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22 December 2023
THERE WAS ONE REASON, AND ONE REASON ALONE, WHY I WENT TO WARPED TOUR THIS YEAR: FLOGGING MOLLY. SURE, THERE WERE TONS OF GREAT BANDS, BUT NONE CAN GUARANTEE ME AS GOOD A TIME AS THOSE BASTARD SONS (AND DAUGHTER) OF IRISH PUNK. THEY\'VE NEVER DISAPPOINTED, ON STAGE, OR IN AN INTERVIEW. DEBBIE AND I GOT TO SIT DOWN WITH THREE OF \'EM: GUITARIST DENNIS CASEY, ACCORDION PLAYER MATT HENSLEY, AND MANDOLIN/BANJO PLAYER BOB SCHMIDT. READ ON TO FIND OUT ALL THE IMPORTANT FACTUAL INFO I FORGOT TO ASK SINGER DAVE KING LAST TIME I TALKED WITH THEM.
Vinnie Baggadonuts: Okay. First, if you could go around and say your names and what you play, that’d be great. It’ll make this a lot easier to transcribe.
All: (laugh)
Matt Hensley: I’m Matt Hensley. I’m the accordion player.
Dennis Casey: I’m Dennis. I play guitar.
Bob Schmidt: And I’m Bob. I play the mandolin.
VB: Right on. Listen, the first question I have for you guys is kinda retarded, but, do you guys get to do laundry on Warped Tour?
All: (laugh)
DC: Yes, we do.
VB: Do they do it for you?
BS: Nah. On our days off we go find a laundromat.
MH: They will do it for you if you drop it off in the morning. You just take your bag and give it to the laundry people, and they’ll bring it back to you at the end of the day. But I’ve lost so many socks and t-shirts that way.
All: (laugh)
VB: Do you get much time off between shows? Or does traveling consume most of those days off?
DC: It seems like traveling has been taking up those days off.
VB: Do you get a chance to rehearse at all between shows?
MH: We’re on the road so much, playing the songs, that we don’t really need to. We’re on tour seven months out of a year, most of the time.
BS: Yeah. If you haven’t got the songs down by now, you’re never gonna get them.
All: (laugh)
VB: When is the new album coming out?
DC: September 14.
VB: Are there any big stylistic differences between Drunken Lullabies and this new record?
BS: There are some departures-- small ones.
DC: Yeah.
MH: I think it’ll be our best record, easily.
DC: There’s a different producer, too.
MH: You’re definitely going to hear the Irish melodies throughout the record, but we veer off a few different directions, stop a few different places.
VB: And you guys will be pushing it on your Punk Voter tour this Fall?
DC: Yeah.
VB: It’s kind of a Sideonedummy showcase, too, isn’t it?
BS: Absolutely. We’ll be traveling along with a couple of Sideonedummy bands.
VB: How did you guys get hooked up with the Punk Voter aspect of it?
MH: I think we got hooked up directly through Fat Mike [owner of Fat Wreck Chords]. He got in touch with us about putting a few songs on the compilations, and that was that. It’s dealing with a pretty important issue, so we’re glad to be a part of it.
VB: So, are you all pretty politically active?
DC: No.
MH: Speaking for myself, I don’t think we are. We don’t try to be a very political band. But this situation is so fucking retarded that we have to be a part of it. We’re happy to be a part of getting Bush the fuck out of office.
VB: Do you guys have any family members over in Iraq?
BS: I have friends over there.
DC: Yeah, friends.
VB: Are you able to keep in touch with them to hear what it’s like over there?
BS: Yeah. We get emails from them, sometimes.
MH: We get emails all the time from people in some of these other countries--
BS: The band gets a ton of them.
MH: --people telling us they love hearing our music because it gives them faith and keeps them sane.
VB: Obviously, you guys haven’t played in Iraq. But when you play in these other countries, have you noticed your audiences getting bigger and bigger? I’ve seen you in America a bunch of times, and each time the crowd seems bigger.
DC: I think it’s happening in Europe now, because we’ve spent a lot of time there.
MH: It’s definitely starting to grow, you know?
VB: Is it different playing there than here?
