Originally published in Verbicide issue #10

It’s been five years since Mike McColgan left the Dropkick Murphys to become a Boston firefighter, and finally the singer from Savin Hill has returned to music. He’s keeping his dream job, but he’s also released an album on Crosscheck Records with his band, Street Dogs. I had the chance to talk to Mike about his old band, his new band, his years in the U.S. Army, and, of course, the Boston Bruins.

Whats up? I hate to tear you from the Bruins game, but…
Actually, I’m not watching the Bruins game tonight — I’m rehearsing a couple of Replacements songs to play at the Paradise. Myself and Nate Albert are doing that “Chords and Dischords” thing…

Oh yeah, they did the Bruce Springsteen one a few weeks ago.
Yeah, Kristin from Mad Cat called me up and asked me if I’d do a few songs.

What songs are you doing?
We’re gonna do “Left of the Dial,” “Can’t Hardly Wait,” “Achin’ to Be,” and we got “Talent Show” on the backburner if we need another one. We could pull “Skyway” out of our hat if we needed to.

Nice. Alright, let’s get down to the questions. [In your time] between [performing with] the Murphys and the Street Dogs, did you think a lot about returning to music?
Between the two? There were times when I informally jammed with Jeff and Johnny Rio, but nothing ever concrete. Then, when Rob, our guitar player, and Jeff started jamming — probably about two years ago — Jeff called me up and asked me if I wanted to come down and sing on a couple of songs they’d been working on. And that prompted the return, because we started jamming, and jamming turned into pooling our limited resources together financially, and making a demo with seven songs. That got out for a couple of months and it got us label interest, which I was surprised at. You know, maybe I’m naïve or living in another world, but label interest came and we decided actually we’d go with a little bit of an unknown entity, Crosscheck — based in Los Angeles. It’s like an imprint of CMH Records. They’ve been a modest bluegrass/country label out in LA for a period of time and they started a punk rock imprint. They were really persistent and said they’d allow us to do things on our own terms creatively.

So they pursued you guys basically?
They pursued us, like, constantly. And we signed a deal with them, we went into the studio with Nate Albert, formerly of the Bosstones, and he produced our record, Savin Hill. That came out September 23 and then we went on tour for a month. Tourin’ the US.

How was the tour, by the way?
Tour was phenomenal. We played a couple of dates in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, like eight dates in California…we played a show in Utah, Minneapolis and we finished the tour down in Chicago. Worked out well.

Do you have any difference in your approach to the Street Dogs than your approach to the Murphys?
Ahh, I would say yeah, I have differences because you’re working with different people. There’s this band, a band right now, that’s a rock band that’s punk influenced — that’s the angle we’re coming from, and the first record is a reflection of that. In the past, with Dropkick, there was the Irish twist where we had grown up — at least for myself and Kenny. We had grown up being heavily influenced by Irish music, and we molded Irish music and punk. Street Dogs aren’t doing that. It’s not a conscious effort to avoid that, but it’s just not where we are right now.

As far as Street Dogs is concerned, we want to be able to do whatever we’d like to do at any time. Right now, we’re just playing up front rock and roll. I’ve never seen a huge deviation from that ever, but that’s where we are and that’s what I feel comfortable doing. I feel proud and happy about my past with the Murphys, and I feel excited and happy and lucky to have a present with Street Dogs.

You talked about blending traditional music and rock when you started the Murphys. Did that just sort of happen, or was that a preconceived notion to the band?
It was something that I think we talked about as we were getting ready to start recording for the first time. Because, you know, I listen to the Pogues constantly — Kenny did. You grow up being around your uncles in an Irish family and you’re hearing “MacNamara’s Band” and “Irish Rover” and you’re listening to all sorts of old-time Irish folk bands. I can remember growing up in Savin Hill and every Saturday at my Uncle John’s house they had the Irish radio station on AM. That gets woven into you. Irish-American people, on average, tend to be proud of that music and where they’re from and all that.

Was “Billy’s Bones” the only Pogues song you guys ever did?
Yeah, I believe it was. I don’t think that we actively covered another one.

What were the early Dropkick Murphys shows like?
The initial shows were sparsely attended, and there was still an energy and a meaningful presence about the band in the earliest stage that you just gave every ounce of energy and every ounce of passion inside you, and I think that translated to the small amounts of people that went to some of the earlier shows. With each passing show, the numbers increased. Then we found that we were part of a movement with the Ducky Boys, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, the Pinkerton Thugs, the Bruisers. There was a ton of bands and it was a good time. It doesn’t alienate me or frustrate me when people ask about the past because I’m proud of it and I’m still on good terms with the guys in Dropkick.

