I Was a Teenage DRUG DEALER. . .

IT’S FAIRLY obvious why one of my journalistic colleagues was moved to describe him as a human Rotweiller but today, anyway, Danny Boy O’Connor bears the demeanour of a small puppy who’s just awoken at the vets to discover that his chances of siring the next Cruft’s champion are lying in a surgical dish.

“Man, it’s only 10.30 in the morning which, you know, if we were on tour would be the middle of the night,” offers the 6ft. 6”, 220lb House Of Pain rapper by way of mitigation. “I’m a vampire, I see daylight and I turn to dust. The other thing you gotta remember is that when you see me on stage, I’m going through therapy. All the anger and frustration I feel in daily life gets sweated out in front of a crowd. That’s why there’s so much tension at our shows – it’s ‘hey motherfuckers, you better get out of my way because here I come...pow!’ Basketball players do the same, they shit-talk and intimidate their opponents. We couldn’t do a song like ‘Put Your Head Out’ and be throwing daisies. Blowing kisses ain’t our scene – if you want to provoke a reaction from an audience, you gotta be in their faces. That said, I ain’t looking to incite no riot and when the performance ends and I go home, I’m just a regular guy who laughs, cries, shits, loves his family and washes the dishes every so often.”

Whatever else I might have had Danny Boy pegged as, it certainly wasn’t a pipe ‘n’ slippers man. Our last encounter, for instance, ending with himself and a JCB digger-proportioned chum fulfilling many an Irish fantasy by kicking shit out of the 2FM Roadcaster. I’ll leave you for a few moments to joyously contemplate which top ‘personality’ was on-air at the time before reflecting that Michael McNamara was lucky to make it back to Limerick that night with his funking capabilities intact.

“That’s the guy, yeah? I’ll have to write his name down so we can look him up when we come over next week!”

Oops, sorry Michael, I seem to have dropped a teensy weensy bit of a clanger there!

“I was pissed off,” he continues, “because I felt it wasn’t the radio station’s business to make my business their business. In other words, we were asked as a favour if we’d put on a show for the people of West Belfast. We knew that Sinn Fein were involved in the organisation but we weren’t doing it for a cause or to put anybody down. We just wanted to play a gig in an area where they don’t get too many bands.

“Anyway, we’re backstage at Féile a couple of weeks beforehand and this Michael McNamara dude asks whether he can interview me on his radio show. It wasn’t scheduled but, no problem, I go off into this van thing for a talk. The second or third question is, ‘where can we see you next?’, and when I start to tell him he cuts me off mid-sentence, making me look a complete asshole. I wasn’t throwing round IRA slogans or slamming anyone but his attitude is, ‘thank you very much, we’re done.’ We weren’t done, though, so I hung around and spat at the van and other stuff.”

The “other stuff” Danny Boy refers to probably took a team of panel-beaters a week to put right but, hey, the Roadcaster was overdue a respray. The event inadvertently responsible for this vehicular carnage was the West Belfast Community Festival, a week-long arts splurge which last year was meant to have featured House Of Pain playing outdoors on the Springhill Estate. As it happens, they never made it any further north than Dublin Airport, prompting one disgruntled organiser to surmise that they must have heard the rumours about the UVF declaring a fatwah on visiting overseas artists.

“That ain’t true,” he growls, the effect of the vet’s anaesthetic starting to wear off. “Our record company ’phones up the day after the radio incident asking, ‘what the fuck’s going on?’, and all of a sudden we’re stuck in the middle of a controversy that wasn’t of our making and that we didn’t understand. Then Everlast’s father was taken ill and he had to fly home to attend to the medical expenses. What had started out as us agreeing to play a free gig for a worthy cause had turned into a big nightmare thing which, frankly, we weren’t prepared to take on. Not because we were scared but because of the other shit that was going down.”

We shall return to matters political later on but, right now, I’m going to jolly well burst unless I tell you that we came within a John Woo movie of having Mickey Rourke join House Of Pain for their Irish tour – a trek which kicks off this week in Athlone and over the coming fortnight finds them visiting such notorious rap ’n’ roll hotspots as Carlow and the South Central of the west, Sligo.