MH: You know, when I get up on stage and play, I actually don’t feel that big a difference. But when you just get off some airplane in another country and you’re some American guy, I feel a different vibe in that respect just because the way the world is now. I feel like I almost have to apologize every time I go to a different country.
DC: Yeah.
All: (laugh)
DC: One of the things I notice about playing in other countries is they seem to be more relaxed about younger people drinking. I mean, in some places we’d stop on tour, there’d be 15-year-old kids drinking. That was different.
All: (laugh)
VB: You do have a lot of young fans. Do you try and play mostly all-ages shows?
BS: We try and do it as much as we can. Some venues won’t let you have alcohol in them if it’s an all-ages show.
VB: But they’ll let you guys have beer, right?
BS: No! Some venues won’t let it on the premises. We can drink on our bus, but we can’t have it with us when we go in to play.
VB: Whoa!
BS: We’ve done a couple of shows like that.
MH: We’re just drinking \"Cokes\" on stage at those shows.
All: (laugh)
BS: It’s pretty easy to bypass, but sometimes it can be a pain in the ass. And that can mean having to just avoid playing an all-ages show if it’s going to be a lot of trouble. We don’t like doing that.
VB: Are you guys involved at all with booking your own shows?
DC: We have a booking agent.
MH: If there’s some sorry-ass club that we hate, though, we make sure to tell the person in charge that we won’t play it again.
All: (laugh)
BS: Yeah. If we went through a venue and saw six kids get choked by some jackass bouncer, we try and avoid that venue.
VB: Last time I chatted with you guys you had yet to play in Ireland. But since then, you have. How was that?
MH: It was a lot of fun. It was also the most nervous I’ve ever been.
VB: Why?
MH: Because I’m an American dude playing their music.
VB: Yeah. You’ll get these hardcore Irish traditionalists standing there with their arms folded, listening to you carefully.
MH: Or just any Irish kid. It’s like, \"Okay, let’s see what these Americans are going to do.\"
All: (laugh)
BS: The music is so common over there, but all of a sudden you have some kids from another country feeding your stuff back to you. I could see it going strange, but it didn’t.
VB: How long have you guys been together?
DC, MH, BS: (in unison) Since \'97.
All: (laugh)
VB: I don’t know how it was in the beginning as far as getting people interested in what you’re doing, but now you have three studio albums, you’re touring--
BS: We had to pay a lot of dues by ourselves, as a band.
MH: When we first booked shows people would be like, \"What kind of band are you?\" And we’d say, \"Well, we’re kind of this, kind of that, we have a couple of weird instruments.\" It was hard to get in the door. People were kinda like, \"That sounds like shit. No one’s gonna back it up.\" We’d play for less money than we should have, and, correct me if I’m wrong, Bob, but we knocked \'em dead! They’d have us back, and slowly we’d try and get more and more work.
BS: I don’t think it was our goal to ever be a big band or anything, so we were never really put off by that stuff. I mean, when you looked at it on paper, it looked pretty ridiculous.
MH: (to Bob and Dennis) Remember when we went to Vegas? It was right in the beginning. We went to a music convention, and someone told us, \"You guys, you’ll never go anywhere.\"
DC: A bar band. They called us a bar band.
All: (laugh)
VB: When you hear stuff like that, from executives and people, and then hear the total opposite reaction out of the kids you’re playing for--
MH: --then you know you’ve done something right.
VB: Did that fuel you along?
MH: Absolutely.
VB: And now it’s so big. Are you able to interact with fans?
BS: We’re not that big.
All: (laugh)
VB: In my head, you guys are, man. With every band I really like, I tell myself they’re huge! I figure if I like \'em, everyone must.
All: (laugh)
MH: Speaking for all of us, this band is not about getting out of touch. We try and keep it real. The second we stop keeping it real is the second it stops being a cool thing to our fans.
BS: And because our fans came up with us along the way, I don’t think we’re perceived as guys who are unapproachable or inaccessible. There’s not really a difference between us and them, anyway.
VB: Yeah. I didn’t mean it in a personal sense. I just wondered if, because the crowds are bigger and there are so many more kids at the shows, if you had enough time to talk to them all.
DC: We’re not that big.
All: (laugh)
BS: I should hope it doesn’t get to that point.
MH: Maybe in 50 years... maybe.
