Al Barr of the Dropkick Murphys:
Songs of Solidarity
It was August, late afternoon at the Saranac Brewery in Utica , NY and there was an expectant pause after The Tossers left the stage, a cloud descended and the air grew static as the audience fell silent. We craned our necks forward, waiting for the Dropkick Murphys to emerge. Moments prior, I had departed for a beer run only to find that my friends were nowhere in sight. Four flimsy plastic cups of lager were perilously double fisted. As I edged my way closer, the crowd grew eminently thicker. After a moment's hesitation, glancing stage-ward and then beer-ward, there was no choice but to drink them all. It was only a matter of seconds before my neighbors would erupt into a frenzy of swinging fists and feet, inevitably dousing me in a shower of cold beer. With barely enough time to destroy the evidence, letting out a sudsy cheer, the throng thrust forward, sweeping me along, as they took the stage.
Months later, I fought to understand what I witnessed, it wasn't anything tangible or even visible but it made my skin tingle, vibrations beating like waves upon the hot pavement. Then again, it could have been imaginary, the raucous combination of sweaty fans, loud live music, and a belly full of lager. We left that night, soaked, sore, and stinking of beer. Staggering down the sidewalk, we leaned on each other for support, belting out lyrics as we went. Our bruises we wore with pride.
In any case, like the bagpiper's kilt, there is more to the group than the externals imply. The music charges past the places you suspect it can go, and takes you with it. The Dropkick sound cranks out almost independently of the members of the band. Despite occasional lineup changes, this band is perpetually becoming more melodic, heavier. It was a crucial moment to secure an interview, guitarist Marc Orrell just announced his departure from the band, ushering in the beginning of Jeff DeRosa's career with DKM.
The latest album of this seven-piece outfit “The Meanest of Times,” rocketed to #20 in the billboard charts. Lyrically, the album carries themes of solidarity, friends, family, and working class heroes. Much like their live performances, the fireworks begin with their very first track.
It would have been great to catch them again in Boston for St. Patrick's Day weekend, but alas, tickets sold out in a matter of hours.
Jessica Hopsicker: How are you doing?
Al Barr: I'm doing well, doing well. Just riding around, you know?
JH: I'm alright. So, you broke the top 20 on the billboard charts with The Meanest of Times. Was it scary, gratifying?
AB: It wasn't scary, but it was definitely a surprise. Especially with where the record market is right now, and has been for a while. With CD sales being across the board in the garbage it was a total surprise to us to have our first release on our new label, we were flabbergasted, as it were.
JH: I can imagine. How are you going to outdo that one?
AB: Yeah! You don't think like that, you know what I mean? If you start thinking like that, you will fail. With every record, we do what we do. If it isn't interesting for us, we know it isn't going to be interesting for the fans. We've got to keep it interesting, you know, and just pour our heart and soul into it, and just do what we do, you know what I mean? But if you get into the game of thinking, "oh, I've got to outdo this and outdo that," you're not going to. It's got to be an organic thing. It's got to come from a different spot.
JH: So you're heading to Europe ?
AB: We're heading to the UK . We call that, "Europe Lite."
JH: What are your experiences with the "Europe Lite" audiences.
AB: England 's great. We're going to Ireland first and then Belfast and then Scotland . England is a good time. And we enjoy the continent as well. The mainland, as they call it. It's all good.
JH: Do you still perceive yourself as a Boston band more than an international act now?
AB: We're a New England band. That's where everybody's from. That's what we call home, that's where our families are and everything, that's where we were born, but we definitely are very blessed to be able to travel the world and have people want to come see us from all over. In a country where English isn't a first or even second language, to have people come and sing our lyrics back at us. It doesn't get much better than that.
JH: Devoting so many years to the music, how do you stay true to your sound?
AB: We are who we are. We always say, “you can't polish a turd.” We're like the AC/DC of what we do. You're going to get your American and Celtic folk infused music along with your variety of punk rock and rock ‘n roll. That's always what we've done and what we'll continue to do as the Dropkick Murphys. I think as we went from being a four-piece band to a seven-piece band, we always incorporated the Celtic instruments a little bit on our earlier releases. As we got members that were in the punk scene that played those instruments, we could bring the whole thing on the road, and in the studio there's more of that going on. With our older releases I think it was more kind of separated from song to song with the punk and the folk. I think with time it's more fused to together. You're getting everything together, you know?
JH: You've had a lot of changes in your lineup.
AB: Yeah. In a band that's been together for twelve years, you're going to have people come and go. That's the nature of touring. It takes its toll on people, people change, but the main makeup of the band and the heart and soul of the band has always been the same, you know?
JH: How do you feel about Marc leaving?
AB: We knew Marc was going to leave. About a year ago he said he wanted to go and explore other musical directions and he felt like he couldn't do that with us because we are what we are and we're not going to want to all of a sudden change our sound because one member wants to write different music. But it wasn't a poor parting of the ways. You've got to understand, Marc was seventeen when he joined Dropkick Murphys and he's twenty-five now. The only analogy I can use is, if you're an older man or woman and you married a teenager, that person goes through so many growth changes by the time they're twenty-five that you can't expect that that person is going to feel the same as they did when they were a kid. Now he's a young adult and he's got to, as he put it, "spread his musical wings" and try to do some other stuff. We wish him all the best. Obviously we're sad about it too, but it's not going to stop us from going. The wheels keep spinning. It just kind of speaks to what the band is all about. No one member is the Dropkick Murphys. We, as a collection, make up the band, and the spirit of the band is also kept with the fans as well. So we will continue.
