Dropkick Murphys - Interview Vans Warped Tour, 7.16.99 Thanks to Pete Hawkins for filling in and the Dropkick Murphys for doing the interview. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESM: How long has the band been together? Matt: Uhhh....3 years since Janurary '96 ESM: What bands influence you? Matt: Umm....probably like the clash, stiff little fingers, the ramones, wolftones, clancy brothers, like all the like oi bands, like 2nd wave punk, shit like that, like old rock, like chuck berry, the who, the stones, the kinks, ACDC, umm....irish music, some old Boston hardcore. ESM: Who's your favorite band to tour with? Matt: Oh, that's tough man, we played with some our favorites, we've played with agnostic front, the buisness, oxymoron, the ducky boys, uhh, bosstones, we've played with a lot of our favorites, its hard to pick, uhh, agnostic front in europe was really fun cause we caused a lot of trouble. ESM: Who would you like to tour with in the future? Matt: uhhh, well, actually, we are touring with blood for blood, and beerzone, on the east coast, from october through november, I'm really looking forward to that. I would like to tour with or at least open up for ACDC but I don't know how good that would be for us but it would be a dream. Probably Cock Sparrer if that could ever happen. ESM: What's your favorite part about touring? Matt: Seeing other bands, uhh, I love music, seeing other bands fuckin, seein other bands like go into a town and see the people go fuckin nuts, it's such an honor. I've been in bands for years, its really been just strugglin' and shit, but now it's like people are goin fuckin nuts, and it feels so good to see that. ESM: Where's your favorite place to play? Matt: Boston. Then various other places, Dublin, Ireland, London, Amsterdam, Seattle, NYC is always good, and, shit, uhh, the midwest to. ESM: How do u feel about Coney Island High closing down? Matt: It fuckin' sucks, I mean that's a wonderful place, I've seen some great shows there. I mean, I don't know the story behind why is closed down, but it fuckin sucks that these shows are gonna have to go to the big corporate clubs, or the really small unorganized venues, I mean I know there's the pyramid, the continental. Coney Island was like the perfect place, the perfect location. I don't know whats gonna happen how. ESM: Do your irish backrounds really influence your music? Matt: Yeh, I mean I was raised irish catholic, I went to fuckin catholic school, I lived in Germany for a while and played irsih music on the streets, I mean Kenny's family, he got this shit shoved down his throat and he hated it but then he realized sorta liked after a while, then like country music on Rick's side, I mean he's irish, that's a big influence, I mean we just love, fuckin old irsih folk music and stuff, I mean it's tougher than a lot of punk rock. ESM: What's the funniest thing that has happened to you on tour? Matt: Well, it's not so funny, but, about a week ago or less we were in Kansas, and we got to the hotel at around two in the morning, came out around nine, and uh, looked at the van, and everything was fuckin stolen out of it, my whole bag of clothes, gone, Rick's acoustic guitar and some recording shit, gone, our managers laptop computer, all kinds of shit, fuckin, thousands of dollars worth of shit, my cd's, my cd player, yeh, that sucked. Uhh, funny shit, god lots of of funny of shit has happened on tour. Well, ok, here's one in Salt Lake City, we were playing, and these fuckin skinheads, or straight edge kids, whatever the fuck you wanna call 'em, started flippin us off, so we went down after them and were like what the fuck ya know, so we fuckin beat the shit out of a few of them, and they got some of their friends, so it was like Salt Lake City against us. Like they were fuckin straight edge and shit, you know, they're all fuckin mormon down there so its part of their religion not to drink, so they're all fuckin, like, super straight edge. So I found that pretty fuckin hilarious. ESM: How did the video for ten years of service go? Matt: Oh, it was cool, umm, we basically took all these flyers boston hardcore and punk shows from like '81 till like now, and we plastered the whole place with 'em, it was kinda tedious though, cause they had to play the song over and over again, so they ould film us from different angles and then they would piece it all together. It was pretty cool, I kinda like the video. I heard they put it on MTV, uhh, thats cool i guess, I don't think we're cool enough for MTV though. I mean I think it's alright, Matt Pinfield knows his shit but he's a dork. ESM: What do you think about the Warped Tour so far? Matt: Umm, I think they could of picked some better bands. Uh, I don't like rap, I fuckin' hate it, I mean no offense to Ice-T he's the man, but I fuckin' hate his music. Umm, some the cooler bands like bouncing souls, of course agnostic front, H2O, uh, The Living End from Australia, they're fuckin cool shits, and they're fuckin unique too. But some of the other bands all sound the same ya know, they all kinda blend in. I don't know, I think I like last years line up better. ESM: What happened with Mike McColgan? Matt: Oh, our old singer, well, this was his first band ever, and uh, he was a union pressman for the Boston Globe newspaper before this and he was makin big money, and on the road he realized he wasn't really cut out for this lifestyle, I mean you don't get paid much, your not really livin in the lap of luxary ya know. But he's doin alright, he's probably gonna be a cop or something, and he could do a lot of shit for himself that we really can't. ESM: What should we expect from Dropkick in the future? Matt: Well, we're takin august off, writin some songs. We're probably gonna record in december. Put out an album by may, or june. Umm, look for an acoustic album on our label, we're doin an album of all folk songs, that'll be on me and kenny's label, flat records. Uh, we're gonna be touring the U.S. in october and november, its gonna be called uh, the kids wanna riot tour. It's gonna have blood for blood, maybe the swingin' utters I'm not sure, this band bombshell rocks from sweeden, ummm, beerzone from englan, they're fuckin awesome, we're just non-stop touring. We're goin to the UK in december, and we're probably doin Japan and Australia, and then another American tour. We're takin december off, recording, whatever ya know. We're just gonna be keepin busy. ESM: Well, I guess that's it. Matt: cool, thanx. ESM: Thank you. Dropkick Murphys - Interview Vans Warped Tour, 7.16.99 Thanks to Pete Hawkins for filling in and the Dropkick Murphys for doing the interview.
