No Stranger to Fate:

Dave King of Flogging Molly

by Jessica Hopsicker

I received my copy of Whiskey on a Sunday from a co-worker during my weekend job as an adult video store clerk. When I wasn't working seven days a week or drinking on my downtime, I finally had time to watch the disc. It was then my stomach flipped, "I'm gunna interview these guys," I thought to myself as I sprawled out on the futon completely entrapped by the band's full length documentary. The pre-interview jitters I took as a sign, that perhaps it wasn't some sort of childish delusion, interviewing a band that I've loved for years. Sure enough, here it is.

Dave King, the Dublin born singer/songwriter/guitarist of the punk infused Celtic menagerie known as Flogging Molly, is no stranger to fate himself. There was a time he almost went down the same path as his some of his friends who joined the IRA, but King figured there was a different means to bring about social change. Partially due to his upbringing, he found it through music. But his career didn't start right off as the enduring band so many of us have come to love. In fact, the traditional music path had been something he wanted to escape. The mandolin was replaced with an electric guitar and he joined up with Motorhead guitarist Eddy Clark in the late 80's group Fastway. It proved be the proverbial rags to riches scenario; until he started do his own thing.

He found himself in LA cleaning the clubs he used to play, plugging away on an acoustic. Then he met the young fiddle player Bridget Regan. It was then the music, as if by unforeseen circumstance, was brought back to his parents' home in the old English Barracks of Beggar's Bush with the fiddle and tin whistle. Much like the rest of the seven-piece ensemble he happened upon her by chance. They became part of Dave King's musical movement with hardly an audition. Melding the traditional Irish Folk instruments with the driving elements of punk rock wasn't an easy feat. For years, every Monday night they played flogging away at small LA pub called Molly Malone's, and there couldn't have been a more apt name for such an outfit.

I caught up with King in Ireland , where he and his band mates were working on songs for yet another album. He was an exceedingly pleasant guy to talk to even though I interrupted his morning routine of running errands. Or, I think it was morning there. Either way I couldn't think of a better way to spend my afternoon.

Jess Hopsicker: I've been a fan for a while.

Dave King: Oh, thank you. Thanks very much.

JH: So you're in Ireland now?

DK: I am, yes. Just writing some new songs and we're going to be heading back to America on Monday, and do a little bit more roading and get ready for the Warped tour.

JH: Are you pretty much used to such a strict touring regime?

DK: At this point yeah. I mean, we've been touring for quite a while and we just got back from Europe where we had a few dates that went very well. You have a few weeks to work on some new stuff and take some time off with the family and then you're back out again, you know? We are a live touring band, you know?

JH: What do you look forward to upon coming home?

DK: Ohhh, all the things that are broken down in the house. All the things that stopped working while you were away. But really, it's just nice to be back home. I like the quietness. I find that like, away from the road, I like to lead a very quiet life. You know, go down to the local pub, hang out with local people, take it mellow, cook at home, read a lot. Just catch up on things, you know.

JH: Looking back, what was the epitome of a Flogging Molly show and has there been a time when you felt it wasn't worth it?

DK: Oh, no. Our live show is the pinnacle of what we're all about. It's the combination of the people who've followed us for years and us doing what we do best. When it all comes together it's unbelievable.

JH: I gathered from one of the quotes from the Whiskey on a Sunday DVD that if you don't leave a Flogging Molly show sweaty, covered in beer, and don't have some sort of spiritual awakening, it isn't your thing.

DK: I don't know what kind of spiritual awakening that would be, I don't know. Maybe spirits awakening, I don't know. I mean a lot of songs are about life and hardship and it's time to celebrate that at our live shows. So, you know, there's no airs or graces. It's all like real stuff, you know?

JH: All right, what do you feel would be the best song that you've written?

DK: Oh, Christ. That is a very, very difficult question because I'm in the middle of writing a whole lot of new songs and it's hard for me to even think about the songs I've written. God, I have no idea. That's a very good question actually. I wouldn't have a clue, I really wouldn't. Every song means something different to me. Every song has a special place. It reminds me of certain things and you know, and probably in a year's time when I go back and listen to the album, it will be very interesting. It'll be a nice map and a guide of where I was in my life at that particular time. But I don't have a favorite song, no I don't. What's yours?

JH: Oh, yeah, that is a good question.

DK: I have no idea, I really don't.

JH: Yeah, ever since I found out about the interview, I've been listening to Flogging Molly before I wake up, before I go to bed, research, you know.

DK: So where are you at?

JH: Holland Patent. It's a small town in Upstate New York.

DK: Oh, nice one, nice one.

JH: With all the Irish fests up the wazoo this summer, how do you describe the Celtic pride in America ?