All: (laugh)
BS: I mean, we’re talking 2,000 kids, tops. It’s not like you can’t shake hands with 2,000 kids. Half of those kids don’t give a fuck about shaking your hand, anyway.
All: (laugh)
BS: They’re just like, \"That was great! Thanks, dude. I’m gone!\"
VB: Do you ever see yourselves stopping? Or will you just go until it’s not fun anymore?
DC: I’d like to go until I can’t.
BS: Yeah. I can’t imagine it not being fun anymore, so it’d have to be something that physically debilitates me for me to not do it. Like age, which is not that far off.
Debbie: Aw, hell. There’s so many medicines out there.
VB: So, this is a general question for you, but I’m curious if you prefer playing a club gig, or if being here with other bands you like is more fun.
MH: It’s so different, I really couldn’t choose. There are good things and bad things about both. For us as musicians, it sucks that you only get to play for a half-hour. I start to feel good just as they tell us it’s time to stop.
DC: Yeah.
All: (laugh)
MH: It’s just really quick. They make us sweat, and then we’re done. But every day you can see 50 bands if you want to. It’s pretty cool. Like a big summer camp, but with music.
D: I’ve seen you guys play a few times, and when you do smaller venues you’re able to interact with the crowd more, and get them riled up. At a venue like this, is it harder to do? Like you said, you only get so much time.
MH: Yeah. We hear that a lot from kids, about them really getting into it, and then the set’s over. But I still feel the vibe from the crowd.
VB: Well, you got the last slot on your stage tonight. Couldn’t you just maybe carry over for an extra 15 until you’re good to go?
BS: We may sneak an extra tune or two in. The last bands get a little more leeway. Of course, half the kids have passed out by then.
All: (laugh)
DC: And the crew wants to start breaking down.
VB: So, did you ever imagine it’d be like this? Playing for the places and people you’ve played, seeing the things you’ve seen?
BS: No.
DC: I was 35 when I joined the band, and I was painting houses up until then, so--
VB: Man, I wouldn’t have thought you were 35 now.
All: (laugh)
DC: For me, I’d waited a long time. But it finally happened.
BS: I didn’t think it would translate into this kind of scale. I mean, back in the beginning, when we were just sitting around playing at Molly Malone’s, if someone would have said, \"In five years, you’re going to be playing for this many thousands of people,\" we’d have been like, \"Come on, dude. It’s great music, but people aren’t going to get it.\"
All: (laugh)
DC: I’ll never forget the time he (points to Bob) and I were driving to a rehearsal for one of our bigger U.S. tours. He had to quit his job, and he had one of the better jobs of anyone in the band. We were talking about how hard it’s going to be.
MH: And how you have to take that first step.
DC: Yeah.
MH: I mean, that first tour, we didn’t make any money. Honest to God, four or five tours, and we hadn’t made any money. To get to one of the shows in New York, I remember having to pitch in gas just to get to the gig.
All: (laugh)
MH: I’d call my wife and she’d ask, \"How’s it going?\" So I’d just say, \"It’s going great, honey. We’re kicking ass!\"
All: (laugh)
VB: But now you can be more truthful, and say, \"You know what, honey? We actually did kick ass tonight.\"
MH: Oh, yeah. Now, it’s easy to tell those stories and laugh about it. But back then, I’d have never told those stories.
All: (laugh)
VB: And is it easier to slide on some beer tabs now, instead of having to pay them yourselves?
BS: Well, now it’s just part of the deal. You get so much beer when you roll into town. It’s like a contracted deal. Of course, we go out to pubs, too, and pay for our own.
MH: We also have two or three people who work for us, and they all look out for us, you know? We basically have beer 24/7.
BS: Our manager hooked us up with a deal for this go-round, because most of the venues don’t carry Guinness.
MH: How many cases is it all together?
BS: We got 50 cases when we left L.A., and when it runs out, we’ll just get another 50 more.
MH: Seriously, it’s ridiculous.
D: Do you guys have room on the bus?
All: (laugh)
D: Seriously, I can carry boxes, heavy things.
VB: He’ll do all your laundry.
MH: Well, we travel light. We have our own traveling posse, so there isn’t much room.
D: I can sleep under things.
All: (laugh)
VB: Well, I’m done. Is there anything else you want people to know, about the record or anything? I haven’t heard it yet, so--
DC: We haven’t either.
