If you haven’t heard of the Dropkick Murphys, you’ve been living under a shamrock. Their rough-and-ready, Pogues-influenced sound has served as the backdrop to films (The Departed), sports ads (for the Brisbane Lions), and just as the soundtrack to a rockin’ and wild time. The Boston, MA based Celtic punk rock combo are shipping over to Australia to play the No Sleep Til’ festivals ahead of recording their follow up to 2007’s The Meanest of Times.

We spoke to Ken Casey, vocalist and bassist, who is very much looking forward to drinking some of our famous beer and meeting Aussie fans.

Hello Ken! I hope you’re well. First of all, I want to talk to you about your new album, which you should be recording soon. Are you recording? How’s it all coming together?

We’re kind of in the final stages of pre-production right now, we start in the studio in two weeks. We’re very excited about the new batch of songs; they’re very uplifting, fun, you know. It’s kind of like party music. It’s not like the last few albums which were very intense lyrically – we had a few friends pass – it’s kind of nice to write an album about just having a good time. It's still Dropkick Murphys – it’ll hopefully make you wanna punch people in the face once in a while. I think we’ve written some great songs and it’ll be really uplifting. I’m in a good mood when I leave practice. 

So the vibe is a bit more upbeat but it still has that aggression?

Yeah. I think that’s the beauty of both punk rock and Irish music. You can take a sad subject and twist it so you sing it in a bar with your friends, or get a tense subject and turn it into like a jig. Whether it’s the music or the lyrics, at least one of them has a positive vibe.

You said the last few albums were driven by the passing of friends and so forth, did you draw upon any inspiration in particular for this album? What were your expectations going in, and what will they be coming out?

Well, we didn’t have a particular reason – it’s kind of like the thought ahead of releasing an album – the ultimate payoff is that we get to play these songs for the next couple of years. You know, we just wanna rock the world and play the songs and put a smile on people’s faces. Just kind of write a whole album worth of anthems; get over trying to take ourselves too seriously. You know, just write a song and not overthink it too much – to just have fun.

If you write a lot of depressing songs I think it’s important to get a bit of levity in as well.

Absolutely. 

Are you excited to be coming back to Australia?

Oh, very excited. It’s one of my favorite places in the world to go! My favorite people; just so genuine, what you see is what you get type of people. If you could only find a way to get me there quicker than that God- awful long flight then I’d be there a lot more often. If you could also find a way to not get me kicked out of there when we’re done playing I’d stay a lot longer!

(laughs) Are you aware of the Irish connection we have in Australia, such as the AFL/International Rules series?

Oh yeah. Absolutely – you see a lot of similarities. I don’t know if it’s because of the connections you have to Ireland, what with descendants and all that, but it’s why I say that Australians remind me a lot of Bostonians – I draw a lot of comparisons between Boston and Australia. I think it’s just the people – they’re just tell-it-like-it-is kinda people and I like that. You’re probably thinking "what’s he talking about, I know tons of jerks in Australia" but I can’t generalize. I’ve been all over the world but Australia’s the place where I meet people once and the next time I’m there, I’m coming two days early and staying at their house having a barbeque with their family. I mean it never happens anywhere else, I just like the people; they make you feel at home. I think that’s what people are like here [in Boston.]

Well, that’s true – we do take St. Patrick’s Day pretty seriously. What I mean by seriously is that we all go out and get hammered until we fall over no matter what day of the week it is. I mean my favorite movie of all time is the Boondock Saints which is set in Boston and I can relate a bit to it too, but maybe that’s just me.

Oh, it’s a popular movie here as well! I like the second one better because it felt like they didn’t take themselves so seriously – they kind of made almost like a joke of the original but in a good way, making it the B-movie that it is. I watch the first one sometimes and I say to myself ‘are they 100% serious here?’ – I think they nailed it in the second one.

Oh yeah, it’s hilarious. Anyway, you’ve been described as the “spiritual brothers” of Flogging Molly, who do a similar sort of thing; how do you feel about that?

Those guys are great friends of ours – we appreciate a band that does what they do well and they do it well. Having both bands has opened doors for the other band. I love their songs, and they’re great songwriters. We’re very friendly with them. We’re very happy to share comparison to Flogging Molly.

Flogging Molly recorded their last album Float in Ireland. When I talked to them they said it was like going back to their Irish roots and made their record sound more authentic. Have you or the band ever considered doing that?

No – it’s funny, people always say to us ‘You should go to New York [to record], you should go to LA’, but we like to stay at home. Once we start playing it's hard to get us out of Boston. I could see how that could be very cool, you know what I mean. Who knows – some day. I dunno who was paying their budget – we got our own record label – so to take all seven of us over to Ireland when we could be at home with our families... It just doesn’t seem like something that could realistically happen. Boston’s the next best thing to Ireland, anyway. [laughs]

Have you been there many times yourself?

