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The Dropkick Murphys started out in 1996 playing in the basement of a barber shop. At left is frontman Al Barr.
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Green Energy
Dropkick Murphys bring their Irish punk, working-class roots to Bend's Midtown Ballroom
By Ben Salmon / The Bulletin
Published: November 06. 2009 4:00AM PSTDropkick Murphys frontman Al Barr is driving through a downpour in New Hampshire when he calls The Bulletin to chat about his band's show Sunday night in Bend (see “If you go”).
He's returning home from a pre-tour practice with his Murphys mates, where they worked to get “the rusty wheels back in motion,” Barr said.
Even a band that's been doing one thing (and doing it well) for more than a dozen years has to put in some good, solid rehearsal time every now and then.
“It's like riding a bike,” Barr said in his medium-thick New England accent. “We have played the songs thousands of times, so a few run-throughs and we're good to go. But you know, you're getting out there and you're asking people to pay money to come see you, and you want to put on a good show and give ‘em their money's worth. So we have some pride, as it were. (We have) some work ethic.”
Pride and work ethic, indeed. Over the course of their 13-year career, the Dropkick Murphys have risen from their basic Irish-punk roots to a rolling, raging, green-clover machine that's one of the best-known Irish-influenced rock bands in the world, thanks in part to their ability to tap into the working-class culture that permeates their home region around Boston.
Of course, churning out good music didn't hurt their cause. The Murphys first grabbed folks' attention in the late 1990s with their catchy, fist-pumping punk rock, and they gained a wider audience earlier this decade with a couple of albums that reached the middle of the Billboard 200 album charts.
So five years ago, the Murphys had a nice, self-sustaining career going. But it was a song on the second of those two albums — 2005's “The Warrior's Code” — that changed things irrevocably for the band.
“I'm Shipping Up to Boston” is based on an old Woody Guthrie poem and buried near the end of “The Warrior's Code.” In 2006, director Martin Scorsese placed the song in his film “The Departed,” which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Then, the song was featured in an episode of “The Simpsons.” And if all that wasn't enough, “Shipping” became the unofficial theme song of the Boston Red Sox' run to the 2007 world championship.
Star Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon even did an Irish dance to the song in the middle of Fenway Park's baseball diamond after the team clinched the American League East division title. He did the same during the post-World Series victory parade as the band played along on a flat-bed truck.
And with that, the Dropkick Murphys' place in history was also clinched.
Since, this once-underground band, which began playing in the basement of a barber shop, has seen its audience explode in numbers and shift in demographic. The hardcore fans are still loud and proud, but in recent years, they've had to knock Doc Martens with a new breed of Dropkick devotees.
The band is aware of this, but Barr said their “all for one, one for all” ethos extends beyond the Murphys' core group of supporters.
“There was kind of a purist mentality in the old days of the kind of fan that listened to us, and nowadays, it's like someone who listens to any kind of music might also have one of our CDs,” he said. “So it is interesting, and it's cool. Everybody's welcome. We're not standing at the door with a piece of paper saying, ‘No you can't come in. You listen to Slipknot.'”
What that means, obviously, is that there are some people in the audience who are there for one reason: to hear “Shipping.” And in a crowd that's as committed and enthusiastic as a Dropkick Murphys crowd, those people will stick out like a sore thumb.
“There are some shows where I'll look out and there'll be a person standing motionless in the front, and I'll be like, ‘That guy's waiting for “Shipping.” He's waiting for that song he heard ... on “The Simpsons” or “The Departed” or wherever,'” Barr said. “He's waiting for that song. He knows nothing about the band and he's probably going ... ‘This isn't really my cup of tea but I really like that song. So I'm waiting for that song.'
“And that's kind of a bum-out for us because ... we've never been a band that's about the singles,” he continued. “We've always been about an album and the message that flows through that.”
In those times, Barr recalls the band's stint on the 1999 Warped Tour, where they'd watch a one-hit wonder band — we'll leave out the name here — launch into its huge tune and set the previously catatonic crowd into a frenzy.
“We'd see that and we were like thank God we're not this band that is just reliant on one song, and that our fan base, God bless ‘em, are about more than this one song,” Barr said.
Fortunately for the Dropkick Murphys, their mix of traditional Irish and American folk with punk isn't the kind of thing that any 12-year-old might glom onto after hearing one tune. Instead, it's the kind of music that will challenge most people, and either draw them in for good or spit them back out into a world of mindless pop music.
And that's why the “vast majority” of people at Murphys shows are still longtime fans, Barr said. And those are the ones that the band has always tried to connect with, and will continue to do so, no matter how big they get.
“(We're) not for everybody. There are people that end up loving it and then there's people that are like, ‘Oh, I went and saw that band that had that song and they suck.' And you know what? Hey, that's alright, because not everybody's going to like it,” Barr said. “But my point is that those are the people that are coming to see an hour-and-a-half show and then they wait for that one song. And I'm sorry for you, but I'm about these 400, 800, 1,200 — whatever — people that are out there singing every f--kin' word of every album track.
“We've seen some good days, and we're very grateful for where we are,” he said. “But we also realize that it's our fans that have allowed us to do that, and it's important to stay vigilant and stay current and not take it for granted.”
Ben Salmon can be reached at 541-383-0377 or bsalmon@bendbulletin.com.
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