Originally published in Verbicide issue #8

“Hey, I like your hat,” Dennis Casey, electric guitar player from Flogging Molly, says as he slaps me on the shoulder after an exhilarating performance at the Webster Theatre in Hartford. He doesn’t know I’m about to interview him; he’s just that approachable and outgoing with his fans, which is one of many reasons why Flogging Molly’s live audience continues to grow.

In the past Flogging Molly has defied classification among journalists, playing a unique blend of traditional Irish music and rock n’ roll. As Dennis explains, Flogging makes their influences their own to form their sound.

On stage, Dennis is arguably the most energetic of the band’s members, and certainly the most liable to harm himself, lost in the music. Last fall he was playing shows in a small cast on his strumming hand due to injuries sustained while jumping into the audience. It’s all part of the show, though; Flogging Molly pride themselves on being a live band. With the very first chords from front man Dave King’s acoustic guitar, the entire audience is jigging, clapping, raising fists and pints, and, most importantly, shouting along. In a side room at the Webster, Dennis describes to Verbicide how the different elements of the band come together to form one of the greatest live shows I’ve ever seen. -Christopher Connal

Christopher Connal: Flogging Molly just started a tour of the Northeast, playing in smaller cities than you have on previous tours. How has the response been so far?
The tour has been going unbelievably. I think tonight was an indication of that — we’ve never been here before. I would say 90 percent of the places we’ve played we’ve never been to. I don’t know if tonight was sold out, but it looked pretty damn close — there was a lot of people in here for a place we’ve never played.

What we were trying to do was play a bunch of shows around St. Patrick’s Day. We’re going to do a bunch of shows in the Midwest with the Bosstones and the Tossers, and then we’re going to do the West Coast with the Supersuckers, and we were just like, why don’t we just make a whole tour of it? But instead of just doing the usual places we play, let’s try to hit some places we’ve never been. And I can’t believe how many people came here tonight! I was really concerned about the impending war and the economy, and I remembered when our manager was putting this together. It came together really fast — there wasn’t a lot of time — and I was just like, man, are you sure this is going to work? There’s so many things we’re going up against, I can’t believe it. So, the tour, I couldn’t be happier. We’re playing Rochester, my hometown, and it’s sold out already.

Jackson Ellis: Have you ever played Connecticut before? Where do you guys usually play when you come through here?
We don’t! We just go right on by! I just met a lot of people out there who went to the Warped Tour in Boston and saw us there…

Jackson: I was at the New York one — I couldn’t even see you guys through the dust.
The dust is still in the back of my amp! I was showing one of the guys today, saying, “Look, that was from Randall’s Island!” That was a very dusty show…talk about blowing your nose for three hours with brown stuff coming out of it…Boston I remember being really hot.

Christopher: How is Flogging Molly going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?
Well, St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Monday. The big celebration is going to be a Saturday, which we’re doing in Chicago with the Bosstones and the Tossers. The actual day — Monday — we’re gonna play the Jimmy Kimmel show, and I believe we’re gonna do a show during the day in LA as well — but don’t quote me on that one yet!

Christopher: Every time I’ve seen you guys it’s been in Boston, and obviously you get a great response there. I was curious, do you get the same response in Middle America?
Well, first of all, in the beginning in Boston, we used to play this place called Bill’s Bar, and that was really like cuttin’ your teeth. That place changes at something crazy; like eight o’clock, they’re throwing everybody out and it turns into a dance club.

I’ll tell you a little story about the first time we played there: We didn’t know how Boston operated. We played Bill’s Bar, we’re done at nine o’clock, and we thought that was kind of weird. They throw everybody out and there’s literally 70 people waiting to get into the show. And we’re like, “We just played…” These people were so mad, and there was a bunch of guys, they knew of this bar…the Cambridge….

Christopher: Port Saloon?
Yeah! Well, we played there. I don’t know if that place is still open, but they said, “Let’s go down to the Cambridge Port and have you guys play.” And everybody came down and the owner wasn’t there, so it was a hush-hush thing. We set up, played another show for everybody, and that show was so great. I guess we were one of the only bands to ever play there, so that was quite an honor. And then after that it just built up.

