Flogging Molly

28 March 2008 | 4:55 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

If bands wearing eyeliner and matching outfits excite you… then keep on walking, because Flogging Molly’s blend of traditional folk music and sing-a-long punk rock is about as no frills as it gets. With their new record Float set to drop on March 4th Dennis (Guitar/Vocals) caught up for a chat…

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If bands wearing eyeliner and matching outfits excite you… then keep on walking, because Flogging Molly’s blend of traditional folk music and sing-a-long punk rock is about as no frills as it gets.

With their new record Float set to drop on March 4th Dennis (Guitar/Vocals) caught up for a chat…

Interview w/ Dennis (Guitar/Vocals)

of Flogging Molly (USA)

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By Cameron Chambers



How are you today mate?

Hey man, I’m really good.

I know you guys are in Canada

at the moment, can you tell us a bit about the

“Green 17” tour?

That’s correct, we’re in Montreal

at the moment. We’ve been doing the Green 17 tour for a number of

years coz by the time it’s St Patrick’s Day everyone wants FloggingMolly in their city, ha ha. But every day is St Patrick’s Day

for Flogging Molly!

So yeah, we do these tours every

year and it’s been doing great… every show except one is sold out

so yeah, it’s been great!

Is the St Patrick’s Day date

of the tour going to feature The Dropkick Murphy’s?

No, unfortunately we’ve never

played with the Dropkick Murphy’s on St Patrick’s Day. We’ll

be in Phoenix and they always spend the day in Boston.

You’ve got dates right through

until June listed on your site, how long do you plan on staying on the

road to support the new record Float?

I would say about 2 years solid,

ha ha.

Another pit stop in Australia

has made its way into your itinerary,

what are your memories of your previous Australian shows?

Well, the first time was with Story Of The Year and we’re obviously different kinds of bands.

They’re really nice guys and we had a great time with them but we

definitely saw there was our audience within the crowd.

We met a lot of people that were

like “I love your band, please do your own show”, so we did our

own tour and it went really well! We’re just looking forward to going

back and doing it again!

Float was recorded in Dave’s

native Ireland. Do you think your environment had a large impact on

how the album turned out?

We wrote the whole thing over

there over the course of about a year, so it was a definite influence…

just from all of us going to the same pub, living in the same house

and experiencing the culture and the environment.

It had a definite influence, but

to put it into words… well, the music will do the talking a lot better

than any words.

Previous Flogging Molly records

would have two distinct types of songs, whereas Float seems to have

struck a healthy balance between your punk and folk elements within

each track. Is that something you had been consciously working towards

or was it just a case of your song writing evolving over time?

The latter was definitely the

case and maybe what I was alluding to earlier… that was the influence

of the environment right there.

I’ve always been intrigued

as to how you guys actually write your songs. Do the standard drums,

bass and guitars come first and everyone works around that, or can it

change from song to song?

It can change but for the most

part Dave is the principal songwriter. He comes in with a verse

or a chorus or even a whole song and we just jump on or jump in and

the song goes from there. Sometimes it comes easy but other times it

can be more difficult.

Float marks the first time

that you worked closely with a producer, the person in question being

Ryan Hewitt. Did Ryan have much of influence on the arrangements and

the more traditional aspects of your sound?

He definitely had an influence

on the approach we took to the record. We initially went there for a

week of pre production and he already had some suggestions and ideas.

We had sent him demos of some of the songs and he had taken his own

notes so we just got together and hashed it all out.

He also had a lot of great ideas

of how to actual record the album and just tried different ways to record

certain things, which I think is evident in the record itself.

What had Ryan done previously

that made you want to work with him?

He actually came recommended through

another producer that we wanted. I can’t remember his name but he

had produced some stuff for David Bowie but yeah, I can’t remember his name, ha ha.

Dave wanted to work with

this guy so we contacted him but he couldn’t do it, however he recommended Ryan on the grounds that he was a great engineer and he also produces

records. We’re such a live band so we thought it would be great to

get a guy who can capture that sound for us.

We met him and talked for a bit

and he seemed perfect, so he’s definitely someone we’d like to work

with again.

2008 marks the first year Flogging

Molly have been invited to play at the Coachella Festival. On your site

you mentioned that there are some really heavy restrictions on what

you can do before and after the Coachella dates, care to elaborate on

that?

Well, we can’t play California,

which is where we are from, so that’s really tough. That’s where

the band started out so to not be able to play there on tour is a bummer.

I think people will understand though.

Coachella has a great track

record of putting on a wide variety of different bands. Do you know

who you’ll be sharing the stage with?

I don’t know man, I haven’t

even looked yet, ha ha. I think they have a website for that yeah? Ha

ha

Aside from the huge amount

of hours Flogging Molly lodge on tour, you seem to play a lot of in-stores

and acoustic shows. How important is it for you as a band to keep up

that close contact with your fans?

It’s so important, especially

with the record buying public shrinking, so to be able to go to some

little store and make some racket and meet everyone afterwards and just

talk and hang out is a blessing.

We’re fortunate to do it and

we like doing it. It’s a different kind of experience and I think

you put it really well… it’s a different way to get in touch with

our fans.

What would we find on a Flogging

Molly rider?

On our rider? Ha ha

Yep. You’ve got an army of

alcoholic fans down here who’d like to know.

Ha ha, nice.

I’m actually looking at it right

now. We have two or three cases of Guinness, a couple of cases

of Coronas, a bottle of Jameson, a bottle of vodka and

two cases of water.

Flogging Molly has had more

than a few songs licensed to films and TV shows. If you could have any

one of your songs used for any film, what would it be and why?

Wow! That’s such a good question…

I’ve never even thought of that! I might have to get back to you on

that one. Actually… Gangs Of New York and we’d use the song Drunken Lullabies.

Good answer man.

That’s about all we have time for Dennis, is there anything else you’d

like to add?

No, that’s it. We’re just

looking forward to coming to Australia again and we’re all talking

about. I’m just excited to play some shows and taking in some… I

like VB and I can’t remember the other beer down there?

Coopers?

Yes! I’ll be having a few of

those for sure! Ha ha

Excellent, we’ll see you

in April!





For more info head to www.floggingmolly.com or www.myspace.com/floggingmolly