FLOGGING MOLLY
Continued from page 22
took up songwriting , if my mother for one minute thought that I would one day be singing my songs onstage for a bunch of people , all over the world , she would have lost her mind . So it is a celebration , a celebration of sadness .” Mom had another final request – she told her son and his spouse to go through her belongings after she was gone , take all the pertinent photographs and mementos they wanted , then leave all the furniture and appliances behind , lock up the flat , and throw the key away . And that ’ s essentially what they did .
After leaving Clarke ’ s punk-metal Fastway , King wound up in Los Angeles on a working visa , and ricocheted back to his Gaelic roots by forming Flogging Molly out of a bar called Molly Malone ’ s , where the ever-growing ensemble ( today it ’ s a septet ) took up a popular Monday-night
legal , it ’ s like , ‘ No , we ’ re not going to do that – we ’ re going to go after them .’ It ’ s just despicable .”
For the recording of the Vanguardissued Life , however , the band went back to Ireland , and worked with U2 producer Joe Chiccarelli , who emphasized the musicians ’ innate rabble-rousing oomph . The last Flogging Molly disc , the grim Speed of Darkness , was released six years ago , highlighting the unusual career problem it faced in the interim – its exuberant shows had become such popular affairs , they could easily keep touring , ad infinitum , and never bother to release any new material at all . It was a Herculean task just to piece together 2016 ’ s two “ Jericho ”/” Sullivan ” singles . Finally , late last year , the bandleader made a pronouncement : No more gigs until everyone
Flogging Molly in 2012
24 illinoisentertainer . com may 2017 residency . But when he went in to discuss acquiring permanent US citizenship via a green card , he was blindsided by the news from his lawyer that immigration laws had changed and his visa had already expired . That ’ s why he feels the injustice of Trump ’ s proposed travel ban so acutely – he basically had two choices at the time : Leave the country and stay in Ireland for the next decade , or keep under the radar in Los Angeles and continue to pursue his craft . Wisely , he opted for the latter . For eight long years , during which he couldn ’ t see his mother , he was an illegal immigrant , the kind of scofflaw our current president would have deported if he ’ d caught him .
“ And we were starting to get the band really going at the time ,” says King , 55 . “ But we couldn ’ t go up to Canada or down to Mexico or anywhere , really – we had to stay within the four walls of America . So I eventually got my green card , and then we started traveling all over the place . It was still a scary situation , but because I was a white-looking guy who blended into the community I was living in , I was one of the lucky ones . That was 15 years ago , and it ’ s gotten worse now . Instead of working to make these citizens who were born here had scattered to their respective home bases and written their heart out on an album ’ s worth of new material , which they would then arrange and track as soon as possible . They wound up with several extra songs , which might be issued this Christmas as an EP . “ Or we could put out another LP in two years instead of six ,” King proposes , laughingly .
Every day the group took the Dublin train to the studio , they rattled past the real-life Adamstown . “ It was the first citylike town built in Ireland since the ‘ 50s , and it had churches , schools , shopping centers – everything anybody would need ,” King explains . “ But obviously , the crash went down and businesses were not moving in , people were not moving in , and the commuter train that went there from Dublin apparently only had a couple of people a day riding it . But it ’ s starting to get there , and maybe with a bit of luck and a bit of hope , the Irish economy is beginning to grow again . But we had a huge housing crisis , and there ’ s a huge homeless population now . But hopefully the government will come up with an assistance program to accommodate them , to makes
Continued on page 46