Oh absolutely, I’ve been there many times, the band’s been there many times. It’s definitely one of my favorite places to go. Like I said before, I like to make comparisons between Ireland and Australia. Australians are like the Irish without the sarcastic, bitter wit to them. You don’t have that bitter wit considering how you all got there and started – probably because the last joke was on them sending you to such a nice place. It’s good to go back to Ireland to see family that’s still there, you feel like you’re at a place where you’re welcome. We have parts of the world where we have great shows but after it’s over we say ‘lets get oudda here!’ Whenever we go to Ireland I’m always sure to stay for a week and hang out.

Talking about Ireland, your band is very vocal about political issues – how do you balance the rock n’ roll aspect with the political aspect? Do you have strong views on Ireland and Northern Ireland? Do you have strong views about your own community in Boston and the country at large?

First of all, I think one of the big reasons we’ve been accepted in Ireland is the fact we never ever speak about Irish politics. We weren’t born there, you know? We’re from Boston. I think the Irish have liked that about us. I’ve seen American bands get up on stage and have the nerve to make comments on their political situation. Could there be anything that paints America in a worse light than that?

Having said that, stepping back to American politics, we’ve been active in a lot of things that we believe in. However, it’s a fine line in the sense that, like, I like to write songs about things that I believe in. If the listener agrees, great; if they don’t, at least they get a sense that we’ve written about something we’re passionate about, or even if they don’t give a shit they say ‘hey, this is a catchy song.’ But, to cross that line into soapboxing between songs and being involved in politics; some bands, to me at least, it seems that it’s a mandatory part of being in that position. It really turns my stomach. If we want to get involved in something we just do it – we don’t really want to talk about it that much.

We’ve had a lot of experience in what we sing about, like the politics of the working man, and I feel that’s one environment where we’ve put our money where our mouth is.

You don’t want to do what Dave Mustaine
did in Belfast.* Did you hear about that?

I have, I’ve heard the stories. It’s ridiculous. There’ve been many others like him who have done that, I can tell you. We don’t want to get up there and patronize a country, so that’s why we don’t talk about it.

In Australia, one of your songs was in a commercial for the Brisbane Lions Football Club. Your songs have also been in movies, most notably in The Departed. Does that seem to go against the grain for a punk band or do you embrace that?

We’ve never really fed into the punk “mainstream” – when we were starting out playing one of the all-ages punk rock matinee shows, and we had a 7” single called "John Law" extolling the virtues of an honest neighborhood cop who knows people on the street and works the beat – does what a police officer’s supposed to do. We wrote it because it seemed like every time we played a show there was a band that had a song about killing the police or ‘fuck the police’, so we were like 'let’s write about the other side of the coin!' We’ve always been like ‘Oh, is that what you’re supposed to do in punk rock? Well, let’s do the opposite.’ But on the other hand, if you look at what we’ve been involved in, we pick our spots. We’re sporting fans. If sports like AFL want to use our stuff, then we’re all for it. We’ve been involved with the Boston Red Sox [baseball team], the Boston Bruins [hockey team], played before a Glasgow Celtic [football] game... It’s something we do because we’re passionate about sports. Whether that’s punk rock, I dunno, but that’s what we are. I think it is, you know.

Even with movies we’re kind of picky. We’ve been asked to be in a lot of movies that we’ve said no to, because we thought the movies would suck. They did suck. But you know, with commercials, you don’t see us in shampoo commercials and stuff like that [laughs]. All the things we’ve been involved in are things we like. We’ve had huge offers from beer companies to sponsor the band, and we’ve been like ‘Well we don’t drink that beer, so no.’ I feel like, technically a lot of the stuff might not be punk rock but I think we’ve towed the line of ethics in our mind pretty well.

To be in a band and get new fans, and not have to sell your soul to mainstream radio and all that bullshit, or MTV, which doesn’t even matter now anyway, we always felt we were taking a different path and tried to do things in a different way. I think it’s easier to control your own destiny when you’re involved in movies and sports instead of being part of the mainstream music machine.

You mentioned having offers from beer companies – what beer do you drink and will you be looking forward to the beer in Australia?

[laughs] I’m personally not a drinker. I come from a long line of failed drinkers that ended six feet under because of it. I think the beer of choice in the band is good ol’ American brand Budweiser, but um, I think the Tooheys or something that’s always on our rider down there? There are a couple of guys in the band that try to fill their suitcase with Australian beer but I can’t remember the brand! It would have been a good chance to get a sponsorship from that beer if I knew who it was! [laughs]

It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you Ken, all the best for your new album and Australian tour! 

Thank you, and we’re looking forward to seeing you all Down Under very soon!

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Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine incited a near riot after screaming out “This one’s for the cause” over the PA between a song while playing in Belfast in the early '90s. He admitted later in his biography that he had no idea about the troubles in Northern Ireland between the Catholics and Protestants and the political significance of his statement at the time.