Like Boston’s Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly play a rollicking hybrid of Celtic folk music and rock and roll that appeals to young punks and aging pub denizens alike. The two-time Warped Tour veterans just released their second album, Drunken Lullabies (Side One Dummy), and they’re on a national headlining tour that will bring them to Axis next Thursday.
"Right now, we’re getting a real cross-section of people at our shows," says Dave King, the LA band’s Dublin-born frontman. "We get a lot of young kids down front, we get the punks, we get older people in the back. The Warped Tour was a great thing for us. The music has the energy, you know? Punk, to me, is an attitude. It’s not just a musical style. One man and an acoustic guitar can be as punk as a band with bass, drums, and guitar. It’s just how it’s put across. We get kids who go, ‘Oh yeah, my dad had your CD and I got into it that way,’ and vice versa. I love that."
Taking his cues from the Pogues and the Dubliners, King formed Flogging Molly five years ago with a motley crew of musicians he met at an Irish pub in LA. Like the Dropkicks, the band have seven members; unlike their Boston brethren, they use fiddle as a lead instrument and employ a former pro skateboarder (Matt Hensley) on accordion. But the most improbable piece of band trivia belongs to King: he was the original lead singer of Fastway, a British pop-metal act whose ’83 debut not only is still in print but is well-regarded by those who remember it. King himself doesn’t discourage fans from checking it out. "It was funny, I was only a kid and I got a phone call to go out to London to do that. It was a great experience. I came to America for the first time. Obviously, without that, I wouldn’t be here right now."
Not that you’ll find any evidence of his secret metal past on Drunken Lullabies. Like the band’s ’00 debut, Swagger (also Side One Dummy), the disc is rowdy at times, introspective at others — and dominated by references to King’s homeland, which he recently visited for the first time since moving to LA a decade ago. The rousing title track starts things off with a barrage of military imagery that adds a dark undercurrent to the music without ruining its overall good-time feel.
"I was born in an army barracks in Dublin, the last British army barracks in the South of Ireland," King explains. "When you’re brought up and your surrounding walls have gunshots in them and soldiers would stick their rifles out or whatever, it leaves a lasting impression on you. When I went back last year, the first thing I noticed is that they’re still there. I mean, here we are in 2002, and whether it’s Israel, Pakistan, or Ireland, we’re still singing into our pints every night. It’s very sad."
The disc isn’t entirely solemn: the band’s repertoire also includes love songs like "May the Living Be Dead (In Our Wake)," raucous drinking anthems ("Swagger"), and old-fashioned sea chanteys ("Cruel Mistress"). One punked-up highlight, "The Kilburn High Road," draws on King’s experience as a young Irishman living in London. "[Fiddler] Bridget [Regan]’s boyfriend was in a play in Dublin about the Irish moving to the Kilburn High Road, which is where I lived when I lived in London. It’s about five individuals who live there and their struggle to get back. They’ll never really get back to Ireland, which is the sad thing. I never got the script, but I wrote my own version of the experience, and it does have a lot to do with that."
The album ends on a bittersweet note with "The Son Never Shines (On Closed Doors)," which conveys the apprehension King felt about seeing his mother again for the first time in ages. "I had no idea what Ireland was gonna be like when I went back after eight years. The anticipation of my mother opening the door when I knocked has haunted me for years. She had taken sick, so I had no idea what she was actually gonna be like, physically or mentally." It’s a chilling moment on disc, but his visit turned out just fine. "I went for about three and a half weeks. It was strange, but it was great seeing my mother and my friends. I never got outside of Dublin because I had so much to catch up on."
Flogging Molly perform next Thursday, April 18, at Axis. Call (617) 262-2437.
