Mary Cobra on the Detroit Cobras and the Art of the Cover Song | Living for the City Full Interview

Mary Cobra is the founding guitarist of The Detroit Cobras, the band she started with singer Rachel Nagy that became one of the defining sounds of Detroit garage rock in the late '90s and early 2000s. This is her full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.

Mary talks about growing up on bad Detroit radio, and how the silence pushed a generation of musicians to make the music nobody else would play for them. She traces the Cobras' sound back to crate digging through dollar bin soul 45s, and explains why the goal was never to imitate a singer's voice but to find the feeling underneath it. She breaks down her advice for young bands on why every act should cover a song at least once, and what it means if that cover ends up better than anything else in the set.

She also gets into the cheap rent and cheap bars that made Detroit's scene possible, the night Jack White told her at a bar that she should see what was happening and get on the road, and why the Cobras never set out to get signed but got picked up almost immediately once they did.

CHAPTERS

00:00 - Meeting Mary Cobra: Founding Guitarist of the Detroit Cobras

00:54 - Detroit's Bad Radio and Growing Up on Motown, MC5, and The Stooges

03:22 - Digging Through Record Stores in a City With Nothing Else to Do

04:38 - Playing for Friends, Not for a Record Deal

07:16 - Cheap Rent, No Fear, and the Freedom to Tour

10:19 - Crate Digging Soul Records and Why a Cover Isn't About the Notes

22:13 - From Playing for Fun to Getting Signed

25:54 - What Success Changed and Why Every Young Band Should Play a Cover