Street Dogs.

FORMER DROPKICK MURPHY'S SINGER Mike McColgan's new band the Street Dogs are a four-piece living in Texas, LA and Massachusetts, touring with Flogging Molly and Social Distortion to spread their sounds across Europe and the United States. Thus far they've got a full-length album 8avin Hill, With a new release Back to the World coming out in early 2005 to back it up. They got a heavy S1F/Ramones influence. Be on the look out for these guys, their live shows are packed with high energy and will set your night off.--Rhino

Where are you guys from?

Joe The Kid: Most of us are Mass-holes (from Massachusetts). Marcus the guitar player is from a small-ass town in Texas. Currently we all live in different cities.

Johnny: I always say the Boston area, but I have to give props to Exeter, New Hampshire.

I know some of you played in some other well-known bands in the past.

Joe The Kid: I played drums for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones for most of my adult life. Mike sang for the Dropkick Murphy's, and Johnny played for a bunch of Boston punk bands like the Bruisers and the Uglies. Marcus, this is his first band. Lucky bastard.

You played over in Europe a few months ago with Flogging Molly. How did the Euros respond to your sound?

Joe The Kid: We were all blown away by the response we got from the crowds on the other side of the pond. I have to say out of the 30 or so shows we played maybe two of them didn't go off. Monday nights are tough anywhere. Generally people set it off at shows over there. The kids over here could learn a few things. The fine people of the European continent love rock.

Marcus: The tour was awesome. I love playing Europe, because no matter where we go the kids show us a good time. For the most part, especially in Germany, we get American soldiers coming out and them mixed with the rest of the crowd is unbelievable. They always activate the room. The energy they put off is overwhelming and when you see them singing along and having a good time it just makes Europe that much better.

Who in the band skates?

Johnny: Although you can't tell by my skills anymore, I have been skateboarding for 20 years. I'll always have boards and ramps. The young me would kick the ass of the old me if he knew I wouldn't skate as an old man.

Joe The Kid, I heard you talking about the infamous Cambridge pool when you were like 13 years old. What was that like?

Joe The Kid: Terrifying. I was 13. I had never seen anything like it. This pool was massive. It had like four feet of vert or something stupid like that. It had a couple of big-ass drains on the bottom that you had to snake through.

What's the "Squeaky" nickname story?

Joe The Kid: Well, between the transition and those four feet of vert that I mentioned earlier, there's a lip that sticks out about two inches. So, when you're dropping back in over the deathbox it's just waiting for you to hang up on it. I was barely making it up onto the vert and when I came down I hung up on that lip and slid down the transition on my hip. It made a gnarly squeak sound. I left some skin behind. Some of the older guys starting calling me Squeaky because of it, I think it was Fred Smith or something.

Was Jake Phelps there?

Joe The Kid: I don't remember, but most likely. I do remember some older kids there ripping like I have never seen. There was a dude with dreads that was smoking some wacky, and just rolled straight in and came up the other side and pulled a frontside handplant like it was nothing.

What's the worst thing you've seen on tour?.

Joe The Kid: Tough one. Maybe the girl in London that was trying so hard to look like Avril that we really thought it was her.

Mike: I have a hard time seeing homeless people anywhere, but when we are on tour it bums me out more for some reason. Also, I hate to see homeless people with pets. It's a double whammy, because you have a person struggling to make ends meet and then their pet is going down the drain with them as well. Rugged.

Johnny: My old band, the Bruisers, did a show in Germany. I was setting up merch and one by one Nazis were filtering in with their Skrewdriver shirts and various other bonehead propaganda. Blood For Blood were opening and they have a big Hispanic man named Buddha singing for them. There had to be a couple hundred Nazis there and none of us felt like playing for these boneheads so we packed our gear and split without an explanation. They ended up chasing us out of town. Pretty freaky.

What about new bands paying $500 or more to play the Whiskey with bigger bands, just so they might get noticed?

Joe The Kid: Lame.

Mike: We got hoodwinked into playing that place once--and it sucked. We didn't have to pay but bands having to pay to play sounds like extortion to me. I'll give that a "lame" as well.

Johnny: We just did a Whiskey show and the promoter assured us the other bands were "punk rock." Turns out these crappy rap metal bands were playing. The kind that makes you hate everything about modern popular music. They basically made these bad bands pay to play in front of people that wanted to rush the stage and burn their gear. That's Hollywood for you. As bad as they were, I felt bad for them...slightly.

Marcus: We call them Stoke Extinguishers.