Interviews
Dropkick Murphys Interview; Vocalist Al Barr Talks About Loss, Drug Addiction and ’11 Short Stories of Pain and Glory’ [w/ Audio]
As part of a promotion tour for their upcoming new album, we sat down with Al Barr from Boston punks the Dropkick Murphys to chat about the inspiration behind their new record 11 Short Stories Of Pain And Glory.
In town to promote their upcoming new album 11 Short Stories of Pain & Glory, we had the great pleasure of chatting with Dropkick Murphys vocalist, Al Barr. In London as part of a press and promotional tour we spoke at length about loss, drug addiction and the band’s ripping new album.
Barr: Yeah, we just got here last night about 11:30, so yeah we just flew in from Berlin, Germany and we were in Paris, France the day before that so were here on our press tour.
Congratulations, I would be painfully jet lagged just from what youāve said, just from Germany to Paris, all of that, that would have killed me!
Barr: Well, weāre used to it, you know what I mean? This is what we do, I mean, you know, you get tired but thatās kinda the nature of the beast and weāre here for such a short time that actually if I was here for 3 or 4 days I would get used to the time here, but then I would have a harder time getting back home but weāre leaving tomorrow already so I should be able to slide right back into U.S. times.
Thatās always a bonus. Now the first big question, I want to talk about the upcoming album. This is the first one youāve recorded away from Boston, it was in El Paso, I believe? What was the motivation to leave your home town and do it literally out in the sticks?
Barr: Well you see, weād killed somebody and we wanted to get out of town so it was important that we had things calm down for a while, it was a perfect cover… and to record a record. No, every record weāve done, donāt check around for that story that didnāt happen, every record that weāve done weāve done in or around Boston and, which has been great, because itās always nice to be home but the problem ends up being youāve always got your foot in your other life as well so thereās always, youāre not ever in the womb if you will, youāre only in the womb for those few hours whilst youāre at the studio then youāre stepping back into your other life, and my other life is my wife and my 3 children and so then thereās that whole period of when youāre kinda moving, youāre moving through the purgatory back into that other life then back into the purgatory of the womb of the creativity again.
What my point is that thereās all these interruptions so youāre never having a complete stream of creativity because youāre always interrupting it with itās 6 oāclock and I gotta go home or Iāve gotta meet somebody or I told my son Iād take him to the movies or you donāt really need me as youāre doing guitar parts. This way we got out to the desert and we were away from our comfort zone and, I think, we were all kinda nervous about how it was gonna go. Once we got out there and we realised that we were 30 miles away from anywhere, it was kinda magical, that sounds kinda wonky but it was, it was really kinda magical that what happened when we were there was having never done it that way, being all together, having our meals together, just always being together until we would go to sleep for a while at night then youād role out of bed and literally walk a few hundred yards and youād be in the studio again. It never felt like you left the project so that was completely different from anything weāve done before and I think that is definitely reflected on this record.
Check out the song “Paying My Way”
Now of course you were away from your family for a long time and as I understand it there was very little reception or difficulty staying in contact. Did that help or have a huge effect on the band whilst recording?
Barr: No, if anything it was one less distraction. You knew that if you walked 10 paces in this direction youād get the Mexican service, all of a sudden that would show up on your phone and youād be like, wait a minute, Iām not in Mexico and I donāt want to get charged for an international call then if you walked 10 paces the other way you had maybe half a bar of whatever El Paso had to offer. There were only a few rooms in the house where you could actually speak to anybody on your phone. At first that freaked me out but then you were like well weāre here to do this so youād end up just leaving your phone in your room and didnāt even take it with you, you were just focused on the task at hand which was just trying to make the best record that weāve ever have and when youāre talking about a 20 year career thatās a challenge in itself to not repeat yourself, trying to be relevant and vital and have something more to say and I feel that weāve done all those things with this.
Now, having listened to the album it was a lot more emotional than anything Iāve heard before. It still had the same Dropkick Murphys feel to it, but do you think being isolated in that way contributed to how the album came out?
