As legend would have it, “Fast” Eddie Clarke was fed up with Motörhead and wanted to leave the band. Same with Pete Way in UFO. Worlds collided and Fastway was born. Although label contract issues forced Pete Way out of the band, “Fast” Eddie would unite with Humble Pie drum legend Jerry Shirley and a ballsy kid from Dublin by the name of Dave King. And that voice would change everything. Fastway hit gold, literally, with the debut selling nearly a half million copies in the US alone and would crack the Billboard 200 at #31. A feat Motörhead never achieved, although Humble did it three times, with 1972’s Smokin’ (led by “30 Days in the Hole”) and 1973’s Eat It leading the way.
On Fastway’s debut, King’s voice led the charge with such classic as “Easy Livin’”, “Say What You Will”, “Feel Me, Touch Me (Do Anything You Want)” and the epic “We Become One”. Fastway disbanded after three albums (including 1984’s All Fired Up featuring the glorious title track, 1986’s Waiting for the Roar) and the Trick Or Treat soundtrack in 1986. After the Katmandu project, King formed Flogging Molly and the rest is history.
So when I saw that Flogging Molly was added to the Summer Breeze Germany Open Air bill, I thought, let’s try to hook up with Dave King. And the organizers of the fest made it happen. What was strange, was the timing. It was four years to the day that Pete Way actually based away; August 14th, 2020.
Although Fastway gave Dave King a taste of success early on, he changed lanes and formed Flogging Molly. A different beast that fused Celtic music with punk. And King struck gold again. And with seven studio albums under their belt, Flogging Molly has become a worldwide phenomenon. And seeing the response that a “metal crowd” gave them at Summer Breeze (see video below), King certainly knows how to entertain a crowd, whether it be at Los Angeles pub called Molly Malone (where the band would nick it’s name from), or a massive open air field with fans dancing, moshing and living life with a beer in their hand.
BraveWords: BraveWords launched when Flogging Molly did in 1994! The fests in North America don’t compare to Europe.
King: “Yeah, it’s a different ballgame over here.”
BraveWords: And Flogging Molly was ranked pretty high on the bill.
King: “Yeah, you wouldn’t think of Flogging Molly on a metal fest, but the metal crowds are fucking amazing!”
BraveWords: “Very similar to the heritage of where you came from, but then you changed lanes. Crowds are very open, especially those of us that are a bit older.
King: “But still loving it. The atmosphere was just phenomenal out there. We did Wacken, we did Bloodstock in England and it was fucking amazing! It was so wonderful to dod a metalfest in England. Huge crowd, so open-minded.”
BraveWords: Funny thing is, you were quite happy just playing to a bunch of drunks in a club.
King: “Yeah! That’s what’s great about this band. As I said, we did Bloodstock, which is near Birmingham. We go back to Birmingham next week to play a folk festival (Mosley Folk & Arts Festival on August 30th).
BraveWords: And Birmingham is the home of heavy metal…
King: “Of course. It’s the be all and end all of heavy metal. But to go back to do a folk festival is crazy! I remember one weekend we headlined a punk festival in Blackthorn (in Manchester), then we went to Belgium and headlined a folk festival with the Chieftains and the next night we played with Motörhead.”
BraveWords: On a bill like Summer Breeze when you are playing the same night as Enslaved. Can you relate to everything around you?
King: “I’ve always had a great respect for metal. But I love everything; literally one day I’d be listening to Depeche Mode and the next fucking day I’d be listening to Metallica. But that’s what music should be. Punk rock, I mean Irish music to me is punk rock.”
BraveWords: You ask 50 people what is punk rock and you are going to get 50 different answers.
King: “Punk rock is whereever you want it to be. I remember growing up in Ireland, my mother and father were very musical. But it was always in the forefront, Irish music was the face of the thing. That always stayed with me. When I went to America when I didn’t know what I was going to do, when I met Bridget (Regan; violin, tin whistle, backing and lead vocals), I kind of went ‘She likes fiddle, so why don’t I mix my life with my Irish roots and see what happens. And she played fiddle over songs I’d already written and changed them completely. And I was like, ‘Now there is something going on.’ So we went with it, and here we are in Bavaria.”
BraveWords: I ran the metal section at HMV 333 for 15 years starting in the early ’90s, about the same time as I launched BraveWords, And we held countless in-stores and one in particular just floored me. Joe Strummer. When he walked in the building, it was like Elvis walked into the building. The entire world paused.
King: “We played one of Joe’s last shows. It was at the House Of Blues in Las Vegas. And we were on the Warped Tour, and the organizer of the Warped Tour asked, ‘Did you want to play with Joe Strummer?” Given that it was the only day off that we had, we would have to fly in, do the show and then go back to the Warped Tour. ‘Absolutely!” And it was a magical night you know, because when I went back to Ireland after the tour, I went into my mother’s house and my sister was there. And she said, “A friend of yours just died.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Joe Strummer.’ And I went ‘What?!’ I literally had just got off a plane and are you fucking kidding me?
