger issue as a younger singer.  I feel like I own the stage now.

Dee Dee is married to Brandon Welchez of Crocodiles, and immediately following her full-band UK tour, the two of them took off on their own playing small club dates in Italy, where they showcased songs from both their bands.  

So tell us about this European tour with Brandon? How have the audiences taken to it? Did you have any worries that people would see it as a bit of a Crocodiles / DDG 'Lite' ?

-- It was "lite" and that's not a bad thing.  It was really different from any sort of tour I've ever done before, both in how we travelled and how we played.  All by train and just with guitars and pedals.  For me, hearing things like demos or acoustic versions of bands or songs I love is such a treat.  We were hoping that showing another side of our music, the side closer to how songs sound at inception, would be interesting to fans.

It must otherwise be difficult to maintain a relationship when you're both touring musicians?

-- Of course, but it's difficult to maintain any sort of relationship.  At least we both suffer the same for our art.

It's been a very short time from your debut album 'I Will Be' in March 2010 though to 'Only In Dreams' but it seems like there has been a huge step forward with this record. Or am I doing the older work a disservice. How do you see it?

-- No, you're right.  It's why I wanted to put out an EP in between, to sort of act as a stepping stone between what I did very early on, on my own, to what I was able to do with some outside help and a lot more songs under my belt.

Around the time of the EP, you were in Britain at the time, one of our national 'quality' newspapers gave you a review that was very dismissive of what they saw as 60's pastiche. It can't be the only time you've had that sort of comment, what's your counter?  Has the new record changed that?

-- I don't make music to please critics so I have no official counter.  Unofficially, I think most music is heavily indebted to what's come before it.

I've got to say that despite how it all now seems obvious, it took me a long time with 'Only In Dreams' to realise the full import of the lyrical content. I'm still half confused by the teen-angst in lines like "he sleeps in her bed". Was it a deliberate thing to make it seemingly ambivalent, that it can almost mean different things to different listeners?

-- It wasn't deliberate to make certain things vague while others are very obvious, it is just how it came out.  I read and write a lot of poetry so perhaps that's why.  If you recall, the lines preceding "he sleeps in her bed" are: "Death is on the telephone, I lie and say she isn't home, if only he would make a move, instead....he sleeps in her bed."  That song personifies death and its various stages.

This record had a lot fuller involvement from the rest of the band, is that correct? Is it difficult to share when you've once been a one-woman-band?

-- Yes, this was the first record to feature them.  It was just the right move for the time -- we'd been touring so much that we undeniably a unit and I wanted the record to show that. 

Have you got any more brilliant covers to follow 'There Is A Light' ? How did that come about? Did you take the chance to visit any Smiths locales while you were in Manchester?

-- I've always done lots of covers as a way to study songwriting, pay homage, or kill boredom.  I have a really great one planned for our next tour, and hopefully it will end up a b-side at some point.  We went to Mike Joyce's studio for a session and it was such an honor to meet a Smith.

What's next then? More DDG or other directions and collaborations?

-- There's a new DDG EP in the works and I've started a project with my husband finally, which is so refreshing.

Thanks for talking to us

-- thanks !