In February 2001, I was 22 years old, and six months into a new job working for a weekly British music magazine, when I was commissioned for my very first overseas assignment, to interview Dropkick Murphys in Boston. I’ve been told more than once that what transpired on my trip to the celtic punk band’s home turf is a story that the Dropkicks still like to share.
The trip got off to a rocky start – I got into Boston from London in the early evening, but was held at the airport for two hours because immigration considered my short trip suspicious. I was questioned aggressively and only free to go once I’d dropped the Dropkick Murphys name. (“I love that band!” yelled the guy who’d been grilling me.) When I finally got to the hotel, I was thoroughly exhausted, but when then-bassist, now-vocalist Ken Casey called my room and asked me to go for a drink, it seemed like a good opportunity to get some colour for the story.
Thirty minutes later, half the band pulled up to the hotel in Ken’s mini-van and whisked me off to an Irish bar. (I know it was an Irish bar because every human in there had either an Irish flag or a shamrock tattooed on them, and everyone was drinking Guinness.) But the band members were quiet and awkward, to the point where I wondered why they had even asked me there in the first place.
After 20 minutes of stilted conversation, vocalist Al Barr asked me if I’d like to go outside and smoke some weed with him. Desperate for the awkwardness to subside, I accepted the invitation. Once down the nearest alley, Al put some weed in a small pipe, and smoking commenced. Approximately three seconds later, a voice boomed down on us from a loudspeaker: “HANDS ON THE WALL! HANDS ON THE WALL!” A Boston Police Department van had us cornered.
“Shiiiiiiiit…” Al muttered.
So here we are. Side by side. Getting frisked against a graffiti-covered wall, in an area of Boston I don’t even know the name of yet. The cops treat us like we are complete idiots. They empty our pockets and go through my bag. When they find my Dictaphone, one cop asks, “Wha’s this fo-ah?”
“I’m a journalist,” I replied.
The sneering laughter that follows prompts instant waves of anxiety telling me that I won’t be sent anywhere to interview anyone ever again.
After a thorough 20 minute shakedown, the police confiscated Al’s weed and threw his pipe onto the roof of a neighbouring warehouse. They told us that they were surveilling the bar we had been in because of a gang shooting that had occurred there a week ago. They didn’t trust us not to blab to other patrons, so they insisted we leave the area immediately, or risk being taken to jail for the night. We returned to the bar, swiftly retrieved the rest of the band under the watchful eyes of the cops, and got the hell out.
We soon found a new bar, obviously. This one was more relaxed, and the band and I started to actually have a genuinely good time. They were jovial and chatty now, and we all had a good laugh about the bust earlier. An hour in, I was feeling boozy and having a great time. Until two cops walked into the bar…
These weren’t the same cops we’d dealt with earlier, but they approached me sternly, and asked me to confirm my name. I did so and asked what this was about. They told me to come outside with them. I grabbed Ken, in a panic, and begged him to come with me. He frowned, visibly concerned, and obliged.
The cops pushed us into the back of their patrol car. Then we drove. We drove around in circles for 25 minutes. The cops were gigantic Boston cop stereotypes. At one point, one of them actually said, “Sweethaaaaart, we can do this the hahd way, or the easy way. Just tell us where you got tha drugs.”
I just kept repeating the same thing over and over: “I’m a journalist. I’m following the band for a story. I had zero drugs on me. I just got into the country tonight.”
They weren’t listening.
“You wanna spend tha night in ah cell? Do ya? Just tell us where ya got tha drugs.”
This was a nightmare. Ken was completely and utterly silent. Eventually, the cops turned down a dark alley, pulled in and parked. They were silent for a minute or so. I panicked.
“If you want me to pay a fine, I’ll just pay a fine. I just don’t understand what’s going on right now.”
Ken turned to face me. Then, swiftly, he pulled out a camera, took a photo of my stressed face and burst out laughing. So did the cops.
Ken, shit-eating grin on his face, went about explaining what just happened. Dropkick Murphys had just released third album, Sing Loud, Sing Proud, and on the week prior my trip, a colleague at the magazine had given it a poor review, lambasting it in his trademark sarcastic manner. Incensed, the band decided then and there that they were going to get the journalist interviewing them in Boston, thrown in jail for the night, as revenge. The way Ken told it, they were fully prepared to exact this revenge – until they met me and realised I was both a nice human, and a fan. The reason they were quiet in the first bar was because they were all having second thoughts.
Then Al and I got into genuine trouble with the cops and they decided it was too good a set up to waste. They called a couple of friends on the force when I was in the bathroom at the second bar, and told them to come arrest me. The band liked me enough to not have my ass thrown in jail overnight, but not enough to refrain from pulling such a great prank. The next day, during the photoshoot, they left me alone in the minivan, parked illegally in a tow-away zone.
“If you hear sirens… just go with it,” someone said. “You should be used to that by now.”
Bastards.