VB: Really?
DC: We’re mixing it now.
BS: This was a different way to make an album for us. We’ve typically just gone in, played it live, and fixed a couple mistakes. This one, we took more sweetening, and thought about the sounds and parts and textures a lot. Just in that way alone, this album’s very different from what we’ve done before.
DC: There’s a song on the new Warped Tour compilation.
VB: Yeah! I heard that.
DC: The same guy produced that. So, the album’s gonna be a little like that.
VB: Did it take a lot to get you off the road to record it?
BS: Yeah. They pretty much had to drag us off the road.
DC: Yeah.
All: (laugh)
BS: That’s how we make our living, though, so when we’re not on the road, the checks stop rolling in. We’re not selling two million albums, you know?
MH: You’ll never see one of us on an episode of Cribs.
All: (laugh)
D: Just get Jay-Z to guest on a couple tracks or something.
All: (laugh)
DC: You think?
BS: We got Lucinda Williams to guest star on a track.
VB: Oh, really?
BS: We were really jazzed about that.
VB: Awesome. Well, thanks again, guys.
D: Are you gonna ask them about the dogs?
VB: You wanna ask them? I asked the laundry thing.
D: Okay, guys. This’ll be your last question. We ask everybody this: do dogs have lips?
BS: Definitely. Because I generally don’t eat animals that have lips, like cows and pigs. And I would never eat a dog.
VB: Damn! That was fast.
DC: I don’t know. (to Matt) Do dogs have lips?
MH: Heck yeah, man. Angus has some big-ass lips.
VB: (dismayed) But don’t lips pucker?
MH: I have a French bulldog, and I have a picture of him back on the bus. That motherfucker has huge-ass lips.
All: (laugh)
DC: I don’t know, man. I never thought about that.
BS: Well, what would you call them if they don’t have \"lips\"?
VB: Flaps!
BS: But have you ever seen a dog drink? I mean, when they’re real thirsty and tired?
MH: Or when they smile?
BS: Yeah! Dogs smile!
VB: That’s one of those grey areas.
All: (laugh)
VB: I went to art school. I don’t understand medicine.
All: (laugh)
MH: (laughs) Didn’t you take anatomy class?
VB: I never drew lips on people!
All: (laugh)
BS: That’s the hardest part of the face to draw.
VB: (laughs) Well, I never drew them.
BS: I think you’re letting us in on some deep, dark secrets there.
DC: I think you’ve been outvoted.
All: (laugh)
Vinnie Baggadonuts: Okay. First, if you could go around and say your names and what you play, that’d be great. It’ll make this a lot easier to transcribe.
All: (laugh)
Matt Hensley: I’m Matt Hensley. I’m the accordion player.
Dennis Casey: I’m Dennis. I play guitar.
Bob Schmidt: And I’m Bob. I play the mandolin.
VB: Right on. Listen, the first question I have for you guys is kinda retarded, but, do you guys get to do laundry on Warped Tour?
All: (laugh)
DC: Yes, we do.
VB: Do they do it for you?
BS: Nah. On our days off we go find a laundromat.
MH: They will do it for you if you drop it off in the morning. You just take your bag and give it to the laundry people, and they’ll bring it back to you at the end of the day. But I’ve lost so many socks and t-shirts that way.
All: (laugh)
VB: Do you get much time off between shows? Or does traveling consume most of those days off?
DC: It seems like traveling has been taking up those days off.
VB: Do you get a chance to rehearse at all between shows?
MH: We’re on the road so much, playing the songs, that we don’t really need to. We’re on tour seven months out of a year, most of the time.
BS: Yeah. If you haven’t got the songs down by now, you’re never gonna get them.
All: (laugh)
VB: When is the new album coming out?
DC: September 14.
VB: Are there any big stylistic differences between Drunken Lullabies and this new record?
BS: There are some departures-- small ones.
DC: Yeah.
MH: I think it’ll be our best record, easily.
DC: There’s a different producer, too.
MH: You’re definitely going to hear the Irish melodies throughout the record, but we veer off a few different directions, stop a few different places.
VB: And you guys will be pushing it on your Punk Voter tour this Fall?
DC: Yeah.
