Flogging Molly’s music is filled with tales of booze, beer, morning-after regrets and drunken cheer. During the past 10 years, the Irish punk/folk group has written the quintessential song about hangovers (“The Worst Day Since Yesterday”), flaunted its, ahem, “celebratory” Irish heritage (which usually means four or five shout-outs to Guinness during a concert) and started an annual tour devoted entirely to St. Patrick’s Day.
But if you think that image holds true off-stage, you will meet fierce resistance from the band’s frontman, Dave King. “It’s funny, but it’s not like we aim to ‘fook-ing par-tay!’” says the singer. For King, a veteran of the L.A. music scene (including stints with two metal bands in the ‘80s), Flogging Molly has simply been a way to recreate the sounds and feeling of his home country—which, until recently, he was unable to return to, due to residency issues.
For the band’s fourth album “Float,” King and his bandmates were finally able to record music in the homeland for the first time. Oh, and the recording studio they used? “It had its own pub in it,” admits the singer. Party hard, Dave!
Did you approach “Float” differently than your other records?
We wrote and recorded the album in Ireland. That obviously played a factor, going home to write music. It was refreshing. There was a time, for eight years, where I couldn’t go there, because of immigration status. [Band member and wife] Bridget and I actually moved back there a couple of years ago.
Doesn’t having two members in another country make it difficult to be in a band?
Oh, the band is everywhere: Georgia, New York, Colorado, San Diego. We meet up for recording and tours, and then do our own thing. But for “Float,” we lived in the countryside of Ireland, ate and drank together every night. It was a great atmosphere. The beginning of one song, “Us of a Lesser God,” is actually a song by the owner of a local pub near the studio. I had a Dictaphone with me one night, and we heard him singing this wonderful song about the decay of the countryside, and we just built the song on that.
There’s a few political stabs on this album, especially on the opener, “Requiem for a Dying Song.”
Well, I’m not a U.S. citizen. I can’t vote, so I voice my opinion through song. I’m really excited to see what’s going on in the presidential race this year, because after eight years of George Bush…let’s just say, that as someone who’s lived in Europe for the last two years, the opinion of this country has gone downhill. American people are some of the finest people in the world, but they’ve been tainted by George Bush. But don’t get me wrong—this place is fucking great.
Your songs tend to be about drinking and boozing and hangovers more than politics.
Actually, funny thing, while making this album, which is in the middle of nowhere, there was a full pub in the studio! So we spent most of our time sitting around playing music, and then having a few beers, but that was it. And when we did go “out,” well, pubs in Ireland are more of a social scene. It’s where everyone goes, to hear poetry, dance, sing, whatever. It’s not necessarily where people go to get plastered.
As a kid who grew up watching “Headbanger’s Ball,” I remember you from bands like Fastway and Katmandu. Yet I don’t feel like that’s an area of your life you talk about much.
Growing up in Ireland, the people who brought “color” were people like T. Rex, Thin Lizzy, bands like that. I remember when punk rock made it big, bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash…I saw them and it was looking in the mirror. And I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted the color! I wasn’t putting safety pins in my clothing for fashion, but to keep them on! The Sex Pistols couldn’t take me out of my life; Bowie could. But anyway, that rock scene was more my thing, and when I answered an ad in a paper for a singer one day, it turns out I’m suddenly singing with the guitarist from Motörhead.
Which is pretty cool.
Oh yeah. And without those experiences, I couldn’t write the songs I do today. There’s a certain edge to everything that still comes up.
I asked this of the Dropkick Murphys, so it’s only fair that I ask you. If you, the Dropkick Murphys, the Tossers and the Pogues had a drinking contest, who would win?
I’ve already won that one.