“We’re always joking that he’s the fourth member of House Of Pain and he keeps promising to jump up on stage with us and do a couple of numbers,” explains O’Connor. “I know he’s got the talent but the question is does he have the balls? We’d arranged that he’d guest on some of the Irish shows, probably the Dublin ones, but then this Year Of The Dragon-style movie came up and he’s disappeared off to Hong Kong or Korea. Mickey was big into the idea, as well, of ’phoning up and getting U2 down but we can’t get hold of their number. If you bump into ’em, ask them to give us a call.”

Myself and The Edge usually take our step-aerobics class together on Mondays but, unfortunately, this week I’ve promised Joe Elliot I’ll go round and touch-up his highlights. Perhaps I could mention it to Larry at the Young Millionaire’s Club luncheon or, alternately, I could stop being a facetious git and inquire as to where precisely it was that Danny Boy made the stubbly-one’s acquaintance?

“The first time I met Mickey was when I walked into his gym to workout and the only people there were him and his trainer. He asked, ‘do you box?’, and I said, ‘no, I fight!’ After that, of course, there was only one place we were going to end up and that was in the ring. My heart was in my fucking mouth. Here was this guy I’d admired for years inviting me to box with him.

“I was kinda worried at first because I’m at least eight inches taller than him but as soon as he cracked me a good one, that was it, no more Mr. Nice Guy! We went the whole three rounds, nearly killing each other in the process, and at the end of it there was a mutual respect that has since developed into a close friendship. Mickey’s much more serious about the sport than I am – I train hard a couple of times a year to lose my beer-belly but he’s fought and beaten some useful pros. He’s not going to be the next Champion of the World but he’s no bum either.”

This gives me the chance to pretend that my reading extends beyond the back page of the Daily Mirror by referring to a wonderful piece that the cinematic P.J. O’Rourke, Joe Queenan, wrote for his recently published book If You’re Talking To Me, Your Career Must Be In Trouble. Entitled ‘The Marlboro Man’, it finds the normally mild-mannered hack picking fights, getting drunk and generally trying to trawl the depths of obnoxiousness hitherto only plumbed by Mrs. Rourke’s son Michael.

“That’s him,” chuckles his sparring partner approvingly. “That’s what you’ve got to love about Mickey – he’s a no bullshit kind of a dude. I still can’t figure out whether it’s a 24 hour a day act or if he’s genuinely crazy but if you’re his friend, he’ll stand by you come what may. And I’d do the same for him. If someone picks a fight with Mickey, it doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong, I’ll pitch in for him.”

It might come as a bit of a shock to those into the more macho side of the House Of Pain persona that Danny Boy is also bestest mates with Tommy Lee from the frankly rather girlie Motley Crue. Does this mean that our shitkickin’, bitchdissin’, motherfuckin’ hero went through a big hair and mascara phase?

“Sure man, I’m an old rocker,” he admits shamelessly. “Like every other kid, I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Aerosmith, Cheap Trick and all those other party bands but then came the time when everyone split and I got more into old ska and new wave. When they came along first I was a punk, so I thought ‘fuck Motley Crue’, but now I realise those guys know how to stomp ass. Actually, two nights ago, they dragged me on stage to do ‘Live Wire’ with them. To a certain extent, Tommy’s your stereotypical rock ‘n’ roller but underneath he’s just a regular guy and a hell of a player. I’ve seen a million drummers and technically he’s way out there. He’s also a master-showman – there’s part of the set where his drum-riser flips up and he’s left hanging at a ninety degree angle. It aint necessarily what I want to do but that shit’s cool.”

Having taken two months out to properly celebrate Christmas in L.A. with their folks, Danny Boy admits that they’re all “pulling at our fucking dicks to get back on the road.” The masturbatory interlude has, however, enabled him to devote quality time to his White Trash clothing line and the House Of Pizza restaurant he plans on opening up in partnership with Mickey Rourke.

“We’re battling the City at the moment for a liquor licence which our legal people tell us is a formality but is sure as hell taking its time to come through. I want to make sure it’s done right because, to tell the truth, I need the money. I spent over $1 million last year buying myself the stuff I never had as a kid and now I realise that the supply of royalty cheques you get sent isn’t limitless. I don’t expect any hearts to bleed for me – I got myself into this mess and now it’s up to me to get myself out.