VB: It’s kind of a Sideonedummy showcase, too, isn’t it?
BS: Absolutely. We’ll be traveling along with a couple of Sideonedummy bands.
VB: How did you guys get hooked up with the Punk Voter aspect of it?
MH: I think we got hooked up directly through Fat Mike [owner of Fat Wreck Chords]. He got in touch with us about putting a few songs on the compilations, and that was that. It’s dealing with a pretty important issue, so we’re glad to be a part of it.
VB: So, are you all pretty politically active?
DC: No.
MH: Speaking for myself, I don’t think we are. We don’t try to be a very political band. But this situation is so fucking retarded that we have to be a part of it. We’re happy to be a part of getting Bush the fuck out of office.
VB: Do you guys have any family members over in Iraq?
BS: I have friends over there.
DC: Yeah, friends.
VB: Are you able to keep in touch with them to hear what it’s like over there?
BS: Yeah. We get emails from them, sometimes.
MH: We get emails all the time from people in some of these other countries--
BS: The band gets a ton of them.
MH: --people telling us they love hearing our music because it gives them faith and keeps them sane.
VB: Obviously, you guys haven’t played in Iraq. But when you play in these other countries, have you noticed your audiences getting bigger and bigger? I’ve seen you in America a bunch of times, and each time the crowd seems bigger.
DC: I think it’s happening in Europe now, because we’ve spent a lot of time there.
MH: It’s definitely starting to grow, you know?
VB: Is it different playing there than here?
MH: You know, when I get up on stage and play, I actually don’t feel that big a difference. But when you just get off some airplane in another country and you’re some American guy, I feel a different vibe in that respect just because the way the world is now. I feel like I almost have to apologize every time I go to a different country.
DC: Yeah.
All: (laugh)
DC: One of the things I notice about playing in other countries is they seem to be more relaxed about younger people drinking. I mean, in some places we’d stop on tour, there’d be 15-year-old kids drinking. That was different.
All: (laugh)
VB: You do have a lot of young fans. Do you try and play mostly all-ages shows?
BS: We try and do it as much as we can. Some venues won’t let you have alcohol in them if it’s an all-ages show.
VB: But they’ll let you guys have beer, right?
BS: No! Some venues won’t let it on the premises. We can drink on our bus, but we can’t have it with us when we go in to play.
VB: Whoa!
BS: We’ve done a couple of shows like that.
MH: We’re just drinking \"Cokes\" on stage at those shows.
All: (laugh)
BS: It’s pretty easy to bypass, but sometimes it can be a pain in the ass. And that can mean having to just avoid playing an all-ages show if it’s going to be a lot of trouble. We don’t like doing that.
VB: Are you guys involved at all with booking your own shows?
DC: We have a booking agent.
MH: If there’s some sorry-ass club that we hate, though, we make sure to tell the person in charge that we won’t play it again.
All: (laugh)
BS: Yeah. If we went through a venue and saw six kids get choked by some jackass bouncer, we try and avoid that venue.
VB: Last time I chatted with you guys you had yet to play in Ireland. But since then, you have. How was that?
MH: It was a lot of fun. It was also the most nervous I’ve ever been.
VB: Why?
MH: Because I’m an American dude playing their music.
VB: Yeah. You’ll get these hardcore Irish traditionalists standing there with their arms folded, listening to you carefully.
MH: Or just any Irish kid. It’s like, \"Okay, let’s see what these Americans are going to do.\"
All: (laugh)
BS: The music is so common over there, but all of a sudden you have some kids from another country feeding your stuff back to you. I could see it going strange, but it didn’t.
VB: How long have you guys been together?
DC, MH, BS: (in unison) Since \'97.
All: (laugh)
VB: I don’t know how it was in the beginning as far as getting people interested in what you’re doing, but now you have three studio albums, you’re touring--
BS: We had to pay a lot of dues by ourselves, as a band.
MH: When we first booked shows people would be like, \"What kind of band are you?\" And we’d say, \"Well, we’re kind of this, kind of that, we have a couple of weird instruments.\" It was hard to get in the door. People were kinda like, \"That sounds like shit. No one’s gonna back it up.\" We’d play for less money than we should have, and, correct me if I’m wrong, Bob, but we knocked \'em dead! They’d have us back, and slowly we’d try and get more and more work.