BraveWords: This is why you need to embrace moments like this.
King: “Yes you do.”
BraveWords: Because you know who died four years ago today? Pete Way. When I was prepping for interviews at Summer Breeze, I looked at the day you were playing and I was floored that it was the anniversary of the death of Pete Way.
King: “You know, Pete was fucking hilarious. Speaking of Pete, and I don’t know if it was Cleveland or Columbus. It might have been Columbus, but Pete lived there and I was on stage with Flogging Molly and he was standing in the corner on stage, and he had a little dog in his arms. And I said the audience, ‘A great mate is here from my old band Fastway, Pete Way.’ Pete came out with the dog in his arm, stood at the microphone and started talking. (In his accent) ‘I remember years ago Dave’s hair was down to here, and we were in a band together and we were touring’ and he went on and on. The guy that was one stage with him had to take him off. But Pete had a very up and down life. He was a glorious and beautiful man.”
BraveWords: His death hit people hard. He influenced a lot of people.
King: “Yeah, I’d seen UFO. It’s funny, I’d seen Motörhead a few weeks before in Dublin before he left Motörhead. Pete picked me up at the airport when I went out to fly for the audition. He picked me up in a Jaguar and it was pissing rain and the wipers weren’t working. So he’s hanging out the window with newspaper, wiping the fucking windshield. It just went on from there.”
BraveWords: How often do you reflect on that era? It was a really big deal, especially that first album. Were you paying attention to all this history in the making? You were selling more records than Motörhead.
King: “Yeah, that was something that Eddie was more aware of than I was.”
BraveWords: And let’s be honest here, a lot of that had to do with your voice.
King: “And also going out on tour with Iron Maiden. That was our first tour of America, and touring with Iron Maiden taught me so so much. They were fucking brilliant. Brilliant people to hang out with.”
BraveWords: They were a well-oiled machine even before Bruce joined the band.
King: “They really were a fucking machine and they still are. They are professional and they still love what they do. They are passionate at what they do and it was wonderful just being around.”
BraveWords: Growing up I was a loner in high school listening to all these bands, and look where we are now. Bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden rule the world.
King: “It’s great, because metalheads, metal fans are so embracing. They’re not snobs. We had a fiddle, tin whistle, accordion, banjo and a mandolin up there tonight. I remember the last time we did Hellfest – absolutely enormous – and Alice Cooper played the day before we did. It was so weird. We were on stage the same time as Def Leppard. One of my best mates is Vivian (Campbell), their guitar player. And it was so weird, he was on one stage and I was on stage at the same time with Flogging Molly. And I remember Alice Cooper saying that ‘You can’t be a rock band with a fiddle, accordion and a banjo. And I said before our set, ‘We are here to prove him wrong.’ And the crowd went fucking ape-shit! They loved it.”
BraveWords: What did you think when Vivian played with Dio? Some of your mates finding great success.
King: “I used to go see Vivian in a band in Ireland called Sweet Savage. And I could tell he was going somewhere. And then I was fortunate enough to get to know him. Wow, we had a great conversation about Leppard just before he joined and he’s a wonderful, wonderful human being and I love him dearly. I’m so proud of him and he’s still fucking fantastic. And as you said, these bands are still playing huge places.”
BraveWords: Many are bigger than ever. You look at the numbers they are drawing at all these European festivals and it’s unbelievable how the scene has grown. All these younger generations, learning about live music.
King: “Absolutely. Look, if you go from a metal festival to a punk rock festival, what you hear it what you see and what you see is what you hear and it’s just fucking there. There’s no getting away from the energy of it. Even when we were getting Flogging Molly together, I was always very aware of that guitar, the electric guitar. And it had to be a big part of it. It wasn’t just going to be folksy, no, it was definitely going to have bombastic guitar in it. Because I was really into that, so I wanted to put my metal days and combine them with Irish music, which was always in your face. Even the ballads, the lyrics were in your face. And that’s what I was into. The Pogues took that to a whole different generation. The Dubliners before that. The Horseslips. You’ve got all these bands doing their thing with traditional Irish music. And I couldn’t go home. Because if I went home I wouldn’t have been allowed back in America, because my green card was all fucked up.”
BraveWords: It sounds like that might have been a good thing.
King: “Yeah, you know what, I didn’t see my mother for eight years though. And I couldn’t afford to bring her over, that was the problem.”
BraveWords: Did you ever meet Phil Lynott?