I would say Boston gets a really good response. But you would be really surprised — some of these places where people don’t get a lot of music coming through are pretty rabid and pretty into it. It’s a different mentality. You see a person from a major city who has every band and any scene and any kind of music coming through, they’ve seen it all. And then take some kid in Indiana—

Jackson: Or Vermont, where I’m from.
We did a show in Vermont, too!

Jackson: At the Higher Ground, right?
Yeah, we sold that place out, I couldn’t believe it! We had never been to Vermont! It was hot as fuck in there, that’s what we’re used to. I like places where the stage isn’t too high and the people are right there. The response is great overall, but I would say Europe is picking up faster than America for some reason. We’ve been over there a couple times now. We’re gonna tour a lot more of there in the coming months. We’re going to play Ireland for the first time in May.

Christopher: You guys have often mentioned the influence bands like the Pogues and the Dubliners have had on you. What do you think Flogging Molly adds to the legacy of those bands?
I would say the progression is like the Dubliners — an Irish folk band — first, then the Pogues sort of took that to another place. They really exposed a mainstream audience to Irish music. Spider Stacey, the tin whistle player in the Pogues, has told us he thought that we were like the next step from what they did. I think that it seems to be a progression and evolution in the music, and we’re sort of taking our experiences and our influences and bringing it to that, you know what I’m saying? We’re a lot harder of a band than the Pogues, but we have the same sort of instrumentation. Dave’s from Ireland and he sings a lot about Ireland, the Pogues did the same thing and the Dubliners did the same thing.

A lot of journalists bring up the Pogues, but I think there’s so much more to the music than that if you really listen to it. The songs are very personal, and the music comes from a very solid rock and punk rock background. We’re definitely influenced by those bands, and I hope that people see us as the next generation of that music. Like rock n’ roll, you listen to Chuck Berry but then you listen to the Rolling Stones, and I know I can hear the influence there.

Christopher: Everybody knows what bands Dave was in before Flogging Molly, but what about the rest of you?
Nobody would have heard of any of the bands.

Christopher: Were any of you in any Irish bands before?
Each member would be different. Bridget, the fiddle player, yeah. Me, I’m the electric guitar player. I was always more into edgy rock, punk rock bands. Nathan [bass], same thing. I play acoustic guitar as well, and I’m influenced by Celtic music, but the bands I was in, no. That’s my role in Flogging Molly, to give it that edge. George was in a number of bands, he’s pretty eclectic. Bob, the mandolin player, he used to play bass before, too. So, it’s quite an eclectic mix, and I think that’s one of the fun parts about our band is that it all comes together, because we all bring that certain thing to it. Everybody has their own backgrounds, which is a part of what they were, but now they bring it into this band. Dave’s the principal songwriter and lyric writer, but when we all sit around and play through songs and ideas, it can be a lot of fun. The new CD has sort of a Middle Eastern kind of song, and on the first, “Sentimental Johnny” has that kind of salsa feel to it.

This is a long answer to your question, but basically, we were in a bunch of different bands and I think it comes through on the records. I can’t even remember the names of the bands; they were nothing on the scale Dave was on. Dave’s definitely a whole different level.

Christopher: When you guys write songs, does Dave usually come in with the lyrics and the chords and you all work around that?
It’s all different. Somebody could play an idea and spark something off, and Dave will come in the next day with a song. Dave got a banjo and wrote a song in a day — that song, “The Sun Never Shines On Closed Doors,” on Drunken Lullabies, that’s a song about his mom. He hadn’t seen her in eight years and he finally got his green card, and he was gonna go see her. For some reason, that day, Bob left his banjo at rehearsal. Dave had never played it, and the next day we had that song in rehearsal. Nathan wrote “Cruel Mistress,” and I would sit around and help him with the arrangement, and somebody would throw in ideas. So it’s very collaborative.