BS: I don’t think it was our goal to ever be a big band or anything, so we were never really put off by that stuff. I mean, when you looked at it on paper, it looked pretty ridiculous.
MH: (to Bob and Dennis) Remember when we went to Vegas? It was right in the beginning. We went to a music convention, and someone told us, \"You guys, you’ll never go anywhere.\"
DC: A bar band. They called us a bar band.
All: (laugh)
VB: When you hear stuff like that, from executives and people, and then hear the total opposite reaction out of the kids you’re playing for--
MH: --then you know you’ve done something right.
VB: Did that fuel you along?
MH: Absolutely.
VB: And now it’s so big. Are you able to interact with fans?
BS: We’re not that big.
All: (laugh)
VB: In my head, you guys are, man. With every band I really like, I tell myself they’re huge! I figure if I like \'em, everyone must.
All: (laugh)
MH: Speaking for all of us, this band is not about getting out of touch. We try and keep it real. The second we stop keeping it real is the second it stops being a cool thing to our fans.
BS: And because our fans came up with us along the way, I don’t think we’re perceived as guys who are unapproachable or inaccessible. There’s not really a difference between us and them, anyway.
VB: Yeah. I didn’t mean it in a personal sense. I just wondered if, because the crowds are bigger and there are so many more kids at the shows, if you had enough time to talk to them all.
DC: We’re not that big.
All: (laugh)
BS: I should hope it doesn’t get to that point.
MH: Maybe in 50 years... maybe.
All: (laugh)
BS: I mean, we’re talking 2,000 kids, tops. It’s not like you can’t shake hands with 2,000 kids. Half of those kids don’t give a fuck about shaking your hand, anyway.
All: (laugh)
BS: They’re just like, \"That was great! Thanks, dude. I’m gone!\"
VB: Do you ever see yourselves stopping? Or will you just go until it’s not fun anymore?
DC: I’d like to go until I can’t.
BS: Yeah. I can’t imagine it not being fun anymore, so it’d have to be something that physically debilitates me for me to not do it. Like age, which is not that far off.
Debbie: Aw, hell. There’s so many medicines out there.
VB: So, this is a general question for you, but I’m curious if you prefer playing a club gig, or if being here with other bands you like is more fun.
MH: It’s so different, I really couldn’t choose. There are good things and bad things about both. For us as musicians, it sucks that you only get to play for a half-hour. I start to feel good just as they tell us it’s time to stop.
DC: Yeah.
All: (laugh)
MH: It’s just really quick. They make us sweat, and then we’re done. But every day you can see 50 bands if you want to. It’s pretty cool. Like a big summer camp, but with music.
D: I’ve seen you guys play a few times, and when you do smaller venues you’re able to interact with the crowd more, and get them riled up. At a venue like this, is it harder to do? Like you said, you only get so much time.
MH: Yeah. We hear that a lot from kids, about them really getting into it, and then the set’s over. But I still feel the vibe from the crowd.
VB: Well, you got the last slot on your stage tonight. Couldn’t you just maybe carry over for an extra 15 until you’re good to go?
BS: We may sneak an extra tune or two in. The last bands get a little more leeway. Of course, half the kids have passed out by then.
All: (laugh)
DC: And the crew wants to start breaking down.
VB: So, did you ever imagine it’d be like this? Playing for the places and people you’ve played, seeing the things you’ve seen?
BS: No.
DC: I was 35 when I joined the band, and I was painting houses up until then, so--
VB: Man, I wouldn’t have thought you were 35 now.
All: (laugh)
DC: For me, I’d waited a long time. But it finally happened.
BS: I didn’t think it would translate into this kind of scale. I mean, back in the beginning, when we were just sitting around playing at Molly Malone’s, if someone would have said, \"In five years, you’re going to be playing for this many thousands of people,\" we’d have been like, \"Come on, dude. It’s great music, but people aren’t going to get it.\"
All: (laugh)
DC: I’ll never forget the time he (points to Bob) and I were driving to a rehearsal for one of our bigger U.S. tours. He had to quit his job, and he had one of the better jobs of anyone in the band. We were talking about how hard it’s going to be.
MH: And how you have to take that first step.
DC: Yeah.