JH: That's quite a way to grow up, with Dropkick Murphys.
AB: I don't think it was a bad deal.
JH: Have you done any work with Jeff DaRosa?
AB: We've known him for a long time. I haven't personally done work with him but we've toured with his old band The Vigilantes years ago. We've known him in the scene for some time, and respected him as a musician. He's a great guy and he knows his shit, so it's going to be great.
JH: So you think he'll be able to handle the purely Dropkick pandemonium that takes place in the audience?
AB: There's no replacing going on the road and seeing how it works, but he's no stranger to the road and he's got the job for sure. So I think he'll be fine, you know?
JH: What was the idea behind Born and Bred records?
AB: We had been with our old label for ten years. We wanted to shake things up and write a new chapter in the book that is the Dropkick Murphys. It's an extension of what we've always been about, which is DIY. We've always been a do-it-yourself band. Being with Epitaph, they were a great label, but we've always been very self-sufficient. We weren't one to go, "oh, what do you guys think of this idea?" to the label. Obviously when you're working with a label you've got to clear with them, but we were always, if they didn't like an idea we'd do it anyway. We'll just pay for it ourselves or whatever. We've always been of the mind that we've got to run the ship ourselves so this is just an extension of that. So it works out good.
JH: Was it gratifying to bring your song Tessie to the World Series?
AB: Yeah, yeah, that and Shipping. Tessie, and old number that was sung by a group called the Royal Rooters back in the day when the Sox used to win World Series. They broke the eighty-six year curse. The year that that broke, we had brought Tessie early on in that year. It was kind of cool legend and returned kind of. It was definitely an amazing experience to do that song and now Shipping's kind of eclipsed that song by being adopted by Papelbon and it's just crazy. It's pretty wild.
JH: Did you find it hard to break in to the high end of the music world?
AB: The sports world and the music world are completely different, so that's what made it so uncharacteristic, so you don't really find that. I mean you'll have songs get used and you'll have big huge superstars come and play Fenway or play a sporting event, but a small band like ours to be included in these huge things now, it's wild. It's brought us to a whole different group of listeners. There's a whole bunch of people out there; I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of people that hate us too, but there's a bunch of new fans who have gotten into the band through Tessie and Shipping up to Boston.
JH: What are you planning for the future?
AB: Just touring to support “Meanest of Times” is all we're planning now, and continuing to do what we do. Tour and put out the best music we can. That's all we've done and that's what we'll continue to do. All the wonderful and great things that have happened to this band never were preconceived or put together, they just all kind of happened to us. We don't really know what the future holds but it's been great so far. We're loving it.
JH: The audience is like a complete animal.
AB: The fans are great. As we always say, they're the other fifty percent that make up the Dropkick Murphys show. We're the fifty percent on stage and they're the fifty percent that makes up the hundred percent, you know?
JH: It's probably one of the best shows that I've been to.
AB: Where did you see us?
JH: At the Utica Brewery.
AB: Oh, okay. Where the barricade broke, right? The outside show, when we played with The Tossers?
JH: Yeah.
AB: Yeah, yeah, I remember that one. The barricade broke at that one. That was a good night, that was a fun show.
JH: I got trampled, but you're only on the ground for like five seconds before they pick up and brush you off, "are you okay?" and then they shove you right back in the crowd.
AB: That's the thing about it. From the outsiders' view, people look at that. I remember being a kid when it was really small, you'd see like twenty kids slamming or whatever you want to call it and people would be like "it looks like its so painful, it's crazy." You fall down and people pick you right up. And with the larger crowds it still happens. People take care of each other out there. It's a good thing. That's the camaraderie that is a punk rock show as opposed to when you have these huge concerts. You look at what happened years ago at The Who concert where people got trampled, and the Pearl Jam concert in Europe where people don't take care of each other. It's a festival mentality and people just kind of go crazy. Where I see people getting knocked over and everybody keeps a cool head and they pick each other up and dust each other off and they keep going, you know? Knock on wood, in all the years we've been doing it, people get hurt, but it's never in malice, it's always somebody breaks and arm in the pit on accident. It happens. But in general everybody takes care of everybody else. And that to me is punk rock.
JH: Yeah. You get punched in the head and they're like "hey, how you doing?"
AB: Yeah.
JH: I woke up in my friend's bathtub.
AB: Hopefully with no water?
JH: No water, thankfully everyone was too drunk to turn on the faucet.
AB: Sounds like a hot night.
JH: Oh yeah. My friend Danni, she's a great fan. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said "Al, from the Dropkick Murphys."
AB: I'm sorry that I can't fulfill that birthday wish but I think my wife would have a little problem with that.
JH: Probably. But at least I mentioned it to you. Is there anything else we haven't covered?
AB: I think that about covers it. We've been in New York , we've done a lot of shows in New York in the past few months so I don't think we'll be back for a while, but we will be back. Thanks for the interview, and we'll see you out there on the road.
