The Ducky
Boys had just wrapped up one of their vintage hard drivin' sets at
the Met Cafe in Providence. When the staff, eager to close up, booted us
out, we did what any punk rocker would do - we took it to the street.Nancy Hammerle: Why don't you guys just introduce yourselves, in case anyone doesn't know you yet? Jay, you wanna start?
Jay Messina: Ok. I'm Jason Messina and I play the drums.
Mark Lind: Actually, they shouldn't be getting to know us now because we're on our last legs here; we're a dying horse. I'm Mark and I play the bass and I do half of the singing.
Mike Marsden: I'm Mike, I play guitar. Oh! Wait! I sing too!
Mikey O'Leary: I'm Mikey O. I fuckin' play the guitar and I like to spit on people sometimes. You know, if it's a good show.
Nancy: Well, Mark, don't say you're a dying horse. Cause everybody loves the Ducky Boys, and everybody's always gonna love the Ducky Boys, and everybody's always gonna come out to see the Ducky Boys.
ML: That's actually true, cause at these last couple of shows we've played we've met a bunch of kids who have come up to us and said they've heard of us but they've never actually heard us before. And that shouldn't be a shock because it's not like we're huge, but when we were playing every week at the Rat, not only did everybody know who we were, but they actually didn't want us to play! They were so sick of us. So now it's funny when people say, "Oh I've heard of you guys but I never actually heard you before!" So it's really cool. It's just so different than the way it used to be.
Nancy: Well this is really exciting here at an all ages show. There's a lot of kids who've never gone out before who are getting into you guys. Just look at all the t-shirts you sold tonight!
ML: Yeah. The faces change every couple of years I guess, and we should just start getting used to it.
Nancy: And your faces have changed, too, might we say!
ML: They've put on weight!
JM: Not me! I've lost weight!
Nancy: What I mean is that your lineup has changed. You're the original Ducky Boys! But you've gone through a couple of changes...so what happened?
ML: Well we didn't tour with anyone but Jay and Mike. Mikey couldn't tour cause he's really young.
Nancy: I know. It's weird, cause when I first heard you guys at the Palladium in '98 I got so excited and I went up to you guys and got your autographs, because I was even more of a nerd then than I am now. Then later I heard, Mikey, that you had to drop out of the band because your Mother wouldn't let you go on tour cause you had to go to school.
ML: No, actually Mikey was talking about leaving school - something crazy like that - and we said no. We're his collective mother.
MM: We raised Mikey from wolves.
Nancy: But what got me was that here you were, this really young kid, and you're up there in front of thousands of people cheering, women asking for
autographs and you were what, 15, 16 years old?
M'OL: All I can say is, there was a lot of beer involved!
ML: The funny thing about that is that after we got back we had been playing with James [Lynch]. Then we started playing with Mikey again and he
must have been just sitting home practicing guitar for those four years because when he started playing with us again it was like playing with Steve Vai! He definitely plays guitar better than anybody I know, that's for sure!
Nancy: And now Mikey's playing with another band, Mikey and Jay?
M'OL: Yeah! Shallow's Corner Band - the ex-Ducky Boys!
ML: Well, they're not his other band. We're his other band. We just play together once in a while so we're "another band." We're the other woman in Mikey's life.
Nancy: And this is a side band for you too now, what with Sinners and Saints?
ML: Well, I've practiced with them and I don't even practice with Sinners and Saints so I guess I don't have a band - I just have two side bands [laughs]
Nancy: You have two awesome bands. You guys are gonna be touring too, with Blood for Blood?
ML: Yeah, we're doing six shows with Blood for Blood and some without 'em.
Nancy: I'll bet it doesn't stop there. I'll bet you keep going.
ML: We don't know. We'll see what happens. We could still get together when we're forty!
JM: That's what - five years for me?
MM and M'OL: [laughing] Two and a half!
JM: Oh my god!
ML: Yeah two and a half years ago!! Funny, when we were kids and we'd be playing the DIY shows there would be bands with guys that were older and the kids would always be like, "Look at those old guys! Is this all they have to do with their lives?" And now we're them!
Nancy: Well why not? I mean, what's better? What's better than doing this?
ML: Acting your age I guess. I don't know - some of these songs I wrote when I was 18. I've even had to change some of the words, to have them make sense today.
Nancy: So many of your songs involve personal issues and struggles - how many of them still hold up today in terms of this is where you're coming from, this is what you think about? Not that they don't hold up as great songs, because they do, ut are these still the issues that really matter to you?
ML: Not really. That's one of the reasons that it can't go on forever because a lot of those things are what I was thinking about when I was 18. A lot of those things that we sing about are really high school things. And I am long out of high school now so....I mean they're vague enough so that you can apply them to almost any part of your life but....I know I'm happier now than I was when I was 18 so....
Nancy: Well, that's good to know but, you don't have to really be sad to sing the blues!
