The Dirtbombs discover a darker sound in We Have You Surrounded

And it wouldn't be a Mick Collins record without the impeccable — and unconventional — choices in cover tunes: Sparks ("Sherlock Holmes"), Dead Moon ("Fire in the Western World"), and a song ("Leopardman at C&A") with lyrics written by British graphic novelist Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Watchmen), supposedly for '80s gloom-rockers Bauhaus. "Mick spent two years looking for a recorded version of the song but never found one," Blackwell says. "Mick finally just said, 'Fuck it, I'm just going to put my own music to it.' I half-expect to get an angry letter from Moore saying, 'Who the fuck told you that you could use this song?'"

After the band's cross-country tour through the end of this month, they will play more than a month in Europe. Then, as it is with most bands that sell records in the thousands rather than the millions, it's back to day jobs in Detroit and an uncertain future. Blackwell says there are no set plans for The Dirtbombs besides touring in support of We Have You Surrounded, but says that Collins has threatened to follow through on his longtime notion of creating a bubblegum-pop record.

"In this band, it's always uphill," says Blackwell, who also owns indie label Cass Records. "It seems like everyone needs the band more than the band needs them. Everyone's looking not to fuck up or get their ass kicked out . . . [But] I think we're making music that stands up to anything we've done before, and that probably even trumps it. And it's nice challenging people, because it's getting harder and harder to do that."