It's St. Patrick's, so it's Flogging Molly
For more than two decades, Los Angeles-based Irish rock band Flogging Molly has celebrated St. Patrick's Day in or near its hometown. There are a few exceptions, as touring has taken the group elsewhere for a year or two, the pandemic shut down its 2020 party, and a livestreaming event from Ireland happened in 2021.
In 2022, the group released its seventh studio album, “Anthem,” and Flogging Molly has been on tour to support it ever since. The band is currently out with AntiFlag and Skinny Lister and will return to L.A. to celebrate St. Patrick's Day this year at the Hollywood Palladium tonight and continue the holiday weekend with a show at Riverside Municipal Auditorium on Saturday.
The road has always been a second home to the seven members of Flogging Molly, who have steadily built a large following and stable career the old-fashioned way — by touring and word of mouth about their highly entertaining and raucous shows.
“I remember when we first started, I won't mention the radio station, but they did a battle of the bands and they'd play four songs by four bands,” vocalist-guitarist Dave King said during a phone interview. “Whoever had the most requests at the end of the week would be immediately put on their playlist. And we won hands down and they refused to play the song on the radio. Their excuse was `Well, it's only your fans that are calling in.' From then on, we knew we were never going to get any favors. There was nobody going to be going, we'll put you on the radio for this and that. That was never going to happen with Flogging Molly. Everything Flogging Molly had to do, with the help of our fans, we were going to have to do it ourselves.
“I feel very proud, to be honest,” he continued. “I think we all do. I think we're very proud that we have done it the old way.”
The talk of the early days is appropriate, not only because Flogging Molly has reached the 25year milestone, but because the band's latest album marks a return to its roots in very tangible ways. It marks a reunion with producer Steve Albini, who recorded the first two Flogging Molly albums, 2000's “Swagger” and 2002's “Drunken Lullabies.”
The four studio albums that have followed have seen King, the
FLOGGING MOLLY
With: Anti-Flag, Skinny Lister
When: 6:30 p.m. today
Where: Hollywood Palladium, 6215 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles
Tickets: $49.50-$99.50 at LiveNation.com
Also: 7 p.m. Saturday at Riverside Municipal Auditorium, 3485Mission Inn Ave., Riverside. $45 at LiveNation.com.
band's main songwriter, and the rest of Flogging Molly embrace a wider variety of tempos, instrumental settings and musical styles while retaining their Irish punk musical foundation.
But having been forced off the road and into isolation by the pandemic, King, his wife and fiddle player Regan, and the other band members — guitarist Dennis Casey, accordion player Matt Hensley, bassist Nathen Maxwell, mandolin/banjo/guitar player Spencer Swain and drummer Mike Alonso — wanted to go back to how Flogging Molly started, by playing together in the studio live with no attempts to dress up the sound with studio finesse.
They didn't want outside input filtering into the project from a producer, record label or any other source. And that meant Albini, who is famous for simply recording bands live with minimal overdubs, was the man for the job.
“We wanted to go back to our first couple of albums we did with Steve,” King said. “The band is always in control when you're working with Albini. It's not like you're bringing in somebody (to produce) and they put in their little two cents, which is great sometimes. But we felt that we didn't want that this time. We felt we wanted to put all of our energy into the album and not be, I don't want to say hindered, but we have seven opinions in this band (already). And for right now, those seven opinions were what we wanted for this album.”
By the time Flogging Molly arrived at Albini's Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago, the band had written and arranged nearly all of the songs for “Anthem” — one exception being the closing song, “The Parting Wave,” which was written and arranged during the recording session.
It took only 14 days for Flogging Molly to record the 14 songs on “Anthem.” Mission was accomplished.
“As a band, we're really, really happy with it,” King said. “Working
with Steve has always been a great experience, and then we got Atom Greenspan to mix it. He did an absolutely phenomenal job, absolutely above and beyond, a brilliant job.”
Chances are, Flogging Molly fans will agree with that assessment of “Anthem.” There are plenty of songs — “This Road of Mine,” “(Try) Keep the Man Down” and “A Song of Liberty,” to name three — that continue the band's tradition of crafting rowdy, Irish-accented punk songs with strong melodies and solid playing. Such songs are balanced by ballads like “No Last Goodbyes” and “The Parting Wave” that share the Irish feel, but with a sturdy and folkier vibe.
Flogging Molly hasn't been shy about introducing fans to the songs from “Anthem” at its shows, either.
“We're going to be doing new material from the new album because we feel very strongly about it, and I think people will as well,” King said of incorporating even more new music into the tour set list. “I mean, we did a couple of (the new songs) at our St. Patrick's Day show here in L.A. at the Hollywood Palladium (last year), and they went down incredibly well.”