King: “Oh god, yeah. I went to see Thin Lizzy with the Brian Robertson line-up. I went to the last Thin Lizzy concert ever at the Hammersmith Odeon with Gary Moore. Me and Gary were mates. God rest him too. So we went to the show and it was all the guitar players that had played in Thin Lizzy, and they all did songs. And there was a party on afterwards at a place called Frank’s Funnyfarm and me and Gary went to the aftershow party and there wasn’t a lot of people there when we got there because we got there a little bit early. And I’ll never forget, I get a tap on my shoulder and it was Phil Lynott, and he says to me, ‘It’s good to see another Irishman here.” I had no idea he knew who the fuck I was.”
BraveWords: Because of my age, Thunder And Lightning is probably my favourite record.
King: “I think Alive And Dangerous was one of the great live albums of all time. It was absolutely incredible. But that was the last time I ever saw him. He said, ‘The next time we are back in Ireland we should get together band hang out.”
BraveWords: Do you remember any of your times in Canada?
King: “I actually toured with Rush in Canada. Even with Flogging Molly, Canada has been an amazing place to play. I think Vancouver was the last place we played there.”
While signing Trick Or Treat:
King: “I got paid two grand for that.”
And Katmandu:
King: “The drummer in flogging Molly is the drummer on this. And that’s me and my hair (pointing at the cover). My best mate in Ireland, Richie, took that photo.”
Waiting For The Roar:
King: “What happened basically was record company bullshit. It’s funny, we talk a lot about bands like Def Leppard who have changed a lot. So they got rid of Jerry and Charlie from Fastway, which broke my heart, and I said, ‘This is probably going to be my last album, cuz I’m not really into it you know.” Obviously all these bands that we are talking about like Maiden, are still around. We didn’t have that in Fastway. It didn’t grow like that, so I basically had to do my own thing and grow up myself. I didn’t make any money.”
BraveWords: Where were you when Fast Eddie died? When we lost all the original Motorhead members, that was tragic.
King: “Philthy used to live with me in LA. He used to stay in my flat. But Eddie had health issues, but I didn’t even know Eddie was sick. I was in the middle of a tour in Europe, like festival season, when I heard he passed away. Myself and Eddie hadn’t talked in a few years you know. It was sad, but there were a lot of issues there between the two of us.”
BraveWords: Were you actually a Motörhead fan when you got hired?
King: “Yeah, I mean I literally had seen Motörhead three weeks before he left.”
BraveWords: Although I was too young to attend, Fast Eddie’s final show with Motörhead was the Iron Fist tour at the CNE in 1982. That’s when then the band imploded.
King: “He was very upset at the thing they did with Wendy O’ Williams from The Plasmatics. Eddie was very upset by that. I’ve got a great story. I was at a pub called the Prince Of Wales in London. And a lot of people drank there. Joe Strummer drank there. So did Lemmy. They hired a friend of mine to help me out, help me adjust. They just hired him so that I’d be OK. Because it was a whole new world to me you know. I was 18 years of age and knew fuck all, and we are in the Prince Of Wales pub and my friend went over to talk to Lemmy and he asked him, ‘Do you think you’ll ever get back together with Eddie?’ He said ‘No’ and he pointed at me. I was at a pinball machine and Lemmy points at me and says “Because of him.”
BraveWords: Did you ever drink at the Whiskey then?
King: “Lemmy was fine, Lemmy was brilliant. He was a fucking genius. He didn’t give a fuck. He ruled his world. Flogging Molly toured with Motörhead a few times and he was always, always, always a really intelligent, smart man. His company was great. Him and Eddie always got on after he left Motörhead.”
BraveWords: What was your fave Motörhead record then?
King: “I’m the live album guy. No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith was my album. UFO, their live album as well. I was really into live albums. I think that’s the reason Flogging Molly is a live band, I love live music.”
BraveWords: Where would you want to record your live record then?
King: “Well, we have a plan.”
BraveWords: Are we talking about the plan?
King: “No, I can’t talk about the plan yet, but we have one in the works and obviously it’s going to be very special. Hopefully it will pan out the way I feel it. Because I think it’s important, for us anyway, it will be an important record. Our next album will be a live album. Especially playing these metal festivals as well. You feel that energy and you miss that. The comaraderie of people, looking out into the audience, A sea of people, it’s uplifting it really is.”
BraveWords: Last question. Who is your rock star.
King: (Shows me that tattoo on his finger) “Probably him. Freddie Mercury. I’m mean there’s lots. He brought a lot of joy. The first few Queen albums are just fucking mint. And he’s given me one of the greatest compliments anyone has ever given me. He said he hated me. And I asked why he hated me. Because he heard me sing. On the first Fastway album. Jokingly. ‘Cause he heard me sing. I knew the rest of the band. I’d met Brian and Roger. Brian May told me Freddie was a big fan of mine.”
BraveWords: So what do you think was your peak vocal moment in Fastway?
King: “Oh fuck. I don’t, maybe ‘We Become One’. But ‘All Fired Up’ is a good one for me because I’m just scattin’. Eddie Kramer who produced it said, you’re not going to beat that first take.”
(Live photos courtesy of Summer Breeze Open Air)
