By Peter Lindblad
Batten down the hatches. There’s a raging storm headed towards Green Bay, as popular Celtic-punk firebrands The Dropkick Murphys roar into Wisconsin for an Oct. 19 show at the Epic Event Center. After turning Woody Guthrie’s long-lost words and poetry into two all-acoustic albums – 2022’s This Machine Still Kills Fascists and 2023’s Okemah Rising – the raucous Boston band is itching to go electric again on their fall tour. And they’re bringing The Interrupters and roots rocker Jesse Ahern with them.
Whipping up an inferno of downhome Irish folk instrumentation with blazing, amped-up guitars and loads of attitude, The Dropkick Murphys elbowed their way into pop culture with the fiery anthem “Shipping Up to Boston.” A near double-platinum classic, that track – which appears on 2005’s The Warrior’s Code LP – burned up the screen in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed film “The Departed.” A string of four Billboard top 10 albums – Turn Up That Dial, 11 Short Stories of Pain & Glory, Signed and Sealed in Blood, and Going Out in Style – fueled the working-class outfit’s rise. Streaming performances during the pandemic, such as their “Streaming Up from Boston St. Patrick’s Day’ virtual show and the “Streaming Outta Fenway” livestream, continued their run of success.
In anticipation of their Green Bay performance, drummer Matt Kelly answered some e-mail questions in this Out & About Wisconsin exclusive interview:
What affected you the most about making the last two acoustic albums and going through Woody Guthrie’s unused lyrics to compose those songs, and what do you think the Dropkick Murphys have in common with Woody?
Matt Kelly: I guess it made us more aware of the vastness of Mr. Guthrie’s catalogue of unpublished lyrics as well as some of the similarities between Irish folk music and the American music it had an influence on. I’m hoping that, on the musical side, recording and touring on the acoustic albums have scratched an itch that most of the band has had for a while. We’ve talked about and have been asked about doing a fully acoustic album for many years, and here we’ve done two. Without Al Barr, our lead vocalist, on hiatus to take care of his ailing mother, we didn’t want to put out a regular Dropkicks album … so we basically took this veritable bag of lemons and made lemonade.
As far as a commonality with Woody Guthrie, I think that he was a champion of the working man, the regular guy, and organized labor. Dropkick Murphys has, since day one, been a pro-union band, and unabashedly so … though without the extremist excesses of some of Guthrie’s politics.
Plugging back in and going electric for this tour, what is it that makes the Dropkick Murphys such a powerful live band?
MK: If I may, we ARE an electric band, and the fully acoustic tour was a major departure/sidestep from what we normally do. I don’t know that we’ll ever do a fully acoustic tour again; maybe a one-off gig or two. Thanks for the compliment – what makes us such a powerful live band? I think the clean, crunchy guitars playing big open chords just cut through so much better than (when a lot of punk and metal bands utilize) hyper-distorted barre chords through solid state fuzz. Our guitars hit you in the gut.
Why does that mix of punk and Celtic music work so well, especially in concert?
MK: I think that a lot of people tend to love Irish folk and traditional music. The combination of melancholic lyrics with melodies sometimes uplifting, sometimes haunting, just resonates with people on an emotional level. Combine that with the energy of punk rock, and it just adds a lot of texture and dynamics to the usual guitar/bass/drums/vocal paradigm of punk. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to play!
What do you miss the most about the early days of the band?
