Dum Dum Girls to head on the road with Belle & Sebastian

Dum Dum Girls are set to return to the UK next year, when they head over to our shores to support Belle & Sebastian.

The band, who released their latest record ‘Too True’ back in January this year - will be heading across the Atlantic to join the Scots as the embark upon their UK tour throughout May 2015.

They’ll be making fourteen stops along the way, with the tour including two shows at London’s Central Hall Westminster and Manchester’s Albert Hall before finishing the run in the headliner’s hometown of Glasgow, at the SSE Hydro.

Speaking of the tour, and of her own involvement in Belle & Sebastian’s forthcoming album, frontwoman Dee Dee Penny has given a rather lengthy but heartwarming comment: “I first heard them in 1999 but didn’t start listening seriously until a year later, after I’d moved away to college and fell in with the crowd who ended up shaping a lot of my musical self. I’d grown up with the 60s/70s American and English classics, had found Sonic Youth, The Cure, and and Björk in high school, but you know, lots of room to grow.

“My roommate played me Patti Smith; the boy next door gave me Louder Than Bombs on cassette; I slowly introduced The Beatles to my hardcore boyfriend who was at the time trading Heroin for The Faces, as well as helping solidify my eternal Nick Cave fandom. A friend who lived at what was known as the “Morrissey House” passed along Belle & Sebastian’s If You’re Feeling Sinister and it was love at first line.

“I used to listen to that record, … Arab Strap, and Fold Your Hands while taking the Greyhound bus down from the Santa Cruz mountains and into the East Bay to visit my family every other month or so. I had many a still-teenaged revelation while staring out the window: “I’ll tell my parents I pierced my septum,” “I’m moving in with my boyfriend,” or “I’m going to drop my music major and go read poetry in Germany instead.”

“The first tour DDG did in Europe was a string of weird European festivals, the first of which was in Norway. At the time, we still sang through reverb pedals and during that insane 15 minute changeover/line check bit that endears festivals to no one, all three of them shorted due to rain. We played an appropriately ramshackle set hardly convinced we sounded like our intent, and all the while I saw Stuart Murdoch watching us. Afterward, he gave me his card (which mentioned he liked tea), paid me a Primitives compliment, and skipped off. I later auditioned for his musical film (rejected) and we’ve been friendly ever since.

When it turned out B&S were recording in Atlanta with another old friend of mine, and Stuart asked me to sing on a song, of course I said yes. We sang the song live together in the studio and hearing that voice in my headphones, well, it just still doesn’t really register.”

Dum Dum Girls will play the following shows with Belle & Sebastian:

03 Cardiff, St David’s Hall
04 Bristol, Colston Hall
05 Portsmouth, Guildhall
07 Cambridge, Corn Exchange
08 Norwich, Open
10 Birmingham, Symphony Hall
11 London, Central Hall Westminster
12 London, Central Hall Westminster
14 Manchester, Albert Hall
15 Manchester, Albert Hall
16 Newcastle, Newcastle City Hall
18 Buxton, Buxton Opera House
19 Leeds, Leeds Town Hall
22 Glasgow, SSE Hydro Arena

Dum Dum Girls’ latest album ‘Too True’ is out now.