(Credit: Lindsay Hutchens)
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 current tour is essentially a two-month countdown to St. Patrick’s Day, which is the final night of the “Green 17” tour. What happens that day?
We actually end up in Phoenix, at an outdoor amphitheater. The weather is beautiful. We’d end in California, but we can’t because we’re playing Coachella. They have some dumb rule that you can’t play in the state for 90 days before or after.
With all your songs of drinking and boozing and hangovers, I assume that day will be a little more “party hard.”
Not really. 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.
Do you like playing with other Irish bands? Your tours always seem to have really diverse line-ups, but not a lot of bands like you.
Actually, on part of our next tour, we’re playing with a traditional Irish band called the Cherry Cokes…who are from Japan, of all places. They’re fucking amazing. And we’re playing with this Irish singer-songwriter, the Mighty Steph. But yeah, we like our line-ups to be diverse. It’d be boring for anyone to sit through four hours of music that sounded exactly like Flogging Molly.
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.
