LUCIDMEDIA

Drop Kick Murphys

Written by Brendan P Frye Friday, 11 May 2007 11:38

I spoke with Tim Brennan who plays mandolin, accordion, tin whistle, and acoustic guitar.

First off, you have a new album coming out in June, what can the fans expect from this latest record?

I think the songs on this new record are a much better blend of our punk/folk roots than we've achieved before. It feels like we don't have to choose "ok, this is going to be a harder one and this is going to be a folk song" because we've found a way to put the two together without sacrificing much. Would you say the band has evolved in sound with this new album? Yeah. I think we've tightened everything up some more. As I said before, we're able to have punk songs with folk instruments on it without making much of a musical sacrifice. Through writing and demoing all the new songs, I think we learned how to play really well together. The lineup still feels brand new and i think while making this record, we all learned a lot from each other, musically. We continue to learn from each other all the time, with so many people in the band there are that many more influences.

What are some of the influences that have affected the work on this new CD? life experiences etc..?

Musically, we did a lot of experimenting. Matt's playing kettle drums on a couple songs, I play orchestral bells on one song...we had a pretty good time broading our horizons in the studio, we added viola to a couple of the songs too. As far as life experiences, there's actually a song on the record about something that happened while we were in the studio that had an affect on everyone. We were contacted by the family of a soldier who had died in Iraq. He had written a letter to his mother saying that if anything should happen to him, he wanted us to play "The Fields Of Athenry" at his funeral. The song we were working on was already about people sending letters home from war, but some verses were changed and made a little more personal to include excerpts from his letters. You'll hear it...

When you guys are not doing things for the band what do you guys do to fill your free time?

For the most part we just hang out at home. We're on tour so much when we're home we just like to chill. I recently got myself a pretty kickass dog (Delmar) that I enjoy spending time with. I share a house with Marc (DKM guitarist) and he has a crazy ass dog too (Keef) so we just run amok with our dogs.

You guys incorporate Irish folk instruments within the punk musical style, how do you find the two types of instruments work together to create the overall sound?

I think the two just go together pretty well on their own. We won't push it if it isn't going to work, y'know? That's why some songs don't have any of the weird instrumentation, because they don't really need it. If it ain't broke don't fix it you know? But for the most part, though, the two work together pretty easily.

Lastly, where is your favorite place to play, and do you have any memories of your best/worst shows?

I love playing at any House Of Blues. I would do a House Of Blues tour if I could. Their mashed potatoes are to die for. They always have kick ass hospitality, plenty of beers and the acoustics & stage set ups in the rooms are always good too so the audience can see and hear everything properly. As far as good memories go, on our past European tour with the Bouncing Souls, the streets were red with guitarmageddon...thats all i'll say about that.