Allow me, if you will, the opportunity to rewind your memory all the way back to August of 2010. For contextual purposes, here are some reminders as to that comparatively much simpler time; Dying Scene was barely a year old (and still had white text on a black background! The horror!); MySpace ruled the social networking landscape; the United States was less than two years into the Obama Administration, and we hadn’t had our eyes opened to the fact that the then-President was a Kenyan Muslim by the reality show host and beauty pageant coordinator Donald J. Trump.
It also marked the last time we were graced with a full-length album from working-class firebrand Boston punk veterans Street Dogs. Little did we know at the time that the dozen-and-a-half tracks on that self-titled album would mark the last time we’d hear from the band for quite some time, and the last time we’d hear from that lineup forever. In the time that’s elapsed since that embarked on a brief hiatus, Pete Sosa replaced Paul Rucker on drums, and Lenny Lashley (Darkbuster, Lenny Lashley’s Gang Of One) and Matt Pruitt (Have Nots) took over on guitar duties for longtime members Tobe Bean and Marcus Hollar. Centered around the backbone of Mike McColgan on vocals and Johnny Rioux on bass, the new lineup put together songs for a few 7-inch releases a few years ago, and slowly got to work on their first full-length as a unit.
Next month, June 22nd, to be exact, the wait for a new full-length Street Dogs album is finally over. Stand For Something Or Die For Nothing is slated for release on the band’s new label home, Century Media, and it couldn’t come at a better time. The album finds the band at their shot-out-of-a-cannon best, and serves as a shot across the bow not only for the powers that be that bought and sold our political system on the backs of the working class, but for those that might choose to sit idly by and let it happen. We caught up with the band’s quintessentially blue-collar Bostonian frontman Mike McColgan to chat about just why and how the band put out their best material to date, more than a decade-and-a-half into their life as a band. As you might imagine, McColgan pulled no punches.
“I don’t want to be the punk band that sat that fucking out. A lot of fucking bands are sitting that out, and history won’t be kind to them,” McColgan states emphatically. “I have to be honest about what I’m feeling and what I’m thinking. I have a son, and I want to be able to say ‘We didn’t sit back. We stood up. We said something’.” Whether for personal or social or political reasons, McColgan and crew are well aware that there are some people in the scene that they could alienate but putting forward an album that puts out a cohesive statement in this day and age, and they’re more than okay with that. “We’ve always put our money where our mouth is, behind the hard-working people, and taking action. We’ve tried not to be too overbearing or be like Bono about it. But you’ve got to say something. That’s the whole point of Stand For Something Or Die For Nothing…Do! Fucking! Something! Don’t just sit this out and think it’s going to be okay. The stakes are way too fucking high.“
If you are a long-time member of the Street Dogs Army, there are more than a few moments on Stand For Something Or Die For Nothing to remind you why you got into the band in the first place; lock-tight rhythms, rapid-fire guitars, infectious hooks, chant-along gang-style choruses that pull the listener and the audience right smack into the middle of the storyline. Look no further than the album’s title track for a textbook example. But there are also some sounds you might not expect; the late 70’s classic arena rock anthemic guitar and higher register vocals on “Mary On Believer Street,” rapper and fellow Bostonian Slaine making a spitfire cameo on “Angels Calling,” the album’s closing track, a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Torn And Frayed.” In many ways, its those things you’ve grown to love about Street Dogs but performed at a higher level than you’re used to hearing. McColgan credits not only the playing and songwriting stylings of the band’s new members, but the production chops of Rioux, who manned the console on a Street Dogs album solo for the first time (Nate Albert handled the first two albums, Ted Hutt the next two, and Rioux teamed with McColgan’s former Dropkick Murphys bandmate Rick Barton on the self-titled album). “Johnny Rioux came into his own as a producer,” says McColgan. “He pushed me in particular, moreso than anybody, really, really hard. I feel like, at the end of the day, the record really stands up and will stand the test of time. I feel like our fans and maybe some people who don’t even know who the hell we are will like it too.“
Stand For Something Or Die For Nothing is not only a great album, it’s a personal album and an important album. It’s tough to encapsulate the breadth and depth of the conversation we had with McColgan into a few lines in an introduction; as is part and parcel when we chat, there’s a lot of ground covered, but perhaps nothing is more poignant than the stories behind some of individual tales that Street Dogs are trying to relate to their listeners on the new album. “These Ain’t The Old Days” looks back at some members of the scene that haven’t, unfortunately, been lucky enough to overcome some of their struggles, namely former Kings of Nuthin’ frontman Torr Skoog who passed away five years ago. The emotion in the song, particularly in Lashley’s vocal contributions, is palpable. “He had to walk out of the studio,” explains McColgan. “He had to take a break. It was that personal and that pivotal and that powerful and that poignant to him.” “The Comeback Zone,” meanwhile, tells three individual tales of redemption that may sound familiar to those that have followed the long-term arc of the careers – and lives – of the band’s individual members.
“Lest We Forget,” though, is perhaps the most personal and emotional song that McColgan has worked on. The song teaches us, the listening audience, about Gerry Dewan, a Boston kid who couldn’t find work on the local fire department, so he moved to New York City and spent a few years working for the New York Fire Department, a budding career that came to a tragic early end on September 11, 2001. McColgan was not only a new recruit to the Boston Fire Department at the time of that fateful day, he was working for Dewan’s brother, William, on the force. “It’s a very, very, very tough thing for me. I’ve been trying to write this song, God, since the Savin Hill days. I’ve written multiple, multiple variations of this song – I’m talking hundreds – because it’s such a heavy, heavy topic, that I was just hellbent on finding the right way to say this and not make it too political.“
Head below to check out our full, wide-ranging interview. It’s a pretty special one, particularly as McColgan himself commented on having trouble putting a few feelings into words; noteworthy for a conversation between two guys with Dorchester Irish Catholic roots.
Pre-orders for Stand For Something Or Die For Nothing are still available here.
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