“I’m just glad,” he continues, “that my difficulties are purely financial. When you give money and status to someone who’s never had those things before, the danger is they’re going to overstep their power. I don’t want to personalise about any particular case but that’s what’s happened to a lot of those ‘gangsta’ guys. They get caught up in their own bullshit mythology and when they push it too far, they start shouting ‘victimisation’ and ‘conspiracy’. Maybe some of them have been screwed by the police but, generally, I don’t believe there’s a government department plotting their downfall.”

Danny Boy O’Connor is better qualified as a criminologist than most, hanging with L.A. street gangs from the tender age of 13 and succumbing to the fast thrills and even quicker money offered by drug dealing. A lot of his friends never made it out of their teens while others graduated to adulthood behind bars and are still waiting for a chance to consign their misdemeanours to the past.

“It’s a double-edged sword. In many ways, they were the best days of my life. My mother brought me from New York to Los Angeles when I was 13, my father was never in the picture and I didn’t have any brothers, so when it came to male role models, the only ones I had were the guys in the gang. And it was genuine friendship – once you’d earned their respect, they’d stand by you no matter what. By the same token, yeah, I count myself lucky to be alive. It wasn’t as heavy as the Crips and Bloods stuff but there were times when I was in real danger and my luck could have run out.

“Maybe I’d live that part of my life differently now but when you’re earning $3.25 an hour minimum wage at McDonald’s and one of your friends comes in with gold rings on his fingers and buys the whole restaurant a Big Mac, it isn’t easy to say, ‘hey, I ain’t breaking the law’. You’re at an age when you’re moulded by your environment rather than the other way around.”

What we haven’t heard much about yet are the trio’s Irish-American roots, a keenly felt sense of heritage which has prompted everything from the inclusion of tracks like ‘Top O The Morning To Ya’ and ‘Shamrock And Shenanigans’ on their albums to open declarations of support for the Provos. This hasn’t always won them friends and influenced people – Andy Cairns from Therapy? describing them as “naive” and jokes circulating backstage at Féile viz a viz why there are three members of the group. The answer, apparently, is one to shout ‘shit’, one to shout ‘fuck’ and the other to go ‘up the IRA!’ Danny Boy, you’re in the dock, defend yourself.

“One thing I know I’m not,” he insists, “is a bigot. I’ve friends who are rich, poor, black, Hispanic, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant... I don’t care where you’re from or what colour you are. I learned the stupidity of hate when I was gang-banging and you’d shoot at a guy because he was wearing blue and you were wearing red. You both lived in the same part of town, you were both going through the same struggle every day just to survive, yet without even knowing him, he was your sworn enemy. Catholic/Protestant, the deal’s no different. I realise that a lot of shit and history’s gone down to make the situation the way it is but I couldn’t hate somebody because of their religion. It’s always upset and angered me to see Irish people being killed but I’m not in a position to offer solutions because I don’t know the full story. I live in Los Angeles, not Belfast, so put me down as a concerned tourist.”

While the idea of a prepubescent Danny O’Connor warbling out a falsetto ‘Molly Malone’ at the local Irishman’s Association has plenty of comedic appeal, it wasn’t until he started rapping that he realised there was more to his make-up than his immediate surroundings. Looking back now, does he regret that he wasn’t more immersed in Irish culture at an early age?

“The way it worked out between growing up in Brooklyn and then moving to L.A. is that I was exposed to every conceivable type of culture you can think of and that was a marvellous education. After we’d left New York, I used to go back and spend the summers there, so I was aware of the different neighbourhoods and I knew part of me was Irish without having to stand up and wave a flag. You know what they say about being more Irish than the Irish? You walk into a bar in Queen’s and there are people there, I swear, who believe in leprechauns. They’re living out a stereotype and I ain’t sure that’s healthy.”

What, leprechauns aren’t real? Unlike certain other crews who’d gladly go in for the full Al Jolson treatment if they thought it’d make them more black, House Of Pain have always drawn on other cultures rather than ripping them off wholesale. The backbeats might have been imported from Jamaica and the rhythms borrowed from Compton but the raps and the attitude are strictly third-generation white trash American.

“Public Enemy are one of my favourite groups – I mean , I worship those guys – but I can’t rap about Africa and other black stuff because that’s not my culture. Black kids don’t want white kids telling them how to be black, the same way white kids don’t want other white kids telling them how to be black. When Everlast asked me to leave my punk band and start something with him, I said, ‘yeah but let’s not do a 3rd Bass and pretend we’re black. We’re white, we’re Irish. Let’s explore that’. That’s why other crews respect us – we’re exploring our ancestry, they’re exploring theirs and there are common experiences which unite us. Go to our shows and you’ll see that the crowd is every colour imaginable. You don’t get that with Vanilla Ice, you know what I’m saying?”

