For 25 years, Dropkick Murphys have created infectious rock and roll with a Celtic punch. The band has showcased in finesse in creating anthems for the downtrodden, the underdogs and those just wanting to kick back and party.
With its tenth album Turn Up That Dial, the band is raring for a celebration. After their emotionally heavy 2017 album 11 Short Stories of Pain and Glory, which partially dealt with the opioid crisis, they wanted to create an album that had more positive vibes. “It’s a bombastic sound that I think has been missing,” says drummer Matt Kelly.
“You want to kind of take a step away from being so serious, because we're more of a fun band,” he continues. “You tackle serious issues now and then, but we like to have a good time, to show a good time. After the shit show that was last year, we wanted to keep it lighthearted.”
The album celebrates the importance of music and the bands that shaped everyone’s formative years. “They say that the music you got into as a teen and during those hormonal changes and all that, that we all went through puberty, leaves like a mark on your soul,” says Kelly. “I still listen to probably a good quarter of the music I listened to back then. They're still some of my favorite bands, like Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, ACDC, Agnostic Front, whatever.
“When I first joined the band a year into its existence, we'd be driving around in the van, listening to anything from The Popes to the Macc Lads to The Business to the Swingin’ Utters, to The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, Cockney Rejects, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, even maybe more obscure stuff like the Black 47, and bands like Border Whiskey. All of those bands have had a big influence on our side, whether it be from the actual musical style, or whether there may be a lyrical approach, or attitude when it comes to basically say, ACDC and Motorhead.
“Those are institutions, and I think we sort of try, and I don’t know if we'd model ourselves directly after bands like that, but with those bands, you know what you're going to get, and I think with Dropkick Murphys, you know what you're going to get.”
The Shepherd Express caught up recently with Kelly by phone about the band’s latest music.
What does it mean to be releasing the band’s tenth album?
Obviously, it's a nice round number, 10, bit of a milestone. This actually also coincides with the 25th year of the band’s existence. That's kind of funny. when you're in the midst of it, you're not shooting for, OK, we got to get to our 10th album, so let's write a couple more. Holy cow. It’s almost as if I think someone pointed it out to us that we weren't, I don’t think we were a thousand percent conscious that yes, this is our 10th album. It’s pretty cool. Having been involved in all of them, looking back on them, again, it seems pretty crazy that this has been a 10, you know.
What songs most shaped the direction of the album?
I think probably I’d say the song “Smash Shit Up.” It was one of the earlier ones that we put together in playing that live and stuff too, even before it was put out. I think that might’ve been because it has the melody and dynamics of banjo and accordion, those sorts of acoustic instruments, but it also has the crunch of a Les Paul plugged into a Marshall 800 for JMP. It's an aggressive song even though it’s a melodic song. I think that kind of set the tone for the album, fast paced, it’s fun and aggressive. I think that might've been a good gateway song, if you will, to set the tone.
In the last few years, Kevin Rheault has taken over bass duties from Ken Casey, freeing the latter to roam up front with singer Al Barr. How has that affected the band’s dynamic?
Kevin is from the same town as I am, from Webster. We grew up together playing music since he was 11 and I was 12 years old. We were in a band until I was 21 and he was 20, I think. He’s probably, if not the, one of the best musicians I've ever known. He is accomplished in that he's an incredible guitarist. He's a phenomenal singer. He’s a great drummer. He could always play the bass very well, but since touring with the band, he’s the second-best bass player I’ve ever played with. He also builds amps, which some of the guys use on stage.
The rhythm section has never been tighter, and Ken's a natural front man. So having him up there with Al in the frenzy kind of dynamic they have up there, it's pretty cool. I think they whip the crowd into a frenzy. Al has boundless energy, and Ken has a lot of authority up there. It’s been it's a great progression, I think.
The band work on the album and shifts last year. What was that experience like working around covid precautions?
We worked in the vocals in shifts. So, the “Smash Shit Up” single and the “Mick Jones Nicked My Pudding” single both were released in early 2020, and those weren’t done in the same sessions as the rest of the album. However, we felt those songs were the strongest at the time and the most ready. We completed the vocals and all the bits and pieces of those songs before the whole shutdown happened. So, it was done and dusted by the end of 2019. Those and the two B sides were all set, ready to go by the end of 2019.
What that left was all the vocals, the bagpipes, of all the vocals, including our backup vocals and all the big gang vocals, which I’d typically done. Those backup and gang vocals were done in a big room altogether, same microphone kind of thing. During 2020, studio was all shut down. There was nowhere we could really record to finish the album. We had all these songs musically in the can, but vocally and bagpipes and maybe a couple guitar leads and whistle tracks or something were not finished.
The meat of the songs were done, but oddly, that kind of gave us time to reflect on the lyrics and to really kind of dial them in better. There were a couple minor and major changes done to the lyrics that I think wouldn't have been done without the time and kind of the time for that to kind of marinate in people’s heads. We were listening to the demos of this, the quick, the rough mixes of this stuff. “Maybe I want to put some different vocals here but put it different back here.”
I think it turned out for the better. The song “City By The Sea” I thought it was a really fun song, but I think without all that hindsight, without all of that time, I think the chorus wouldn't have been as good as it turned out to be. Al was recording vocals from a studio up in New Hampshire where he lives, and Ken was doing vocals from a studio down here. So, we got the vocals done.
The backup vocals that James, Tim, Jeff, and I did, Kevin as well, we typically do those together on a microphone. The ambient sound, it just sounds better. Of course, studios have very strict policies about their liability issues. So, they didn't want to have us all together on one microphone. What ended up happening was we were in separate booths at separate times a day and stuff like that, doing individual tracks that they somehow had to make sound like big backup vocals happening at the same time, which is easier said than done. They had to do a lot of kind of studio trickery, and we had to do probably twice the amount of singing that we would have in the studio to get the effect of what we thought was a good sounding backup vocal situation on the songs.
Then for the gang vocals, the big rowdy gang vocal stuff that we usually have about 15, 20 friends in there singing along together in one room on one or two mikes, that obviously couldn't happen. So, they had to do it all in shifts with separate rooms, separate booths and stuff like that, and attaining the right vibe, if you will, took a lot of trial and error. But I think the final product, I think came out great. I think that the album sounds awesome, and it's a bombastic sound that I think has been missing. I think Ted Hutt did a great job in final production.
What were the biggest surprises?
It was great surprisingly to be able to get back in the studio again and finish the damn album. We're all and still are all chomping at the bit to get out and play again. We had done the title track in the practice space sort of acoustically with acoustic guitars and stuff like that.
When we heard that song back after we recorded it with all the electric guitars and stuff … it reminds me of “Supernaut” by Black Sabbath for some reason. It has the same feel as that somehow. It was kind of a sleeper, but then when the final product was like, ‘wow, we’re really happy with this one.’ “Good As Gold” I thought also came out better than the sum of its parts. I think it came out really good, and I'm really happy with the way it came out.
What’s your favorite Milwaukee memory?
Playing at the bar in the front room of The Rave. The little bar, we played there in 1998 with The Business, us, The Service from Milwaukee, and Brass Pack from Madison, and it was a small room, a relatively small place. It only held 200 or 400 people. It was packed to the gills, and it was just absolute Bedlam in there. All the bands were great, and that's my earliest Milwaukee memory. That’s one of my favorite Milwaukee memories was that show. It's just a real blast. Early days, early '98, but good punk and experience there.
The people of the scene there, shooting the breeze with people afterwards and stuff, people are really cool, and they are very welcoming and they're really, really into the band and stuff. So yeah, Milwaukee has always been a bastion of kickassness for us, if there’s such a word.
