I DON’T WANNA GROW UP / JOHN B. MOORE

Dropkick Murphys are as magically delicious as ever. And don't forget The Claddagh Fund which they recently established. Happy Saint Paddy's Day, everybody!

Bu John B. Moore

Aside from maybe The Pogues and The Chieftans, no other band is more closely associated with St. Patrick's Day in the U.S. than Boston's Dropkick Murphys.

According to singer and bassist Ken Casey, the Celtic punk rock band was never really supposed to leave the basement of the barbershop where they screwed around blending bagpipes with distorted guitars.  So it's as much a surprise to the band as anyone else that 15 years later they are spending the week leading up to St. Patty's Day playing night after night to sold out crowds (seven night in all) at Boston's House of Blues.

For those not able to make the pilgrimage this year to Mecca for the Guinness crowd, The Dropkick Murphys are releasing a live record (culled from last year's shows) and DVD this week.

Casey, quite possibly the nicest guy in punk rock, spoke recently about the band, jamming with the hippies at Bonnaroo and the group's newly minted charity.   

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Congratulations on the new record and DVD. I'm interested in why you wanted to put out another live record.

I think the main reason is because we did the first live album after we had three studio releases and we have since done three more studio albums and occasionally we would look at the track list of the live album and go "Wow,  there's a lot of songs that we play now that aren't on here." And what I'm most proud of about the whole new album is that it's a completely different track listing than the first one. One song, "Forever", is on both, but it's a completely different version. I know some of my favorite bands growing up, I bought every single live album they put out - Live in London, Live in Belfast, Live in Germany - but it was the same songs over and over again. I thought it was pretty cool that we had enough material to span two live records.

Because you guys have so many songs you've done as a band, do you ever have a problem putting together a set list every night?

Yeah, absolutely. You want to make it different, but you want to give people the songs they definitely want to hear and some times, between playing the standards and wanting to change it up from the last time you were in town, we end up playing 28 songs a night. There are only 20 on the album, because that's all that would fit on the CD. It also goes to show that our songs are getting longer... We go to a great deal of effort in changing it up. We save our set lists, so we can see what we played last time we were in town and make sure they get a different set the next time. I'd say that's probably one of the most burdensome things with this band. I spend hours every day looking over the set list a thousand times and trying to write it so it gives people their money's worth.

So have you come to the acceptance yet that you're pretty much going to be playing a show every single St. Patrick's Day for the rest of your life?

Well I guess if you don't want to do that you should start a different type of band then what we started. The whole Boston thing has become a little tradition. When you're in a touring band, you're away a lot of the year and you don't get to catch up with as many people as you like. Honestly, over St. Patrick's Day there are so many people in town it's like a convention almost. Backstage we get to catch up with all our friends and family. It's something we look forward to every year, so it's not like a burden to us.

You guys are playing Bonnaroo later this year. Do you know what you're in for, what to expect?

I looked at the line up and it's pretty diverse. But we play that stuff in Europe in the summer time - just massively diverse festivals - so I think even though we haven't done the Coachellas and Bonnaroos in America, we're very much accustomed to doing those types of shows and I think our music is suited for festivals and just being party music to a degree. We do very well in that setting in Europe and I imagine it will be a good time. I don't know if I'm supposed to say because they haven't announced it yet, but they're putting some other punk rock bands on the bill on that day with us.

It certainly had that reputation of being just for hippie jam bands, but I know they've been broadening the line up a bit with Bruce Springsteen playing last year.

If it's good enough for Bruce, it's good enough for us.

You guys got to play with him recently didn't you?

Yeah, twice last year. That all came about because we've become friendly with Bruce through his son turning Bruce on to the music. We've been backstage when he was doing two nights at the Garden and on the first night he said "When are you going to do a song with me?" and I said. "Whenever you want." He said, "How about tomorrow night?" So obviously we were there the next night and this past summer, he came back and was down at Great Woods (in Massachusetts) and me and my wife were in the audience just watching the show and all of a sudden during the show I get a text from the tour manager "Bruce just told me he wants you up here for the encore." Honestly, talk about inspirational, I've met a lot of musicians that I look up to and 90 percent of them have kind of somewhat let me down with their personality or how they've carried themselves in a business way, but he's just a class act through and through. Here you are up on stage singing with, in my opinion,  the greatest rock band in the world and you feel like you're singing with your buddy's band in a bar because they make you feel that comfortable and at home.