DK: Once again, it's a celebration. It's a celebration of hard times. People from Ireland had no direction, unfortunately, but to leave Ireland due to hunger and no work, no anything. I think it's a celebration of triumph that America is such a great country for people of ethnicities to thrive in. Ireland is a great example of that. It's lovely to see people have been aroused and are having a great time to fiddles and accordions and mandolins. At one point, music was all the Irish people had, and to see people from different nations and different countries and different backgrounds enjoying that, it's a wonderful thing.

JH: I'm excited. If you weren't fronting such a band, what would you be doing?

DK: Oh Christ. Probably painting houses. I mean, I used to paint houses, drive trucks, do stuff like that. What I've always wanted to do was just find myself and to discover myself and to do the best that I can with what I did with myself. That's been writing music. I want to be a father. I want to be a good father. I just want to do the best I can, you know? But what would I be doing, God knows.

JH: You think you're getting there, though? You know, doing the best you can?

DK: Yes, I think so. I'm trying to look at each scenario the best way that I can. Look at it the best way that I can. I take in all around me and put it towards my writing and hopefully I write music and lyrics that I can be proud of. That's most important to me, to write songs and lyrics that I am proud of. Then we see what happens after that, you know.

JH: How much of it would you attribute to luck, good or bad, that got you where you are?

DK: Oh absolutely, luck has so much to with it. Meeting various people, being in the right situation at the right time. Luck is something that you don't see at the time. Luck is something in hindsight that you see. This band has been together since 1997. You can look back at all the luck that we've had and we've been very fortunate and that's why a band like us takes nothing for granted. We walk out on stage and there are people there. We're going, "Christ, there's still people coming, this is great!" But a lot of it is luck. Anybody who thinks that luck isn't involved in what they do; it's a big part. You can say the luck of the Irish maybe, but I don't know.

JH: Yeah.

DK: We've actually had a summer here that it's pissed rain every day. There's not much luck in that.

JH: Oh man. We've been in a drought.

DK: It's rained here every day. But you know.

JH: Do you think it would be harder to pack up and leave home nowadays?

DK: I've been on the road for a long time and when people have started families or want to have families; it's always a natural thing that people want to spend more time at home. All we're focused on right now is the Warped tour. Finishing the Warped Tour and producing the best album that we possibly can. That's the most important thing to us right now. That's what we're here to do and that's what we're doing and we just want to do the best that we can. We've been working over in Ireland now on and off for the last month or so and we've been sitting in the garage writing songs and some the songs are a lot different from what Flogging Molly would be accustomed with. Lyrically, maybe not, but there's a lot of ground being covered in this next album. To me, it's really bringing a lot of traditional music into the twenty-first century and it has all the traditional elements. We're taking chances that I don't think anybody else has ever done.

JH: What possessed you to meld such genres together?

DK: When I heard Bridget playing fiddle it sort of sparked off something in my heart. I've always been involved in other genres of bands, whether it be rock bands or punk bands or whatever, and then I heard Bridget playing fiddle and it was like, it seemed jell-able stuff. It just seems to melt stuff together. There wasn't a huge effort to, shall we say, mangle the two together, because it was very, very easy. Traditional riffs were fitting over what I was writing and it just seemed to be a powerful statement and that's the way we went forward. It wasn't as hard as people would think it was. - I'm gunna do a u-turn right now and hopefully I won't get a ticket or a truck up my ass.

JH: So it also seems that there is an ever-renewing crop of sixteen-year-olds donning Flogging Molly shirts.

DK: Yeah, it's unbelievable. Obviously I spend most of my time in Ireland but every time I got to America or Europe I always see people wearing Flogging Molly shirts. It's overwhelming, it's breathtaking. We started as this band in a little tiny pub in Los Angeles and it's been very good to us. It's very exciting and it's fun.

JH: Did you ever think that it would turn out this way?

DK: Not at all, no way. Did we believe in ourselves? Absolutely we did. Did we believe in the music that we were playing? Absolutely we did. Nobody could tell us to do any different. But did we think it would go this way? Of course not, you know. Of course not.

JH: Yeah, but as luck would have it.

DK: There you go. You go back to that again. I mean there's a lot of that, you know?

JH: I think it was luck that got me this interview.

DK: Hopefully it's good luck.

JH: I think so.

DK: Alrighty then.

JH: Well, I think I've covered all my questions.

DK: Well you did a great job, thanks for calling.

JH: Thank you. Is there anything else we should add?

DK: We're looking forward to the Warped tour and looking forward to being back on American soil again and playing to a wonderful bunch of people, as we always seem to do in America . We're looking forward to it. - I nearly knocked down a little black dog, where you going, move over, get off the road. You have to imagine it, I'm driving down the road, and only one car fit at a time, and it's a small country lane.

JH: Thats too much...

DK: Okay, well until I talk to you again, all the best.

JH: All right. I'll be seeing you at the Irish 2000 in Altamont come September.

DK: Excellent! Nice one. We'll bye-bye. Thanks for calling.