Flogging Molly bassman Nathen Maxwell moved to Denver nearly five years ago with the idea of raising his family and hand-crafting his own creative hub.
Sure, he’s an L.A. boy still — born and raised, and he was there with Flogging Molly frontman Dave King when he first formed the Irish pop-punk band in mid-’90s. But the dry mountain air is agreeing with Maxwell.
“It took about a year for me to get my head around it and realize how great it is here,” Maxwell said recently, sipping on a Strongbow cider while listening to his band’s latest CD, “Speed of Darkness.”
His side project, Nathen Maxwell & the Original Bunny Gang, is making waves, and his bandmates also just relocated to Colorado, making it easier to rehearse, write and play.
And there’s more. His dad (and bandmate) moved here in December and opened an art studio/gallery on Santa Fe Drive. His mom moved here in January to be closer to three of her four grandchildren — Maxwell’s kids are ages 9, 4 and 1.
Colorado is home for the Maxwells. And it’s working well creatively for the punk rocker.
“I’m always writing, and my songs generally are for the Bunny Gang,” Maxwell said. “I’ve written and sung two songs on Flogging Molly records, but Dave King, without a doubt, is the primary songwriter for that band. I’ve been in the band for 15 years, and it’s my first priority. But we’ll get our year together, and I’ll look at what time allows.”
“Speed of Darkness” is a record that shows how far Flogging Molly has come in the last 15 years. The record has its shout-along punk ragers (“Revolution”), its timely anti-war salvos (“Oliver Boy”) and its tender moments (“So Sail On”), and it’s as politically aware as the band has ever been. But the songwriting is more consistent this time around, in quality and voice.
Flogging Molly — a band that has headlined everything in Colorado from the now-shuttered 15th St. Tavern to Red Rocks Amphitheatre — is all grown up. But they’re still punks at heart.
“Flogging Molly has evolved so much over the years, and it’s hard to compare what I used to think about us 10 years ago to what I think about us now,” Maxwell said. “Ten years ago, I thought I had to write stylistically if I was writing for Flogging Molly. And I don’t think that now. ‘Oliver Boy’ wouldn’t have been written 10 years ago. Not by us.”
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com; @RVRB on Twitter
Hearing the new Flogging Molly with its creator
A few weeks ago, I hosted Flogging Molly co-founder and bassist Nathen Maxwell in my living room for a listening session. The subject: Flogging Molly’s latest album, “Speed of Darkness,” which came out Tuesday.
He’d listened to the record once since receiving a crate of CDs in the mail the day before. So our session was only his second time listening to the record front to back — or Side A and Side B, as he sees it — since the band mastered it months ago.
“This is kind of exciting,” Maxwell said as he made friends with our housecat, Checkers.
His thoughts, track by track.
1. “Speed of Darkness”: “The title is from a friend of ours who was a child living in Croatia at the time of the genocide in Yugoslavia. He said, ‘It’s cool that they can tell us what the speed of light is, but no one’s told us what the speed of darkness is.’ We thought it was a good fit for the times and the record.”
2. “Revolution”: “From the opening verse, you can tell what it’s about. It’s a song about revolution, uprising and moving forward. Musically this song has always reminded me of Stiff Little Fingers. It definitely has that old-school punk energy in it.”
3. “The Heart of the Sea”: “This is just a great story, inspired by the book ‘In The Heart of the Sea.’ It touches me because you can interpret it with a lot of feeling. This song is more of a story, a song that takes you somewhere as an individual. I’m sure that (lead singer/songwriter) Dave (King) is going to look at me and say, ‘What the (expletive) are you talking about?’ when he reads this.”
4. “Don’t Shut ‘Em Down”: “This is our homage to Detroit, to the working class, the businesses, schools, hospitals and pubs shutting down.”
5. “The Power’s Out”: “This one was the most challenging for me, because I was attempting to do something I’d never done. It always felt bluesy to me. I wanted to hit it with that bluesy stomp feel, but I don’t listen to a lot of blues music. I’ve also been afraid of playing white-boy blues; I’ve been turned off by that. But I still felt that this should have a stomp to it.”
6. “So Sail On”: “This is one of my favorites. We finished it as an a cappella with the first verse and chorus. But I remember sitting there and asking Dave — demanding, actually — that it be a full-length song. … He and the band agreed.”
7. “Saints & Sinners”: “For me, this is classic Flogging Molly. It’s that struggle between saints and sinners. It’s timeless, that human condition.”
8: “The Present State of Grace”: “Listen to the lyrics of this song. It’s brutal. I love the contrast of the sweet, folky acoustic guitar and what it’s saying.”
9. “The Cradle of Humankind”: “There are moments of this song that are some of my favorite moments on the record.”
10. “Oliver Boy (All of Our Boys)”: “I like to call it ‘All of Our Boys,’ because to me, it’s about the audacities of war. With Dave being from Ireland and the history of Oliver Cromwell there, it’d be easy to think this is a song about the past. But it’s not. It’s about what’s happening now.”
11. “A Prayer For Me in Silence”: “This is the first time Bridget (Regan) sings lead on one of our records, and I love it.”
12. “Rise Up”: “I’ll actually let this one speak for itself.”
Ricardo Baca
