Dropkick Murphys musician started as a fan. Then the band bred in Quincy asked him to join

Tim Brennan wasn’t an original member of the Dropkick Murphys, but he is a product of the first generation of Dropkick Murphys’ fans, which is perhaps even cooler. These days he’s one of their guitarists, and a prime collaborator in the band’s songwriting, with leader and lyricist Ken Casey.

The Dropkick Murphys annual slate of St. Patrick’s Day week shows in Boston commences on Thursday and runs through Sunday and all of them are, of course, already sold out. But this year fans who missed out on tickets have an option, as the band is offering a live stream of their Sunday night concert.  (The live stream is available on the Veeps platform, for $24.99, which includes unlimited repeat plays for the next seven days. Check veeps.events/dropkick-murphys for information on purchasing the livestream).

The Dropkick Murphys include singer Ken Casey, Brennan on guitar, keyboards and vocals, Jeff DaRosa on guitar, banjo, and mandolin, James Lynch on guitar and vocals, Matt Kelly on drums, Kevin Rheault on bass, and Campbell Webster on bagpipes. As most local fans know the group had its start in 1995, with its then mostly Milton/Quincy members rehearsing in a spare room at a North Quincy barbershop.

We caught up with Brennan last week from a Pennsylvania tour stop, as the band continued on its brief East Coast tour, which culminates in the Boston dates. Brennan had been a high school student and basketball player whose ambitions were focused on becoming a teacher and coach when one of his young teachers noticed his love of music.

Dropkick Murphys guitarist wanted to be a teacher

“This teacher was a young guy and knew that music was something I was just naturally good at,” said Brennan, a Hartford, Connecticut-area native. “He knew I liked punk rock, and also Irish music, and one day he brought me The Pogues’ “If I Should Fall from Grace (With God)” album. It is not hyperbole to say that tape changed my life. Soon after, he gave me a tape of the Dropkick Murphys’ first album, “Do or Die,” and it was off to the races – I loved all that music. I had not been the greatest student, just sliding by, but that teacher had inspired me so much that I decided I wanted to try and be that kind of teacher for some other kid.”

Flash forward a few years, and Brennan was an English major at Assumption College in Worcester, and an old pal got in touch.

“I had been friends since I was about 15 with guitarist Mark Orrell,” Brennan recalled. “Mark had joined the Dropkick Murphys at age 17, and so when they needed someone to play some banjo on a recording, he called me. That led to me spending the summer of 2003 on the Warped Tour with the band. I’d be doing merchandise all day, selling T-shirts and so on, and then at night I’d run up on stage and play a song or two on accordion with them. Then I’d have to run back to the merch stand and finish work there. At the end of that summer, I went back to college, but about a month into my senior year, Ken called and asked me to join. Mark ended up leaving the band a few years later, and when Jeff DaRosa came on board, he covered the banjo, mandolin and so on parts, and I can concentrate on guitar and keyboards.”

Quincy's shuttered Beachcomber home to countless Dropkick Murphys memories

Brennan’s two decades with the Dropkick Murphys have included some memorable gigs. There was that 2017 tour with California’s Rancid that included a stop at the Brockton Fairgrounds, in front of about 8,000 happy fans – a gig that will never be repeated now that the grandstand there was demolished last fall. And who could forget that delirious final night in 2015 for Quincy’s vaunted rock oasis, The Beachcomber, when the Dropkicks were special guests for a raucous final jam?

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“That tour with Rancid was called ‘Boston to Berkeley,’ and I remember we got teased about it, because it actually was Brockton to Berkeley, but that was a great show,” Brennan noted. “And The Beachcomber’s final night was unforgettable. I’m 6(-foot-)6, and they had to remove ceiling tiles so I had enough room to stand up and play, but that club was something else.”

The previous two Dropkick Murphys’ albums have been acoustically centered, as they explored the music and style of Woody Guthrie, including last year's "Okemah Rising," their 12th studio album. But this tour, and the next album they are now planning, will mark a return to their usual electrified rocking style. After the Boston shows, the band is headed to New York City, where they’ll perform as part of a salute to the recently departed Sinead O’Connor and Pogues singer Shane MacGowan.

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“I had never really tried to play much acoustically before these last two records, or at least never for two whole albums,” Brennan said. “But I had been a huge fan of Billy Bragg and Wilco’s two Woody Guthrie albums, so I ended up really enjoying it. We are all so happy to be part of that March 20 ‘Sinead and Shane’ concert – and the best part is that they’re letting us into Carnegie Hall, so that’s a coup all in itself.”

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As is their tradition, the Dropkick Murphys will present different opening acts for each night of their Boston run, along with punk rockers Pennywise – who play at every show – nurturing up and coming acts in approximately similar styles to their own. On March 14 at the House of Blues, the openers will be Death Before Dishonor; March 15, at MGM Music Hall it will be The Scratch; March 16, Big Bad Bollocks; and March 17, Kneecap.  We’ve noted before that the Dropkick Murphys’ nurturing Squantum’s Jesse Ahern as an opening act through several European tours played a big role in breaking him as headline performer himself.

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“We try to bring out bands that are our favorites, and that we want people to see,” said Brennan. “One of these bands, The Scratch, is the best band I’ve ever seen with us; four Irish guys who are also metal-heads, and the way they combine the two is amazing, and their sets are such a blast. We love Jesse Ahern, because he really puts in the work, and so we were always happy to have him on the road with us, because he’s a great guy offstage too.”

Back in the pandemic year of 2020, the Dropkick Murphys offered a streaming concert from an empty Fenway Park, where they played with a skeleton crew. Perhaps against all odds, the show was a resounding success, both for the quality of the video and sound, and the sheer joy it brought. The band has continued to offer streaming options for every St. Patrick’s Day run since then, and this year’s production on Veep promises to be another step up.

“That Fenway Park streaming show was a lot of fun to do, and we appreciated that the Red Sox let us on their field,” Brennan remembered. “I’m sure the 'always sold out' part of our Boston shows is part of the reason we do these streaming shows now, but the idea is also to let as many of our fans as possible see these Boston shows. Wherever we play, people tell us their ultimate goal is to travel to see one of our Boston shows in person, and these streamers are one way to bring that experience to fans who might not otherwise get the chance to make it to Boston.”

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As a multi-instrumentalist, Brennan quickly became a valuable asset to the band, and before long was helping Ken Casey write and arrange new music.

“I do a lot of the music,” he said. “Ken is always the lyrics guy, and has the real knack of writing things people identify with. Sometimes lyrics come in other ways, but it is mainly Ken. I contribute the music, so we collaborate a lot. He’ll bring an idea and we might toss it around with the other guys, and all work on it together, but my part is bringing the musical element together.”

Dropkicks have a wealth of material from which to draw

Writing new material is an ongoing process, but with a dozen studio albums and several dynamic live CDs too, the Dropkick Murphys have a hefty songbook, and legions of fans clamoring for their old favorites.

“We don’t typically play new tunes before the records come out,” Brennan noted. “It is kind of rare for us to do that. In concerts like these, we always try to do a few fun covers. We released our last album – before the two acoustic, Woody-themed ones – during the pandemic, so we have a backlog of new songs going back to 2020. We have a lot of new material to go through before we get to the studio, later this year, but these Boston setlists will focus on all the music we have already recorded; that’s what our fans want to hear, and we’re happy to celebrate with them.”

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Dropkick Murphys extend St. Patrick's Day tradition with Boston shows