You mentioned the movement you guys came up with in Dropkick. Do you feel the same camaraderie with bands in Boston now as in the 90’s?
I think there’s some similarities, but it is a different time and a different band. No two movements and no two times are the same. I know Street Dogs feel the camaraderie of the Pug Uglies and Dirty Water and USM. These are bands we’ve played with before. We played with USM at the Abbey in our earliest shows. We played with Dirty Water in Boston. There’s also that camaraderie connection with Lost City Angels, and even some of the newer bands like the Marvels, who played our record release party. Some of the bands from the older scene have obviously evolved and gotten bigger, but there’s a new scene trying to gel and come together. There’s a good band out there that I really love called the Blue Bloods, who just came off a tour with Slapshot. We played a DIY show at a Stoughton Church basement with those guys. We played with the Kings of Nuthin before.That’s another phenomenal band. No one can rock harder than the Kings of Nuthin. These guys play their hearts out.

What made you want to do a version of “Pilgrim 33” with the Dogs?
Well, Joe Spielman, an A&R guy over at Crosscheck, presented it to us, and at first we were skeptical. I mean, Kris Kristofferson…I read the lyrics, and I tried to be objective and I looked up Kristofferson and his songwriting. I know he was linked at times with Johnny Cash.

Yeah, Cash thought “Pilgrim” was about him, I was wondering if his passing had anything to do with your choice of the song.
Well, I know Kristofferson said it was about a lot of people, like Dennis Hopper, Johnny Cash. Definitely it alluded to Cash. I’ve actually heard a live acoustic version of it and he mentions Cash’s name and Hopper’s name. The lyrics are great. It’s a well-written song and there’s so many of my friends and people in my life who have come and gone that that song can be about. We sat down and gave it a shot and we put our own spin on it, and we stand by it and we’re proud of it. But how it initially started, that was sort of out of left field. I’m not gonna lie to you and say that I grew up with a mullet and a beard and love Kristofferson and had all his vinyl hits. You’re probably well aware that that wasn’t my style.

Do the guys at work like your new record?
Yeah, I think they like it ‘cause they constantly break my stones. They’re always breakin’ my balls and when you’re in the fire service that’s par for the course. It’s close-knit with firefighters because the work’s obviously inherently dangerous and you’re only as good as your weakest link. All this stuff sounds cliché, but it’s true. We rip each other because we have to. We have to deflect the seriousness of that business — Fire Suppression, Emergency Medical Services, HAZMAT, all the stuff that firefighting encompasses—you have to fool one another, and that’s sort of like an acceptance. When that’s happening between firefighters, you’re accepted and you’re liked and you’re respected and you’re a good Jake. I think the guys like the new record. If they didn’t talk to me and they ostracized me and I started seeing broken copies of the CD all over the place, then I’d think they didn’t like it.

So you’re back to work now, then?
Yeah I am back to work. I actually worked yesterday.

Do you have a good shift?
Yeah, well it’s four shifts and then you get three days off. It’s a good, flexible schedule and you’re allotted a lot of vacation and personal time, and you have the ability to swap shifts. There’s good benefits and reasonable pay, so it’s a nice position.

Do you play any instruments, or do you just sing?
I ramble and roll vocally, you know. I just sing, and I’m trying to learn three chords on an acoustic guitar. I’m trying to get Johnny to teach me some stuff. When we were out on tour, I dabbled a little bit, but I’m not well trained or anything on the bass or guitar. I can play “Come on Feel the Noise” and “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” on the drums, though — if that impresses anybody!

There you go! What was it like having Lars produce Do or Die?
You had to pinch yourself. For me, Rancid reignited a flame. When I first heard them they had the spirit of the Clash, they had the spirit of ’77, they had that rawness and meaningful passion and power and legitimacy. It screamed legitimacy to me because I took a look at them and I heard their music and what they were writing about. Meeting them went beyond my expectations because they live what they preach. They’ve helped so many bands — when Lars produced the record he stayed on Kenny’s couch and didn’t take a dime from us. He was buying things for us — buying us meals — we’d try to buy him a meal and he’d say stick it up our ass. He’s a great guy, super talented, he’s got the biggest heart, super-intense, super-protective of Rancid, super-protective of his friends and who he respects; a phenomenal guy. I have the utmost respect for him.

