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PUBLISHED: 11-17-08
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With The Tossers
It comes as a great surprise to learn that the rich Irish sounds of The Tossers doesn’t come from across the Atlantic Ocean, but instead from their native roots in South Side Chicago soil. True enough, though, their sound is one of pure Celtic Ireland fueled by raucous punk rock fury to get the blood pumping and Guinness flowing.
The Tossers have pulled their influence from the South Side’s Irish Catholic community, and with it comes boisterous merriment with plenty of whiskey, drunken mishaps and old-town tales of the home country itself.
With their 2008 release, On a Fine Spring Evening, lead guitarist Mike Pawula spoke with The Chronicle about the band’s new album and all the nitty gritty details in between.
Pawula: We got started about 15 years ago, playing some small bar shows here and there, basically as an excuse to just hang out with our friends and have a good time. A few years in, we decided to get a little more serious and released our first album in 2000 [On a Long Dim Road] and signed [to] a minor Chicago label. From there, we just kept building and building.
What was the inspiration behind your band’s name?
A “tosser” is actually a slang term that’s kind of a put down, but it actually refers to a point in Irish history when they were on the British pound and secured their own currency. So they started to refer to the British coin as a “tosser” because they were worthless.
Who are your greatest influences?
Across the board, we are all influenced by a lot of different stuff, but common elements are definitely the Pogues, the Dubliners and stuff like Johnny Cash.
How would you describe your new album, On a Fine Spring Evening?
In relation to our career, this album is upbeat. We tried to put elements in that we haven’t done but still captured the feel of our career. You’ve got the good-time songs and the more serious aspects. These are elements we didn’t touch on at the beginning, but we delved into as a career retrospective. The heart of our band has always been the same, but we just wanted to try different things on our record. It’s a little bit of a departure from what we’ve been doing, but [the album] is a little more defined as who we are.
How do you want people to remember The Tossers?
We’re just a band that wants to go out and have a good time.
What has been your most memorable live experience so far?
The last show we played was in Las Vegas at a Renaissance Fair, which is strange because you’ll have someone come up to you who is dressed as Braveheart and he’ll just have to laugh and have a good time with it. And last year we played in New York for 4,000 people on St. Patrick’s Day opening for The Pogues, and this last year we’ve been to 13 different countries. We are a great live band—it’s a whole different experience than listening to the record.
Catch The Tossers at the Double Door, 1572 N. Milwaukee Ave., on Dec. 12 or check out their music at Myspace.com/TheTossers.
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