Tossers to perform on St. Paddy's Day

As far as hardworking bands go, the Tossers the Tossers rank among some of the most callused in rock music.

Natives of Chicago's traditionally disciplined South Side neighborhoods, this seven-member group banded under the Celtic-punk mantra in the early '90s before either the genre or such genre-specific bands as the Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly formally existed.

During the first 10 years of their tenure, the Tossers recorded nine albums, including a live recording from Chicago's Metro. They signed with Victory Records three years ago and have since released two full-lengths under that brand.

Though they've toured tirelessly throughout the past few years, they've made no bones about where their home remains -- in the South Side basements and punk clubs where they got their start as mainstays of the local scene and one of the most fan-driven, interactive bands in the underground circuit.

Just more than 16 years since they began, the Tossers return to Chicago from a month-long European tour to release their latest live CD and DVD, "Gloatin' and Showboatin': Live on St. Patrick's Day," which was recorded at Metro two St. Paddy's Days ago. Bassist Dan Shaw, who stayed home during this overseas tour and was replaced by Local H's Scott Lucas, talked with us about the anatomy of a Tossers live show.

Q. I think the first time I saw you guys was at a VFW hall or something in the South suburbs.

A. That's quite possible.

Q. How did you choose the material for the Metro show you recorded for the new album? Did you decide on a set list beforehand?

A. We used to try to do a set list, but about two or three songs into it, that would go out the door, and it's always been that way. So what we do is … we would have a list of all of our songs. Just a list. So if the moment does come when you're like, "Huh, what to do?" then we go to a list and we stand there for a second and look at it. More recently, in the last year or so, we've been kind of grouping songs together, so we have, like, three-song blocks.

Q. A lot of the shows I've been to, the best part of being in the audience is shouting out requests -- and sometimes you'll play them. It's an interactive experience show-goers don't get so much these days.

A. We've always kind of enjoyed the stump-the-band part of the equation, and (that's) one of our favorite things because we're not a band that really spends any time practicing; we get together and we work out the record and that's it, that's what we do. I mean, there have been times when we have written songs more or less without even having access to instruments. It's just like talking it through and beating out a rhythm with your hands, and just working things out mentally.

Q. Has it been harder to sit down and get the band together to write new songs while touring so heavily?

A. It's quite the opposite, actually. It's kind of like when you learn things when you sleep. The more time that you spend together with anybody, the more intimately you know each other, and everything kind of blossoms out of that. So you kind of already know what people are going to be doing, and since you're spending all that time together touring, there's writing going on all the time.

Q. Learning in your sleep, that's such a good way of putting it. You've known these guys for so long, it's obviously become second nature for you guys.

A. Totally. My favorite part is when people are like, play Twisted Sister or Quiet Riot. Or somebody died in rock 'n' roll. Like when Easy E died, and we did the Easy E show. We did all Easy E songs, and we never ever, ever, ever once learned one Easy E song. We ended up doing an impromptu Easy E set, and it's just because you figure that everybody knows a thousand songs. But most of those songs that each person knows are different than everybody else's. And it's just music, which is the other thing. So like all music is basically the exact same. If someone's remembering the first word of the first line, or even the first word of the second line, it's usually enough to create the whole song. And once you start, it just becomes second nature.

Q. It seems so rare these days. Like, when I go to a show, I expect the new album to get played from front to back and that's basically it. I feel like some bands don't even know their own stuff that well.

A. They should; I would hope so. I don't know. Like when we were out with Pat (Calpin) and Ian (McKenzie) from Catch 22 maybe a year ago, and Pat was like, "Every night, every single night your show is completely different, and no matter what people scream out, you play it." And he was like, "How did you get to that point?" And I'm like, "You get really bored, that's how you get to that point." It's all about the exchange of energy, and if the crowd has no energy, you've got to get up there and you've got to feed it to them. And if they already have a little bit of energy, you just take their energy, magnify it by 10 and send it right back out. You just keep that constant circle going, so that the show gets more and more energetic and more and more fun. That's the reason why I've always considered us a live band. You buy our CD at the show to take home the memory of the show, not the other way around.

Q. I guess the point I was trying to make was that you don't get that from shows these days. And it would seem hard to keep yourselves motivated to do that, despite all the shows.

A. I dunno. You get bored. If you're standing up there like a bunch of toe-gazers -- and there's lots of toe-gazer bands out there -- there's lots of boring melodic indie rock and emo stuff, and they do that, and it works for some people. It just doesn't work for us. It's a double-edged sword. If you get out there and you play the same set every night, it really moves things along. You get this machine aspect, and you totally go on autopilot, which is great because you can usually squeeze more songs in and it keeps the crowd moving. … But the flip side to that is, you also lose the fun and the spontaneity and the crowd interaction, and that's a drag.

Q. Can you tell what type of audience is there that night based on the requests?

A. Sure. When we started, I always thought the greatest thing was that from 8 to 80, everybody loved us. So people would come with their kids or their younger brothers or sisters, but the grandparents would come, too. Everyone enjoys it, and kids can bring their parents. Outside from the occasional curse word -- I shouldn't say occasional -- but outside of the sailor talk, everyone enjoys themselves. And within the Irish community, for a long time what was so great was that everybody would come with their parents. And their parents would be like, "I love this stuff. You're completely reinventing it for our kids, and we're so happy that they're getting into this." It's true, because we do a bunch of traditional stuff, but with the energy of youth. Obviously if the song's been around 500 years, it has staying power. … To put your heart and soul behind it and redeliver it with sincerity and conviction, people are more apt to be paying attention.

Q. So you're saying that your goal is to take these songs, these old classics, and put them out to the public, and that it isn't just punk rock or Celtic punk, but that these have real roots to them. Do you think that's lost at all because the genre, Celtic punk, exists?

A. I don't really know. At some point the answer to that would be yes, some of it gets lost. In the U.S. that term, "Celtic punk," did not exist, and we were the only band doing what we did. No one knew how to categorize us, because there was no other band like us. Record labels were like, "What you're doing is really cool, but what is it?" And promoters and stuff were like, "Well, they wear suits; I guess we'll put them on a ska tour. We would show up -- and we still show up -- and people would be like, "How many horns do you got?" … I'm really happy that Celtic punk counts for something as a genre of music. I don't necessarily know how anyone measures our success, but the fact that that genre exists in the way that it does now, I take that as a huge measure of success.

Q. But you guys were around longer than those other bands. Why didn't it happen earlier for the Tossers?

A. There are a lot of elements to that question. But I'm thrilled for them.

Upcoming show:

St. Paddy's show at 8 p.m. today at Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., Chicago. Tickets cost $16; metrochicago.com.