Q&A Mary Ramirez, Detroit Cobras

Photography: Doug Coombes

How do you choose which songs to cover?
“We're always on the lookout. Songs come to us lots of different ways. We're always listening to music when we're not playing it. Same with our friends. Plus people at gigs give us mix tapes they've made of songs they'd like to hear us do, which we love. I'm told that a lot of bands won't accept tapes from fans because they're afraid they'll get sued later for stealing songs. Well, all we do is steal songs, so keep those tapes coming! Finding a promising song is only the start of the process. The band will work a song up, but ultimately it comes down to Rachel. If she doesn't feel it vocally it goes no further, no matter how well the music may be coming together. We've left a lot of James Brown songs lying by the side of the road. ‘If You Don't Think’ on the new album made it all the way through. Maybe that's because JB wrote and produced it for a woman, Tammi Terrell when she was known as Tammy Montgomery.”

What’s the difference between Detroit Cobras and a bar covers band?
“A bar covers band does songs specifically that people will recognize and know and feel comfortable with. Instead of putting money in a jukebox, you give it to a covers band and they'll reproduce the hit parade for you. We do songs you probably don't know, because most of them never made the charts. But we think you might like them if you heard them, because we did. Simple as that. We're like the jukebox we wish existed. I know some people feel you're less valid somehow if you don't write your material, but only an idiot could think that. At the moment of performance, who wrote the song is completely irrelevant. All that matters is whether that performance touches you and convinces you. Everything else is small print. If anything, we think we should get bonus points for NOT inflicting bad original material on the public.

Who are your favourite female soul singers?
“It's no secret that we adore Irma Thomas. I saw her not too long ago on a show with Mavis Staples, and she's still got every bit of it. But I don't really make any gender distinction. I probably listen to a lot more male soul singers (and some, like Timi Yuro, who fall somewhere in between). I love all the obvious greats: Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Shane Shep, Solomon Burke, Nolan Strong, the list is endless. Someone I've been listening to a lot lately is Johnny Tanner of the 5 Royales. That group doesn't get the respect it deserves, even from the hipsters who are supposed to know about these things. When the 5 Royales do get mentioned, it's usually for Lowman Pauling, which is fair enough because he was a great guitarist who also doesn't get his due. But as a vocalist Johnny Tanner was as good as anybody on the list.

What makes a great guitar sound?
“That's completely a matter of taste. For me it's all based on tone - the character of the sound you get from your guitar played through your amp. It's as individual as each guitar player and the choices they make. And of course the way they make those choices, which is style. But for me it's tone, and because there's no formula it can be hard to talk about. Sometimes you know it when you don’t hear it. What I loved about the Stooges, for example, was Ron Asheton's guitar tone, as much as anything he was playing. I've seen the reformed Stooges twice (and I'm going to see them again tonight at the Fox Theater in Detroit, site of all the old Motown Revues) and Ron's still got the style, a style nobody else can even imitate worth a shit. And his playing is probably better than ever. But I don't like the tone he gets from the guitar he's using these days, so I almost don't care about the style or the playing. Without that tone he's not Ron Asheton to me.”