Barr: I think that thereās been a lot thatās happened in the last few years in the personal lives of the band weāve had an opioid and heroin epidemic going on in New England right now and its touched the lives of all of our families, my family in particular, I lost my brother-in-law 2 years ago to an overdose, since weāve been over here Kenny lost a family member to an overdose, itās a real epidemic right now back home and itās not being talked about, doctors are just prescribing pain pills to these kids, then the prescription runs out and an $80 oxy on the street or a $100 oxy on the street if you can find it verses a $15 bag of heroin.
Now theyāre cutting heroin with fentanyl and fentanyl is what they give you in the hospital when youāre being put under for an operation and itās 100 times stronger than heroin so thatās what killed my brother-in-law, they mixed the heroin with fentanyl and when my sister found him dead in the car the needle was still full, heād literally just injected the tiniest amount in him and it killed him immediately, and he was a big guy, it just shows you how strong this shit is, it can kill a horse.
I do want to extend my, well Iām sorry that happened to you guys. That brings me onto my next question about the charity foundation that youāve built yourselves and you are supporting. I wonāt try to pronounce it, as I know Iāll get it wrong, but can you tell me a bit about that?
Barr: Yeah, the Claddagh fund. Well the band has always gotten behind our causes in and around Boston then when weāve been on the road weāve had people, for example, a few years ago we flew in from Japan and we started, well the Warped tour had already been going but we had 3 and a half weeks booked so we came from Japan and went right into the Pittsburgh Warped tour and on the way from the airport to the venue to start the Warped tour leg of this tour it was brought to our attention that the local stage hands union was on strike.
Now the Dropkick Murphys are all Boston musician union members so we were not going to cross that picket line so when we got there we went right into Kevin Lymanās office and said Kevin, Kevinās a friend of ours, so we said Kevin I hope you understand that we will not be able to take to the stage today because, as union members, we canāt cross the picket line and he, of course, understood right away but it was one of the heads that was there of picketing that came to us and said actually weād like you guys to go onstage and if you could wear our shirts and bring some attention to the cause that might help us. So thatās what we did and thereās 10,000 kids in front of the stage and we remember they had scabs working the stage and they saw us putting on our local 3 shirts and one of the guys tried to rip the shirt off of all people Kenny and thatās the one guy in the band you donāt want to touch. So I look over and see Kenny taking a poke at the guy and squaring up and the guy pussed out right away which was a good thing because we were coming at him next. Then we took the stage and brought some attention to what was going on, we said that make sure on your way out you honk and wave to those guys picketing out there, you know theyāre the local stage hands here in Pittsburgh and theyāre getting screwed by all these clubs that donāt want to use them and donāt want to pay them, they donāt want to give them their health benefits and that aināt right.
A week later they called to tell us theyād won all their concessions and that the strike was done and they were all going back to work and they tried saying that we had a big part in it, but we wouldnāt take any of that credit but we felt honoured to be able to help when we could and thatās always been our mind-set.
Back in 2009, as our popularity grew, we saw more opportunity where we could use the power of the band to do some good. Weāve always been an approachable band, weāve been the band that someone could walk right up to and talk to. Weāre not this band that closed itself off from our fans. Itās like weāve put a tip jar on stage, well we donāt really put a tip jar on stage, but itās almost if we will itās set up with our merch every day and itās our way of bringing attention to veterans causes, especially right now, recovery is one of the biggest things weāre getting involved in and because of the epidemic right now at home so it just made sense that, as our fans are so generous and so giving and caring and weāre such a family based band, that we establish a charitable arm of the band and thatās what the Claddagh is.
So how can people donate to this charity? How can I get people in England for example, have we got the website?
Barr: You can go to the Claddagh fund website you can find a link to it on our Facebook, you can find a link to it on our website itās not hard to find. Weāve established this and thereās a chapter in New York City now, thereās a chapter in Philadelphia and itās catching on. Itās an amazing thing – when the Boston marathon bombing happened, I hope Iām not jumping your questions here, but when the Boston marathon bombing happened we were on tour in California and we wanted to get back to Boston immediately of course. It was our gut reaction, the knee jerk reaction was to get on a plane and not play that night and get home then, on reflection, we said what the hell are we gonna do back there when we could do good out here and bring the healing power of music and keep that going.