Christopher: Dave talks a lot about Catholicism in the songs; do any of you go to church?
I know Bridget does. I used to. I think most of us are “recovering Catholics,” that’s what I like to call it.

Christopher: So none of you are giving anything up for Lent?
Bridget is. I forgot it was Lent; I’ve been out of the loop for so long.

Christopher: Who’s on the cover of Drunken Lullabies?
Nobody knows who that is. That was a weird time. We were trying to come up with an album cover and that was the only thing everybody could agree upon by the deadline. The artist who came up with it, I’m not sure where he found it. People wonder if it’s the Elephant Man. I think we liked it because of the little dog, actually.

Jackson: What’s it like working with Side One Dummy? How did you end up with them?
Joe Sib, the guy who owns the label, is a friend of Matt’s, the accordion player. They used to skateboard together. We had been playing for a while and a few labels were talking to us, but stuff fell through and nothing happened. Matt brought Joe around and he saw a show, and we struck up a relationship with him. I would say we’re very happy there. We’re more than likely going to put out another record with them.

Jackson: So basically, he saw one show, and was convinced?
Yeah, the show pretty much sells people on the band — not “sells them,” but turns them on to the band. It’s really a live experience, in my opinion.

Christopher: When you record, do you record live?
We record live, yeah. Dave did his vocals in three hours. We put down all the rough tracks in three days for Drunken Lullabies. We all play together, we couldn’t do it any other way. It wouldn’t be right to layer it, put the drums first, then the bass, it wouldn’t have that feel, you know? We’re a live band. You can see everybody and you’re all playing together.

Jackson: So do you think you guys will eventually hop to a major label?
I have no idea. If we were to go to a major label, they wouldn’t have to support us because we’re pretty much self-contained. Like that bus out there, everybody thinks, Oh wow, you guys got a tour bus? But we pay for that! It’s a thousand dollars a day. Side One Dummy doesn’t give us money for that.

Jackson: I wouldn’t think so.
If a major label was to come along, they wouldn’t have much to worry about. A major label would help in certain areas. It’s just like everything else; do you want to be the big fish in the little pond, or the little fish in the big pond? And a major label has money, you can have different artists doing different things. We don’t have a lot of extra things, there’s not a lot of photographs of the band around. When you go to a major label there’re a lot of perks, but you can also be forgotten pretty quickly, too. The thing is, I don’t know how bad that would be for a band like us, because we can just do this. But we’re doing this ourselves now, and Side One is a great label. They put our records out and distribute them.

Jackson: Do they give you a lot of freedom?
Total freedom. The only way we would go to a major label is if they gave us total freedom. Same thing. We’d like to keep both relationships, like keep Side One involved, but it’s such a hypothetical thing. If the offer was right, you never know. You don’t just do it for money, you have a lot more to consider. It would be nice, there’s other bands it would be great to play with or tour with.

Jackson: Well, you look at the Bosstones, they were on a major and then jumped to Side One. I don’t know the story behind it, but I’m sure they’re pretty happy to go back to an independent label. Being on Side One seems like a good situation to be in; not to mention, you guys are on a huge summer tour every year.
Well, we sort of had to prove ourselves on the Warped Tour. The first year we were lucky to get it; it really helped our band, but I think we proved ourselves, too. I would say number one, that was the best thing to happen to the band. Number two was the Bosstones took us out after they saw us on the Warped Tour. They were the first band to take us out on a national tour. I will forever say that those two things really helped our band.

Jackson: Would you guys do the Warped Tour again?
If they’ll have us next year, yeah. I love it, it’s such a great thing for a band to do. You can’t deny it. You show up in some city you’ve never been to and you’re playing in front of a lot of people. And there are so many great bands to hang out with and play with.

Christopher: Where are you guys drinking tonight?
We drink before the show and on the bus. There are some cool places, though. In Minneapolis there’s an Irish pub across the street from where we play. Obviously, in a big city, it’s easy. But in a smaller town, unless there’s a bar around the corner, you’re drinking on the bus.