Flogging Molly im Interview (English Version)

Artist: Matt Hensley (Accordionist at Flogging Molly)

Genre: Irish Folk, Folk-Punk

Label: Borstal Beat Records

Link: http://www.floggingmolly.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/floggingmolly

Kindly note: due to some technical problems, some sentences and/or parts of them got lost.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
Hello, this is Time for Metal speaking and my Name is Mathias. Do I talk to Mr. Matt Hensley?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
This is him. How you’re doing?

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
I’m fine, I’m fine, thank you! We have an appointment for an interview now, but before we start, I’d like to know: how are you?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
The last five to six days have been awesome. I’ve spend the days with my wife and my kid on the road. I’m doing pretty good now.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
Sounds nice. Drawing energy for the upcoming tour through Europe the next week. I think it’s the second tour through Europe within one year. Are you looking forward to it?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
I am! Actually it’ll be our fifth trip to Europe this year…

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
Then I was misinformed, sorry. But how do you prepare for a tour?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
Ah, I mean it is not so much different than the other. The only thing that we really can do is – like at the end of our last tour: the equipment gets shipped to England and there we check it up. I make sure, all my suits and the stuff that I don’t have to fly over. This makes it really easy for me to fly there, you know?!

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
Don’t you get sometimes homesick or something like this, when you’re on a tour far away from home?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
You know, sometimes I do. It depends on what it is. I mean the most, almost every year we tour around. I miss my wife, I miss my kid, as it gets close to Christmas I get a little bit homesick. Sometimes, if you sit here and all the Christmas music is around, it can make you feel homesick. Sometimes it just depends on how the tour is gone. I mean, I like Europe in general. I think we have a lot of great fans there, also in Germany and in Holland. So, it feels good.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
What do your fans in Europe or the USA think about your new Album?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
I hope they like it, eh? I have talked to people when I was on tour. And most people I talked to like it and could feel the difference in it compared to other records. At first they didn’t know what to think, but they really like it.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
I can imagine, that it is sometimes really not easy to be far away from home – even as a family man. You’ve brought your new album Speed of Darkness to Europe. What do you think about it?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
I love it! It’s been a while since I’ve listened to it and tonight I go ahead with a couple of beers and listen to the whole record. It sounds pretty rocking.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
I’ve listened to it too and it’s much quieter than Float but it sounds pretty good.

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
Thank you very much.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
But, in comparison to the lyrics on Float: how had Flogging Molly evolved since then?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
We have played much better with each other over the years and I think there is an art to record music. I just think about the different records that we have done and we have got better doing them. I think with regards to the lyrics of this record, the whole world is in position. And you know, we are musicians, we don’t just see one city. I think we’re writing songs about ‚What’s going on around this‘. We are writing records about the whole world.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
You can say Flogging Molly have become adult and it can also be heard in the music, I think – this rather quiet atmosphere of Speed of Darkness. By the way, your new record is released by your own label, Borstal Beat Records, and that leads to the question: why have you found a new label?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
One point is, instead of having a partnership with other people as much as we like to have withSide One Dummy and they did it really well but we’ve worked so hard and I mean, finally we were emotional. We had some money in the bank we could actually start this label. But instead of just having a label this is actually how we are. This is how I support my wife and my kids. In the whole band we have like ten or eleven kids, everyone from the band can support his family on this way. So, having that record label means to have 100% control of any record that we do and we can make some money with it. And having this label kinda gives everybody in the band – I would not say retirement – but some kind of insurance. And makes sure our family can care of themselves.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
Be honest: in addition to a record label, you own a Skateboard label, an Irish Pub in California, you got a family and you are accordionist in a band. How do you manage all these things?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
Oh my god! Lot of Whiskey! Lot of Whiskey! (laughs) It is hard. It is not the easiest thing in the world to do this. Actually everyone in the band has a lot of this stuff. And I think we do this because we love what we are doing, you know?
We got to play music for people and I really know some people who told me how much our songs mean to them – some changed their lives and this is bigger than my problems.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
That means, you take your time to hear what your followers problems are about? Nowadays, something like this can rarely be found. But how do you get in contact with your followers? Or how important are internet platforms or social networks like MySpace, or Facebook for you?

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
We meet people, or we read it in our E-Mails. I have read about a lady in the service, who got down two terrible times and she was on the verge of suicide and had a kid at home and everything else. She told she listened to Float and it knocks some sense into her and she did not kill herself and get back into her life. This is, like I said, more important than the small problems I have. And I think anybody is trying anything in this modern day age no matter if you want to secure or support your band or your trading company. I think it’s really important that the band has MySpace, or all the different things. I personally don’t have a MySpace account. If I hadn’t my phone I would deal with it, but I just have to have one, when I’m on the road and it happens some emergencies or whatever I gotta always be a phone call away.

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
But as we live in the age of the Internet, I want to know what do you now want to tell your followers in Europe especially Germany.

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
To the fans in Germany: man thank you so much! All fans in Germany and Austria have been to the most true believers in our music, since we’ve ever started going to Europe! Since the moment that we flew over and play in Germany, the country has really supported this band and actors. All the previous time we got to Germany, people believe in what we’re doing and they do it with ferocity!

Time for Metal / KamiMatze:
Thank you, that you’ve taken the time for that interview! It was a great pleasure for me. I wish you and Flogging Molly all the best and furthermore a lot of fun on your tour through Europe! I hope we’ll meet at a gig here in Germany.

Flogging Molly / Matt Hensley:
Thank you – dankeschön