For most of this band’s run, the wobbliest person in any Real McKenzies room was the one holding the microphone. Paul McKenzie has flipped that. The Vancouver group’s founder and frontman since 1992 is now in his fourth year of sobriety, after what he counts as roughly fifty years given over to hard drinking and rock and roll, and the band’s thirteenth album spent a stretch unfinished while he worked out whether he could still do the job without it.
“The reason the album was shelved was because I was in a transitional state,” he says. “I had been a hardcore (and I mean HARD) drinker for most of my life. After I was convinced to stop drinking, it took some time before I felt confident enough to submit acceptable material for this album.” He gives the credit to the people around him. “With the help and support of the band and management I was able to get it together and carry on in a positive and enjoyably energetically induced fashion.”
That record is “Paul McKenzie Sings On Yer Bike,” out May 29 on Stomp Records, the band’s first full-length since Fat Wreck Chords closed. McKenzie rates it the best thing they have done, and is happy to tell you why.
“Perhaps it is because it is our ‘Lucky’ 13th album. Perhaps because we had some time to really let the material stew before releasing it.” His final word on the matter: “The poop is in the pudding.” He also puts it down to the people he made it with. “This lineup of the band is very talented and compatible with each other in terms of songwriting and performance,” he says. “These elements combined made for a spectacular result.”
The first single, “I Wanna Eat Sardines (With Yer Mother),” arrived on March 27, a ninety-second burst that doubles as the album’s daftest title and fair warning about its sense of humour.
It is the band as people have known them for three decades: roaring guitars, the skirl of bagpipes, a chorus built to be shouted back across a packed room. Anyone who has spent time with The Pogues, Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, Gogol Bordello, The Rumjacks or Flatfoot 56 will recognise the territory.
Across thirteen tracks the album swings between love, literacy, historical sagas and, more than once, cannibalism. The centrepiece is the “Sawney Bean” trilogy, three songs built around the 16th-century clan said to have robbed and eaten travellers on the Scottish coast. Set against that you get “I Wanna Eat Sardines (With Yer Mother),” which tells you everything about how the band hold the two registers at once.
The instinct to get the band on tape before it could destroy itself goes back to the first album, cut at IFA Studios in Seattle.
“The album’s soul purpose was to document this crazy Scottish ‘fuck’ band to prove that it actually existed, just in case the group ended abruptly,” McKenzie says.
“Considering the antics and buffoonery we pursued, we were sure that the band was soon to implode and nothing more would come of it. But it became so popular that we ended up touring North America extensively and then the world.” Party was the point. “Party was the priority, so you can imagine the mayhem of the early ’90’s. We made an album to document an unbelievable group and to prove that we actually existed before total debauch & destruction ensued.”
The fans, he reckons, are the reason it never went under: “As it turned out, our fans would not let us implode… time marches on and here we are with a different set of priorities and principles. Now we are Rock & Roll Celtic Punk PARTY Band still rocking in a much better way many years and albums later.”
Three decades of that have left a long list of credits and a body count. The Real McKenzies have shared stages with NOFX, Rancid, Flogging Molly, Metallica and the late Shane MacGowan, turned up in films, books and video games, and put out early records on Fat Wreck Chords.
They predate the Dropkick Murphys and tend to get filed as pioneers of Celtic punk in North America, ahead of most of the bands who took up the sound after them. The mileage has cost them, too. “The dizzying highs and terrible lows of the band have not been without casualty,” McKenzie says. “For a vast array of reasons, MANY band members have chosen to move on. Some, sadly, have been taken from us.” What the count gave him, he says, was a chance to sort himself out. “I’ve had the opportunity to iron out my priorities and to finally put them in order.”
His own sobriety, he is careful to say, is his business and nobody else’s. “I am confident and comfortable by saying I’ve been there and done that. It’s a personal choice.”
He has no plans to turn the band into a temperance meeting. “In my opinion, a person should be able to do what they want when they want within reason when it comes to the bottle.” The wobble has just shifted off the stage and into the room. “Our fans expect a wobbly good time. They are now OUR show! Lest we forget, we are a celtic rock and roll party band.” The change, he reckons, shows in the music itself. “The celebration of clarity and sobriety is clearly evident on this latest album and our current live show.”
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He is not stepping back from any of it. “I have not felt the need as yet, to separate myself from the front lines of rock & roll Celtic punk rock partydom,” he says.
He figures the decades put him in a position to help. “I know most of ALL there is to comprehend of the elements that are abundant, and am well versed in all if not most of the potential pitfalls that tend to be presented, having had it being a major part of my life for many decades.”
The offer is open. “We R McK’s are here to guide and support anyone who may need assistance in terms of maintaining a healthy Rock&Roll, Celtic Punk Rock Party lifestyle. I am accessible, ready and willing to offer my assistance to those who may need it.”
And for our local friends here in Poland, the band are back in Warsaw and Wrocław this summer, and McKenzie remembers the last visit for reasons that have little to do with the setlist. “The last show in Polska was not only a great show in terms of music and performance, but I felt a sense of community, comradery , family. We love Polska for these elements presented and very much more.”
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