Did you go see them the other night?
Absolutely.

I thought that was one of their best shows here.
What was great about that show was that they originally had a set list. I was on the side of the stage, and I saw they had about 20 some-odd songs on there. They were altering it though, they were calling off other songs and winging it. It just shows the level of talent and the level of preparedness and how much they must rehearse — how much they know the songs. There were even some raw moments of not-quite-havin’-it. On that new song, “Out of Control,” they kind of messed up, but they brought it back around. They didn’t stop, Lars brought it back around again. And when Lars did that song “To Have and Have Not” up there by himself, it just shows that there’s an understanding with his solo material. They’re just such a great band. They’re the best punk band in the world, no doubt.

I think so, too. They’re classic. Do you mind talking a bit about your time in the Gulf?
I was actually enlisted in the US military from ’89 through ’91 in the US Army to get some college money, and I got a lot more than I bargained for. Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2nd in 1990, and I was actually on the field in Germany. I was an artillery guy and they were training us — I knew they were going to send us, they were just preparing us to be combat-ready and deployed. I was over there for about eight months, received probably about four days of combat in Southern Iraq. It was really lopsided.

Did you know how long you’d be there for?
I anticipated that we were gonna be there for maybe a year-and-a-half, two years. I anticipated that we were gonna march on Baghdad, but the mission was altered and we did what we did. We followed orders and did the best that we could. The results, at least in my own mind, were positive, with the Kuwaiti people getting their country back. I really felt at the time, and a lot of the guys did, that we should have continued on and [ousted] Hussein.

So you guys were pretty much surprised when you got pulled out?
Yeah, we could have averted a lot of problems. I think Schwarzkopf seemed to have the expectation that that would also be part of the mission. I think Bush just stayed true to the mission of getting Iraq out of Kuwait. Obviously, Hussein is such a fanatical religious freak, and such a barbaric heinous person, that it may have been time to get rid of him.

Did you have any contact with Iraqis?
In combat, the only contact I had was pretty much just sending shells at them. After the conflict, there were Shiites and Bedouins who’d come up to us and try to trade cigarettes for food. They were pretty kind, they were probably force fed a lot of propaganda about us that we were this and that, but we treated them with respect and gave the food and everything. I got pictures of it, it’s pretty cool. I got about 10 rolls worth of pictures.

Did you watch a lot of TV this spring?
Yeah, when it initially started I watched it pretty closely. When it ceased and everything, and we had declared major operations over, I kind of had the feeling in the pit of my stomach that things were gonna be difficult. Most of the Sunni Muslims just fell back and regrouped and have obviously caused a lot of problems for us of late, you know?

What was it like to sing the national anthem at Fenway?
It was awesome, like a dream come true. Myself and Johnny decided, on a whim one day, to send a video tape of myself doing the anthem at the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast in South Boston as a Firefighter in the hopes that they would turn around and invite me. We didn’t think it would happen.

Did you meet any of the Sox?
Met Nomar real quick, just in passing. I was shaken though, I was thinking Yaz and Rice, Freddie Lynn, and George Scott used to play on this field. Roger Clemens used to pitch here. There’s a lot of history there. It was an honor. I think I’ll probably appreciate it more when I’m older and I’m like 70 and bloated, and I’m on a chair all washed up, with a picture of it on my wall.

You’re a bigger Bruins fan than Red Sox though?
Yeah, I’m definitely a bigger Bruins fan, since I was seven years old. I used to watch Gerry Cheevers and Gilles Gilbert play net. Guys like Terry O’Reilly, Stan Jonathon, and John Wensink were playing back then. Ricky Middleton and Jean Ratelle. I lived and died by that stuff. Particularly when they would play Montreal. The hockey back then was tough, it seemed like there was a fight every eight minutes. It was a tougher time and a grittier game; there was a more old-time feel to it back then. The game’s evolved somewhat, and I know they want it to be more marketable. They want to try and expand the league. I find myself being a fan of the original six and of old-time hockey. I still love the sport, and they have tried to tie down fighting to some extent, but you still see a good beef every now and then or a good chippy play.

Verbicide Free Download: Click here to download “Two Angry Kids” by Street Dogs