MH: I mean, that first tour, we didn’t make any money. Honest to God, four or five tours, and we hadn’t made any money. To get to one of the shows in New York, I remember having to pitch in gas just to get to the gig.
All: (laugh)
MH: I’d call my wife and she’d ask, \"How’s it going?\" So I’d just say, \"It’s going great, honey. We’re kicking ass!\"
All: (laugh)
VB: But now you can be more truthful, and say, \"You know what, honey? We actually did kick ass tonight.\"
MH: Oh, yeah. Now, it’s easy to tell those stories and laugh about it. But back then, I’d have never told those stories.
All: (laugh)
VB: And is it easier to slide on some beer tabs now, instead of having to pay them yourselves?
BS: Well, now it’s just part of the deal. You get so much beer when you roll into town. It’s like a contracted deal. Of course, we go out to pubs, too, and pay for our own.
MH: We also have two or three people who work for us, and they all look out for us, you know? We basically have beer 24/7.
BS: Our manager hooked us up with a deal for this go-round, because most of the venues don’t carry Guinness.
MH: How many cases is it all together?
BS: We got 50 cases when we left L.A., and when it runs out, we’ll just get another 50 more.
MH: Seriously, it’s ridiculous.
D: Do you guys have room on the bus?
All: (laugh)
D: Seriously, I can carry boxes, heavy things.
VB: He’ll do all your laundry.
MH: Well, we travel light. We have our own traveling posse, so there isn’t much room.
D: I can sleep under things.
All: (laugh)
VB: Well, I’m done. Is there anything else you want people to know, about the record or anything? I haven’t heard it yet, so--
DC: We haven’t either.
VB: Really?
DC: We’re mixing it now.
BS: This was a different way to make an album for us. We’ve typically just gone in, played it live, and fixed a couple mistakes. This one, we took more sweetening, and thought about the sounds and parts and textures a lot. Just in that way alone, this album’s very different from what we’ve done before.
DC: There’s a song on the new Warped Tour compilation.
VB: Yeah! I heard that.
DC: The same guy produced that. So, the album’s gonna be a little like that.
VB: Did it take a lot to get you off the road to record it?
BS: Yeah. They pretty much had to drag us off the road.
DC: Yeah.
All: (laugh)
BS: That’s how we make our living, though, so when we’re not on the road, the checks stop rolling in. We’re not selling two million albums, you know?
MH: You’ll never see one of us on an episode of Cribs.
All: (laugh)
D: Just get Jay-Z to guest on a couple tracks or something.
All: (laugh)
DC: You think?
BS: We got Lucinda Williams to guest star on a track.
VB: Oh, really?
BS: We were really jazzed about that.
VB: Awesome. Well, thanks again, guys.
D: Are you gonna ask them about the dogs?
VB: You wanna ask them? I asked the laundry thing.
D: Okay, guys. This’ll be your last question. We ask everybody this: do dogs have lips?
BS: Definitely. Because I generally don’t eat animals that have lips, like cows and pigs. And I would never eat a dog.
VB: Damn! That was fast.
DC: I don’t know. (to Matt) Do dogs have lips?
MH: Heck yeah, man. Angus has some big-ass lips.
VB: (dismayed) But don’t lips pucker?
MH: I have a French bulldog, and I have a picture of him back on the bus. That motherfucker has huge-ass lips.
All: (laugh)
DC: I don’t know, man. I never thought about that.
BS: Well, what would you call them if they don’t have \"lips\"?
VB: Flaps!
BS: But have you ever seen a dog drink? I mean, when they’re real thirsty and tired?
MH: Or when they smile?
BS: Yeah! Dogs smile!
VB: That’s one of those grey areas.
All: (laugh)
VB: I went to art school. I don’t understand medicine.
All: (laugh)
MH: (laughs) Didn’t you take anatomy class?
VB: I never drew lips on people!
All: (laugh)
BS: That’s the hardest part of the face to draw.
VB: (laughs) Well, I never drew them.
BS: I think you’re letting us in on some deep, dark secrets there.
DC: I think you’ve been outvoted.
All: (laugh)
artid
2614
Old Image
6_12_floggingmolly.jpg
issue
vol 6 - issue 12 (aug 2004)
section
interviews