Mark: Well the Ducky Boys have always been about being honest with people in the audience. Like right now I feel like I could go up and sing "Shiny Happy People" by REM and feel like I was really being honest. But, some of the stuff is like a snapshot of my life at the time. It's not like I'm ashamed of the songs or anything, they're just not a representation of where I am now.
Nancy: But is that what it's about? Is it really about telling your story or singing songs that the audience can relate to? Some issues may no longer be true for you; you might not feel like a misfit or that life's shittin' on you now, but for the rest of us....
ML: I like to see bands that are singing about what's meaningful to them. Like when I saw Danzig and people where calling out to him to play Misfits songs and the dude really didn't want to!
Nancy: Do you think that could happen to you?
JM: What? That we wouldn't want to play Misfits songs?! [laughter]
Nancy: Can you envision writing new songs for the Ducky Boys?
ML: I don't know. I've got a shitload of songs sitting home that nobody's
played so I guess, yeah.
M'OL: But that's a big secret! Shussssssh..So don't tell anyone - that's a big secret!
Nancy: The Ducky Boys don't have to stay fixed where you were in high school. You're growing and evolving and your music can also evolve - you can still play some old stuff but you can add new material too...you play together so well and you get along together so well now!
ML: We wrote a cd but only half got recorded and half of it didn't so those songs are technically new songs and those songs I still stand by today.
The last ones, the ones that didn't get out I really wish did get out so maybe....I did mention it to GMM, we're still under contract to them. I did
mention it to [Mark Noah], like, "Hey! How about if we decided to put out another Ducky Boys record?" and he was into it so much so that he now calls me about it. So I guess the option's there. We could do it if we wanted to.
Nancy: A lot of people would be really happy if you did put out a new album, that's for sure. [Note: Mark has since indicated that he will be putting the unreleased material out with a yet-to-be-formed side band, not with the Duckies.]
ML: I don't know that we want to be a local band though. I mean we did our time touring and I don't think we'll do it again. I don't know if we'd
put a record out and not tour because obviously you want as much people to hear it as you can and the only way to do that is to go out and play to people. And I don't know if I want to do that again. We've all talked about it and pretty much agreed that we don't want to become a seven-week touring band again. We'll see. We've already integrated some songs into the set that people really don't know. We played four tonight that weren't technically released, so....
Nancy: Well, you guys do go way back. Starting out in Charlestown, playing in a church?
ML: It'll be seven years this October.
JM: I played Little League against 'em [the band]!
Nancy: Little League! Who had the better team?
ML: Jay did - our team sucked!
Nancy: You wrote a couple of songs about Charlestown, "No Tales to Tell", and the one you sang at Axis, "White Slum", where you're giving this angry spiel?
ML: Let's not talk about Axis! Axis was a disaster! Yes at Avalon I gave a little speech but I don't remember what I said at Axis.
M'OL: I don't think Any of us remember Axis actually.
Nancy: I really wanted to get that on film - Mark going, "I'm too drunk to play! If anybody can play bass please come up here and play this for me!"
Any issues strike you right now? Anything burning at your brain that you want to bring up? You're not a political band....
ML: No. The political bands that formed in 1977 are still singing about the same issues today. The only thing new that we can bring to the table is ourselves.
Nancy: Well since you guys have been around so long, tell us what you think of the punk scene today, how it's changed....
Mark: Well, I can tell you that the new bands today are not drawing crowds. There are bands that have been around for so many years and they're drawing fifty people. Yet when us and the Dropkick Murphys and the Trouble were around at the same time there'd be 400 to 500 people at all of our shows. So the scene has changed in that the kids are just interested in something else now. There's not an all ages scene and that's what you need to have a crowd. The bands haven't changed, it's all the same thing, but the college kids are looking strictly for their dashboard confessional and they don't want anything to do with any kind of punk rock.
Nancy: You really think punk is fading out among the kids?
ML: Temporarily. I mean it comes and goes.
JM: I don't think it's fading out. I just think that the mindset on punk rock has completely changed. It's evolving into something completely different.
M'OL: Yeah. When the Rat closed, everything just changed, I think.
ML: Well punk rock now is Saves the Day. That's what the kids want to hear now but I think that the bands now that are doing what the bands did in
1996 should just not plan on doing too much in the next couple of years because the scene has changed and some bands just haven't changed along with it. We're one of them, but luckily, we have an established audience. Butif you're playing pop punk and you wear sweaters and you have a shaggy haircut you'll be doing all right....
Nancy: But it's not punk!
ML: I like bands like Saves the Day and, though I don't know what the hell EMO is, I'm big on pop punk - I love those bands.
Nancy: And there's still hard core bands coming along too, that the younger kids seem to like. Bands like Kicked in the Head.
