As we entered the dimly lit Hub Multipurpose Room just hours before the upcoming 2007 Spring Fling concert, we stared at the bands sitting at the tables by the windows and our nerves consumed us. The scene we saw was in no way what we had been expecting. Upon telling others of our approaching interview with Al Barr, lead singer of the Dropkick Murphys, most people responded with, “you know, they’ll probably be wasted the entire time.”
We scanned the room for Barr, which was difficult because we knew virtually nothing about him. As the members of Dropkick and their opening band, Catch 22 chatted and enjoyed the wonders of Sodexho catering, we realized that while they’re rock stars, they are totally professional rock stars, and they by no means lived up to the predictions of our friends. After introducing himself, Barr sat down with us for a very personal interview about his life as a musician, and what’s next for Dropkick Murphys.
According to Barr, the band was formed in 1996 in Boston and used to practice in the basement of a barber shop.
“The aspirations in the early stages of the band were to open for this band from California,” he said.
Back then Barr was not a member of Dropkick, but of another band called The Bruisers, that formed in Portsmouth, N.H. His band played a lot with the Dropkicks so when Mike quit, they asked Barr to be their lead singer. The first album he recorded with Dropkick was in 1999.
Barr, himself, started listening to music at an early age.
“Even when I was a kid I always wanted to be in a band,” he said. “It was always a fantasy of mine… so this is just me living out my fantasy.”
Barr calls Joe Strummer one of his musical and life influences. Stummer was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead singer of The Clash and The Mescaleros who died an untimely death of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Barr admires Strummer for a number of reasons.
“He’s just such a cool guy,” he said, “he was a nice, genuine human being, there was no rock star in him at all, he’d talk to anybody, he’d give you his time, and he loved music, he got excited about music. He was fifty years old when he died and he had so much more to do I think. I always said, if I could ever turn out half as cool as that guy I’d be doing all right… he was so inspiring to me… he is a beautiful human being.” Barr named his son Strummer, after the artist.
Although Barr doesn’t give himself this credit, he is more like his hero than he knows. Barr was easy to talk to, considerate and if we didn’t know it already, we would have never guessed that he was famous.
We didn’t get a chance to ask him after the concert if he enjoyed playing for Plymouth, however we did get to ask how he felt about playing for college crowds in general. Barr had mixed feelings about playing for college campuses.
“We’ve had great shows at colleges and there have been others where kids would come in and have been familiar with the band and into it, but we’ve also played colleges where the student union was like ‘Yeah we’re going to get the Dropkicks here’ and then that attitude wasn’t indicative of the students who came to the show.”
Despite this, Barr doesn’t only want to play for people who are familiar with Dropkick’s music.
“I think it’s great to play for people who haven’t heard you. I think it’s a great opportunity… for them to see you, hopefully you win them over, or win some of them over, so that’s good… it’s like that when you play for colleges… I mean out here what else is there to do tonight? So hopefully 10 or 15 percent of the people that haven’t seen us who are coming tonight will go ‘Oh! We were sold…’ so that’s what you hope for.”
Recently, Dropkick has “sold” a lot of people, including Martin Scorsese.
“I think most recently the two greatest things that have happened [to Dropkick] was having pened [to Dropkick] was having a song in a Martin Scorsese film,” Barr reflected. “That was amazing, and then to have Martin Scorsese actually give us props on the red carpet, which was crazy. Then most recently we found out we’re having a song featured in the Simpson’s cartoon.”
Like we were, fans might be surprised to know that Dropkick isn’t just about partying. “I think people know we’re a pretty family oriented band. The bass player and I have children. There is a party element to the band but there’s also an element of the band that isn’t all about that,” Barr said. “I think that people at face value think the band is about getting ‘bla-do’, but if you really dig a little deeper into the lyrics you’ll find out that it’s actually more about talking about what happens when you live that life style, the repercussions of that lifestyle in excess and how that can bring not so good things to your life.”
One of the Dropkick’s songs, “Sunshine Highway,” is a good example of this. “Sunshine Highway” was the road in front of Dropkick Murphys, the house that the band is named after. It was owned by John Murphy and was the first dry-out-house for people with alcohol addictions.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Oh it’s such a happy song,'” said Barr, “But actually it’s about getting sober in a time when kicking booze was like kicking heroine. If you were a junkie and you just tried to kick you’d die… unless you’d taper somehow… they used to put paraldehyde in alcohol and that was very addictive and strong.”
Overall, we were impressed with both Barr’s charisma and humble demeanor. He was the complete antithesis of a snobby rock-star. This, in addition to the bands excellent musicianship, will ensure they rise even higher than they already have.