Thursday, September 04, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Music: Luck o' the punkers

Dropkick Murphys on life, lager and bagpipers

By Newt Briggs

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the Dropkick Murphys have caught, as singer/bassist Ken Casey says, some "wicked buzzes" in their day. After all, they are Irish, and even a quick perusal of their song titles--"Barroom Hero," "Blood and Whiskey" and "Alcohol," among others--reveals an undeniable affection for the drink. But perhaps nowhere is this fondness more apparent than on their newest studio album Blackout, which climaxes in the reeling anthem to inebriation "Kiss Me I'm Shitfaced": "So kiss me I'm shitfaced/ I'm soaked I'm soiled and brown/ In the trousers, she kissed me/ And I only bought her one round."

Okay, so it's not Yeats, but what else should we expect of an Irish punk band--particularly one from Boston, our nation's long-established epicenter of lager-fueled hooliganism?

"You can't be a band that's influenced by Irish music and not have at least a couple of songs about drinking and partying," says Casey. As he is quick to admit, though, even the Dropkick Murphys have their limit, and it generally begins and ends with their bagpiper. "Bagpipers are a sick bunch," he says. "They're hard-drinking psychopaths. They're all fucked up in the head. I don't know if it's the kilt or the instrument or what, but whatever piper we have, we normally have to lock him in the trailer before we get on the bus."

For this tour, the Murphys are toting around bagpiper Scruffy Wallace, who replaced crowd favorite Spicy McHaggis after McHaggis recently took a leave of absence to get married. According to Casey, Wallace--who learned to play the bagpipes in the Canadian army--will play all of McHaggis' classics, including the much-loved "Spicy McHaggis Jig." "They're all the same, these pipers," says Casey. "It makes you wonder, though, who in their right mind would marry a bagpiper?"

More important than the piper, however, is the band with which the Murphys are touring: British punk upstarts the Sex Pistols. "It's awesome," says Casey. "I mean, what else is there to say? We're touring with the Sex Pistols." The pairing is particularly cool in light of the two bands' similarities. For example, both bands found their primary support bases among the working class--the Murphys in Boston, the Pistols in London. "We're cut from the same cloth," Casey says. "I think it's pretty obvious that our music has been heavily influenced by early British punk."

On the other hand, the Dropkick Murphys have brought their own vision to rock 'n' roll, blending old-school punk moxie with traditional Irish melodies to create an entire catalog of infectious, shout-along ditties. "We're definitely not trying to be an Irish band per se," says Casey. "We've just been influenced by the Irish culture and the music we were raised around. In a lot of ways, it gives us more opportunity for self-expression and for exploring new and different sounds."

Regardless, their primary interest has always been in touring and playing shows. "We've been on the road for seven straight years," Casey says. "The only reason that we stop to make records is so that the kids will know our songs when we come to play live." And even though they find themselves playing bigger and bigger stages, the Murphys continue to make every effort to mix it up with the crowd. Says Casey: "We're a punk band, and we want our shows to be like punk shows. For too many kids today, punk is what they hear on the radio or see on the TV. It's a bunch of watered-down shit. It's got no hostility or aggression. We've always thought that a good punk show should have a bit of both."

And what about a crazy drunken bagpiper? "Yeah," admits Casey, "that helps too."