ML: Kicked in the Head will always have an audience. Them and Big D and the Kids Table got that big audience of kids. I think the Ducky Boys and the Vigilantes play to that same kind of audience. Those kids are still around; they've never gone anywhere. And that audience continues to grow right now. I like those bands, like Vagrant's bands. And that's what it is right now, that's what is being offered to people. So if people don't like that kind of band then they're going to have a tough time finding any new band that can [bring in a crowd]. Then again, that doesn't matter to some people. You've
got bands like the Hudson Falcons who will tour and play to 75 to 100 people a night just because, goddamn it, that's what they want to do!
M'OL: They love it!
ML: And they're gonna keep doing it. Five years from now they may bounce back and get big again, but right now....I wouldn't want to be starting the Ducky Boys right now.
Nancy: So you see the punk scene really going into a decline. Is there anything we can do to reverse that or is it inevitable?
ML: There's no place that's cultivating an audience right now. The Rat had The Unseen, The Ducky Boys, The Trouble, The Pinkerton Thugs, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, and The Dropkick Murphys - the six bands that every two weeks could book a show so we would just pack the Rat. We'd rotate the same bands every two weeks and the kids started coming and it eventually grew to a large scene but there is no place that has shows like that right now.
Nancy: Well there's The Pond but that's all ages shows only during the day on weekends. It's 18 plus at night and it's just getting started. But it's not well known yet and it's a little out of the way whereas the Rat was central.
ML: Yeah, nobody knows about it yet. Even "EMO" bands like River City High have not done well playing The Pond. It's good that it's there.
M'OL: [I want to say] to whoever wins the scratchy: Open up another Rathskeller so we can all have a good time. Cause if I win, that's what I'll do. I'll open up a new place for everybody.
Nancy: If you won the lottery, that's what you'd do? You'd open up a Rat? And who would you book first?
M'OL: I'd book The Trouble, The Ducky Boys, Marsden and the Hamburgers, Messina and the Pizzerias, Mark Lind and Mikey O. Plus all of us together. Basically all four of us would just headline.
Nancy: It'd be awesome to bring all those old bands back though. Even Darkbuster too. All the bands that have come and gone. Have a "Night of the Living Dead Bands"!
ML: Yeah, though even Downey from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo does not believe in reunion bands at all and we're probably on the dark side of his
moon right now because we're playing again, but those bands definitely have a point. The Trouble went out at the right point and I definitely approve of that for them. Them and The Pinkerton Thugs. They didn't live any longer than they needed to. The Trouble never had time to put out a bad record and have people stop coming to their shows. So everybody remembers them as being huge. So I don't want them to come back. I want to remember them they way there were - but that's just my opinion!
Nancy: If you guys were gonna go out on tour though, who would you most want to take with you?
MM: Guns and Roses!
M'OL: I'd take Rancid.
Nancy: Yeah? Who'd headline, you or Rancid?
ML: We'd headline! If I could put together my own tour and if a lot of people would turn out so it would be worthwhile for these bands to come out, I would definitely bring Sixer from Richmond, Bombshell Rocks from Sweden, the Hudson Falcons from New Jersey and us. Now realistically, if we wanted to do a tour again and we wanted to get on tour with somebody, the first person I'd call to beg to take us out on the road would be Dickie Barrett.
M'OL: Yeah, please, help us out!
Nancy: You'd get a big audience there!
ML: Yeah! I think that'd be a lot of fun.
Nancy: Is that what you're after, bigger audiences?
ML: Well, on tour you have to, if you're going to leave your job and all. I don't know how bands like Hudson Falcons do it - make ends meet and all.... Same with the Bosstones. How did they ever build up to where they are now? It's a mystery.
Nancy: I don't know how they did it but they're big now! So you could go with them!
ML: I want to go with Godsmack! And The Cars! We'll do a Boston on the Road Tour!
Nancy: Well how about Aerosmith?! You could play the Fleet Center!
ML: I don't know. Me and Stevie Tyler don't get along!
Nancy: What are some of your favorite shows that you did play? The shows that you felt you did your best on, the ones you enjoyed the most and have the best memories of?
ML: My favorite was the Avalon with the Dropkicks. That and the Rancid one at the Palladium on Halloween in 1998.
M'OL: Yeah, the Avalon with the Dropkicks on St. Patrick's Day [Jay and Mike agreeing]. That was very aggressive and intense.
ML: We were very fresh, we weren't on tour, we weren't hating each other, we weren't bored with the material. It was a lot of fun. Same with the Rancid show where we met you - that was like a dream come true. We started this band because we wanted to play with Rancid. We played with every band we ever wanted to play with. I can't think of any band that I'm bummed out cause we didn'tget to play with them. When you pursue what you want, you can do it, and that's what we did.
Nancy: That's something worth saying right into the camera, Mark.
ML: [leaning forward] When you pursue whatever you want, you can get it. If you pursue it hard enough, you can get what you want. We did everything we wanted to do with this band and I have no regrets about this band, aside from the fact that our third record never came out.
MM: What are you, friggin' Oprah? [laughter]
Nancy: Well, maybe it will....
ML: Maybe!