MK: Well, we were a four-piece band for four years. So, five of us (including our merch guy Brian) in a van traversing the country and Europe got pretty tight-knit. The camaraderie was strong, and we were definitely underdogs at that time, cutting our teeth, learning how to tour and stay healthy. We made our own t-shirts, did a brisk mail-order, answering so many letters and corresponding with people domestic and foreign (many of whom we’re still friends with), and practicing six to eight hours a day, five days a week when we weren’t touring. It sounds cheesy now, but it was like we were on a mission to blow everybody off the stage, and our half-hour or 45-minute sets would be like a battle for the hearts and minds of the audience. We were coming from a really vibrant Boston punk scene that exploded in the mid-1990s, and we’re out there on tour representing our town, and our fellow Boston bands. Our friend Mark Lind from the Ducky Boys once called us “the Marines of punk.” Plus, though a couple of us had been in many bands beforehand, this level of touring and commitment was uncharted territory for us all. It was fresh and new, and we didn’t know what to expect when we rolled up to a town. It was very exciting in an innocent sort of way.
What are you enjoying about what the Dropkick Murphys have become?
MK: Twenty-seven years in (26 for me), it blows my mind what we’ve accomplished, the chances we’ve taken, the friends we’ve made, and the leadership of our founding member, Ken (Casey). The band was his brainchild, and his approach and vision seem to me to be the same today as it was when I joined in May ’97. However, over the years it’s become more of a big extended family… band and road crew are genuine friends, and we all look out for each other out on the road. We’re not in a van anymore, as between the seven-piece band onstage and the thirteen-man road crew, we share tour buses. I guess with the advantage of hindsight, I now have expectations as to how we present ourselves as a band onstage, our approach to the show, and the impression we leave. Now more than ever, I believe that every show counts, and everybody in the crowd deserves only the best. We don’t rest on our laurels. We’re always pushing and striving for excellence. We’ve all seen bands play a beautifully curated set of songs, and maybe seen them play the next night somewhere … and it’s the same damn show, the same hollow banter between songs, etc. We’ve always shunned that, because frankly, it’s cheap. Since day one, we’ve always changed the setlist up almost night-to-night, making sure when we’re coming to any given town, the setlist is vastly different from the last time we came through. So, it’s always been a different show when you see us— you never know what deep cuts, fan favorites, oddball covers, or alternate versions of songs we’re going to play on a given night.
Is “Shipping up to Boston” the most definitive Dropkick Murphys’s song and why, and if not, what others would you say are emblematic of the band’s spirit and mission?
MK: I’d say it’s definitely the most popular! That and “Rose Tattoo” as a close second methinks. However, I think a song like “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya” or “The State of Massachusetts” would be more emblematic of our core sound and the various influences we use. “Shipping,” believe it or not, was almost an afterthought as far as how quickly it came together. I think that its placement in “The Departed” and many New England sports secured its popularity…. but the other two songs I mentioned are a better representation of our overall sound encompassing the mix of punk, hardcore, traditional, and rock music that inspires us.
Does that strong connection to your fanbase come from a set of shared values or is it something that’s harder to define?
MK: It seems to be a bit of both. I think the music draws people in initially, and they take (or leave) the message/values/etc. I know, as a music fan, that I don’t share the values of at least 50% of the musicians whose work I enjoy… but I still support and enjoy their music. So, I think that most of our fans might have a vague notion of what we’re about, and some take it for what it is… and some just like the tunes. However, it does look as though we have gained a good amount of fans from union workers and organizers. I don’t think there’s some mystical magic happening with us and our fans— I think that they like good music, a good show, and good imagery.
What’s the most inspiring interaction you’ve ever had with a fan?
MK: There have been countless amazing instances of cool, inspiring, and just amazing interactions over the years … but just the other night in San Antonio, there was a young kid in the crowd with a handmade sign which read, “Let me sing ‘Rose Tattoo.’” The sign was pretty hard to avoid, seeing as the kid was down near the front, and it was pretty big. So, before we were about to go into the song near the end of the set, the guys grabbed the boy and his parents and brought them side-stage. Anyways, the long and short of it is that the young kid came up and basically sang the whole song with Ken, and totally knocked it out of the park! For a 12-year-old, this kid had the swagger, confidence, and actual vocal ability that is going to have US opening for HIM someday! It was really great. We were all just beaming up there onstage, big smiles on our faces. Now THAT was some magic!