Murphys Law: All for one and one for all

  Meeting up with the Dropkick Murphys this summer at McGreevy’s, the sports bar that singer and bassist Ken Casey recently opened, one member in particular seems like he’s committed to depicting the ugly.

As guitarist James Lynch is one of the last of the seven Murphys to saunter into his bandmate’s bar, he sheepishly admits that he was at Allston’s punk rock pub O’Brien’s “yesterday afternoon into last night into this morning.”

That a member of what is currently Boston’s most successful musical export could chug away the hours in peace at the local watering hole speaks volumes about the glorious anonymity that comes with being a part of this band. On their own, they could be any pasty Irish-looking local with a few tats. Even at their own joint they blend in.

“You wouldn’t even know it if we were sitting there,” says Tim Brennan, who is one of the band’s two multi-instrumentalists.

“I’ll be in the darkest corner,” adds Lynch.

But when the seven of them get together to make music, fire up their drums, guitars and set their bagpipes blazing, they become an army of rhythm, a squad of sound, a brotherhood of bluster, you get the point.

“Together, you can do more than anyone can do alone,” explains Casey, “so why not roll like that?”

The band rolls like that in all aspects of their career. Songs are all credited to Dropkick Murphys, with no individuals taking more of the spotlight than any other.

“We’re all out there on the road and we’re touring, so sharing with that is a good thing,” says singer Al Barr. “We hear these horror stories, you know, bands breaking up over publishing.”

So what happens when somebody leaves the band?

“We usually have them killed,” he says without so much as cracking a smile.

Barr’s speaking voice is only a slightly lighter shade of the deep charcoal scream that defines the Dropkicks’ biggest hit to date. You know the one about the sailor Peg who lost his lehhhhhhhhg!

If the band didn’t split royalties evenly, that song, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” might be cause for the type of publishing dispute that Barr speaks of.  

The single passed the 500,000 paid downloads mark earlier this year, and has sold another 114,000 since. But the lyrics, what few there are, were actually from a source that died more than 40 years ago.

As Barr recounts, he and Casey were going through Woody Guthrie’s archives looking for inspiration when Casey “pulled out this napkin-sized piece of paper and it said, ‘I’m sailor peg, and I’ve lost my leg, a-climbing up the topsails, I’ve lost my leg. I’m shipping up to Boston.’ … No title, nothing. No explanation.”

They arranged a song based on the simple lyric, and recorded it for a compilation, where it was buried as the ninth song amongst 25 others.  

“When we originally did ‘Shipping,’ none of us were happy with how the recording came out,” says Barr. “Before they were even talking about having it in the movie, we played it live and it went over like a fart in a space suit.

We walked off stage and we were like, ‘Well, we’re never playing that song again.’”

Of course, when Barr mentions “the movie,” he is speaking of the 2006 Motion Picture of the Year: Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed,” which inextricably linked the song with the film’s strongest scenes.

“I remember when it came on I had a moment, and the hair on my arm was standing up,” says Barr.

Casey says he didn’t recognize the song’s full potential until he watched the movie.

“I think the scenes in the movie made the song more intense, and I think the song in the movie made the movie more intense,” he says. “Then it just picked up steam. Sports teams started to use it.”

In addition to being blared in your football team’s locker room, “Shipping” has enjoyed a rendition by the Boston Pops — when the Red Sox presented a 2007 World Series ring to relief pitcher Jonathan Papelbon, who has been known to don a kilt and dance along to the Dropkicks.

So, all the band members love sports, right?

“Al doesn’t like sports,” says Casey, with a ribbing smile. “He’s always like, ‘You f---ing jocks.”

His smile suggests that Barr is correct in his criticism, as prior to this revelation, Casey had spent the past few minutes talking about his favorite baseball artifact in McGreevy’s: a Sox jersey he wore in the video for the Dropkicks’ 2004 song, “Tessie,” which he subsequently had signed by all the players on the 2004 and 2007 World Series teams. When he talks about it, he lights up — a stark contrast to the guy who titled his band’s most recent album “The Meanest of Times.”

“That might be the only one in existence,” he says about the shirt. “I didn’t drop that off and say, ‘Get this done!’ A lot of those are from me personally bugging the players.”

Casey says the notion of the Dropkicks as a Boston team in and of themselves probably crystallized when they started touring more than a decade ago. They traveled in a used MBTA handicapped van, with a funnel out the back window as a bathroom.

“Cars behind us would put the wipers on,” he laughs. “We took the attitude of like, It’s an away game. When we go into that city, instead of kissing their asses, we’d say, ‘We’re from Boston and our music is better than yours.’

... People got a kick out of it. People identified with it. It makes people kind of take that pride in their own city.”

It ended up working wonders for the Dropkick Murphys as well.