What we did do right away for Boston was to put t-shirts on sale and it was literally 2 days into the production when the t-shirt company called and said they had to outsource and have people come in at night to work the printing presses because the orders were overwhelming us. In less than a week weād raised over $400,000 and when Iām saying that weāre not talking about the Dropkick Murphys weāre talking about our fans and the outpouring of generosity that came from the world. It was unbelievable, it was really inspiring and heartwarming to see, if we didnāt love them already, we loved them now, but we love our fans, theyāre the greatest.
That did sort of answer my next question, but 11 Short Stories Of Pain And Glory, itās, Iāve already said, itās got the sound of the Dropkick Murphys but thereās a level of emotion that, if Iām honest, Iāve not heard before and the one that stands out is ā4 15 13ā, which is about the Boston bombing. Can you tell me anything about the thought process behind that song at all?
Barr: I donāt think consciously any of us, when it happened, said weāre going to write a song about it, the immediate thing was trying to raise money for charity for the need of it by playing our own benefit at the House of Blues then joining some real rock legends on stage at the Garden later on for an even bigger benefit – we were just doing our part where we could.
When we sat down to write this record it was a matter of reflecting what had happened these last few years and obviously that was a big tragic event that happened and we felt being the ambassadors weāve been called of Boston I think we felt the need to address that. In doing so we needed to be really careful that it was done in a respectful and tasteful way that didnāt cheapen any part of it. People needed to know the sincerity of whatās behind this song because this isnāt that long ago and there will be people that lost somebody there that might hear this song or was affected in some way thatās going to hear this song so we wanted to be real careful that we presented it in a respectful way.
Check out the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone”
It did come across incredibly respectful and itās one of my top songs on the album and if Iām honest it sounds a little different from what Iāve heard from you guys before whilst still maintaining the sound that you have. What songs personally for you have hit that emotional level with this new album?
Barr: With this I like āDead End Kidsā a lot, I really like the vocal attack on that with Kenny and I going back and forth. I really like āUntil We Meet Againā, I mean I love the whole record, itās great. In saying that, we recorded enough material to release a second album at the end of this year, so weāve got a whole other album in the quiver so thereās a second part coming as well which will be made up of other songs that you guys havenāt heard yet. I am really, really excited about people hearing those as well as these ones youāre going to hear on 6th January when this record comes out. So thereās a lot in store for the Dropkick Murphys and for fans of the Dropkick Murphys.
Thatās answered my question. Now, you guys have been going for 2 decades now, heading into your third decade so congratulations. Iām going to skip past that and just ask, did you guys ever expect to be at the place you are now? Being able to raise awareness for charities and other issues around the world, did you ever expect this was going to happen?
Barr: No, I donāt think any of us ever expected this. I mean having joined this band 18 years ago and not being an original member but feeling close enough to being an original member, Matt the drummer has got 19 years, Iāve got 18 and Kenny is the founding and original member with the 20 years but, as Kenny told this story, he was a bar tender at Symphony Hall and he kept talking about how he was going to start a band. This guy he worked with had a cover band that played bars said I bet you $50 that you canāt put a band together and open for us by this date, and Ken said Iāll take that bet, so the band started on a bet and that was really what Kenny had intended from the beginning and what itās become today.
When people ask me in the last 18 years what was the greatest moment so far I canāt even begin to tell you because thereās been so many I canāt even begin to wrap my mind around that. All I know is that to be a band that doing music for 35 years that Iāve been doing music and to be able to attach the word carrier to it, thatās pretty cool man because I thought my career was going to be dishwashing or prep-cooking or cleaning toilets or unloading trucks or doing any of the other millions of jobs to play music in the early days. So to be able to pay my rent and to be able to sit here now in London in the Gibson store, I donāt know man the whole thing has just been an incredible journey and Iāve got nothing but gratitude.
One last question, I write for a Canadian website, so when can your neighbours to the North and U.S. expect to see you guys come over and play these new songs for us?
Barr: Well itās funny, you announce the first tour and Facebook was overloaded with people who were excited then the other half were mad that they werenāt coming to their area. All I can say about that is hang on, hang on, because itās only January 2017 and weāve got a whole other 11 months after that and weāre coming out with a second record at the end of that year so youāre going to be tired of us, but weāre going to be everywhere.
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