It's seems like it would be tough for guys in bands who spend a lot of time on the road, being away from family and friends. But you have a few kids and a wife and you guys spend a ton of time touring the globe. How difficult is that?

Yeah, it's very, very hard and it's probably the toughest on me because when it's the day to go to the airport I always feel like it's the first day of school. You just don't want to leave. "My wife will call me from the car and say "(the kids) started bawling, but 30 seconds down the road they stopped." You just got to make the most of the time you're together. Right now we're on a ski trip up in New Hampshire. I just have to make sure that when I am home I make up for it. If it all came out in the wash, I probably have more time at home with my kids then the guys on my street that are leaving for work at 7 in the morning to beat rush hour and are not going to be home until 6 o' clock at night. When I am home, I'm taking them to school and all the sports and stuff like that, so I get to be around to catch a lot of the stuff other dads miss. I get to take the good with the bad and realize that I'm very fortunate to have had the opportunities that I've had in this band and to be able to provide for my family. If going away for a bit is what it takes, I always say I could be going to Iraq or Afghanistan, so I'm very fortunate. We've also brought the kids on some of the trips, so they've seen the world, so it's just very cool.

It's also got to be pretty cool for the kids on career day to say "My dad is a rock star."

My eight year old is just now getting that, cause she's on the new DVD step dancing. There's just a little clip of her, but she understands. Before I had three kids, she used to come on tour a lot with my wife and I. My wife would take her to bed in the back (of the tour bus) when we were on stage and after the show when we all came back to the front of the bus, my wife would be asleep and my two-year-old daughter would wake up and come up to see us. On the same token, I really don't think they think I'm cooler than anybody.

Another thing I wanted to ask you about is the foundation you started, the Claddagh Fund.

We've had some great opportunities through the success of the band to be able to help different people, whether it's sending out tickets to shows or signed CDs for auction items to lending the band's name and sometimes playing at charity events. It's just become something that over the years we've become more and more involved in over the years. As we did things for other causes, I always felt as great as this was we were missing the potential to tap into our fan base - who are the most generous fans in the world. The few times we have gone to them in a public way or via the Web site to help a cause, the response has been overwhelming. It makes me very proud to say that. As we started the Claddagh Fund we've done several events. We did a skate at Fenway Park when the Winter Classic ice was down; We just did a celebrity bartending night at McGreevy's and what we're getting ready to launch - which is kind of the end goal of The Claddagh Fund - is the Friends of the Claddagh Fund, where basically people can pledge their help to raise funds in other cities. Kind of almost satellite chapters of the fund. When you think about the potential, if a kid takes on that role in Seattle or Sydney, Australia, you have an army of people raising money and at that point, you're talking raising millions of dollars for good causes rather than $100,000. I'm really excited about this and to see the response of fans.

When did you start the Fund?

We started in late November and did our first event in mid December, so who needs six months to plan an event?   

Are there specific criteria for where the money goes?

Yeah, the mission statement is obviously about community and friendship and helping each other out and those are the attributes of the Claddagh: Friendship, Love and Loyalty. As far as who we directly help, the three causes we mainly focus on, are children's issues - whether its financial or medical or just things like a Boys and Girls Club, Anything that aids in easing their hardship in any way. The second was veteran's issue s and third was alcohol and substance abuse, because unfortunately that has affected many people in my life. As of right now, with the first event we gave to eight local charities, from Boys and Girls Club to the Franciscan Children's Hospital to Boston Family Services to the Fisher House, which is a place where family of veterans can stay when the veterans are receiving treatment in Boston. The last event we did, the celebrity bartending, was for Haitian orphans. At the moment it seems bizarre to not be doing something to help out when there is such a tragedy so close to home. We'll always try to focus on things close to home and pick some national charities as well.

Have you guys started working on any new songs yet for the next album?

Yeah, we're about six, seven songs into it and the goal, depending on what the touring schedule does to us, is to be in the studio by the end of the summer. We're excited about that prospect. By the time an album does come out this will probably be the longest time between records... It seems like maybe waiting a bit will get people excited. Either that or they'll forget about us and move on to someone else. I guess we'll see.

Photo Credit: Kerry Brett. The new Dropkick Murphys album, Live on Lansdowne, is released today, March 16, on the band's own Born & Bred label. Details on it, tour dates, and more at their MySpace page.