Yup, message received loud and clear. House Of Pain aren’t gun-toting gangstas but neither are they safe, homogenised and passed fit by the Senators’ Wives for middle-class consumption. With no Irish bars or community centres to help with his education, how has Danny Boy managed to delve beyond the Oirishness he so obviously holds in contempt?

“Who knows where you soak it all up from? I used to sit my mother down and get her to tell me everything she knew but, outside of that, I guess it was a case of keeping my ears and eyes open. I’m a hands-on kind of dude – I’d rather go some place and talk to people than read books or newspapers. Some of the stuff I discovered took me a while to get my head round. I heard about Bobby Sands and the H-Blocks when I was a kid, sure, but it wasn’t until I was older that I fully appreciated what the hunger strike meant and it had a profound effect on me. This wasn’t ancient history. This was shit that’d happened in my lifetime and there was no guarantee it wasn’t going to happen again. My first reaction was anger and then sadness as I realised there’s hardly anyone in Northern Ireland – Catholic or Protestant – who hasn’t lost somebody they love. Because of who I am there’s pressure on me to take sides politically but, hell, I don’t even like politics.”

Critics would suggest that espousing “the cause” and using Republican imagery in their videos amounts to very definite side-taking but chatting to Danny Boy in his home rather than the charged atmosphere of a gig, you feel that House Of Pain’s ideological shortcomings have more to do with over-exuberance than calculated malice. Ditto the painfully dumb lyrics on their Same As It Ever Was album which, if they weren’t wrapped round the fattest, funkiest beats this side of the last Cypress Hill opus, would verge on the unlistenable.

“We’ve been accused of every -ism and -ia there is,” he rues a mite wearily, “but all we’re doing is using the language we hear around us on the streets. That’s more honest than keeping the Mind Police happy by throwing in this week’s politically correct buzzwords.”

There’s political incorrectness and being downright offensive but seeing as Danny Boy O’Connor could probably hospitalise me for six months with a single lash of his tongue, I think we’ll return to the slightly less contentious issue of House Of Pain’s Irish tour and the fact that by visiting international superstar standards, it’s positively gargantuan.

“The first time we played in Ireland was for me, personally, a disaster. We had a gig at a venue called the Dublin Castle and a few hours before we were due on, I got taken ill with alcohol poisoning. I remember people asking me when ‘Jump Around’ hit the charts, ‘what’s changed?’, and I’d tell ‘em, ‘a year ago I had no money and drank too much and I was regarded as a bum and a derelict. Now I’ve sold two million records and I drink too much and everybody wants to shake my hand’. You can get away with a lot when you’re famous and I fell into the trap of going, ‘you want to interview me? Okay, take me to the pub and I’m yours for the next half-hour’. Compared to America, Ireland has a real drinking culture. You go into a bar at lunchtime and you’re still there when they’re pulling down the shutters and sweeping the floor. I love that but it’s kinda detrimental to my health.

“We had to get one of the guys we’d brought along to do backing vocals to fill in for me,” he continues, “so on this tour, my Guinness intake is going to be strictly rationed. We could have come over and just done Belfast and Dublin but we wanted to see the country and meet the fans and, well, I suppose you could call it a working holiday.”

But not one, sadly, that will find them sipping pink gins on the veranda with Mickey Rourke.

“Can you believe that guy?” splutters Danny Boy incredulously. “We were offering him the opportunity to come over, drive hundreds of miles every day and not get paid a cent, and he turned us down because someone wanted to give him a couple of million dollars for a month’s work.”

Tsch, people can be so bloody ungrateful!

• House Of Pain’s Irish tour takes them to the RTC, Athlone (February 9th), Leisureland, Galway (10th), Theatre Royal, Limerick (11th), SFX, Dublin (13th & 14th), Ulster Hall, Belfast (16th), Arena, Armagh (17th), Sports Centre, Letterkenny (18th), Sports Centre, Sligo (20th), Horan’s, Tralee (22nd), Sports Centre, Carlow (23rd), Metroland, Waterford (24th) and City Hall, Cork (25th).