Charles and Andrew Hendy, the brothers in folk-punk band The Mary Wallopers, are at home in the Irish coastal town of Dundalk. It’s where they grew up and first heard traditional Irish music being played by their father on the accordion.
They learnt about rebel songs and how they could make their own music with that same spirit when, as school-skipping teens learning guitar, they discovered punk, hip hop, and the attitudes within.
“Any of the music that we actually liked was all rebellious music,” Charles recalls. “Realising when you’re younger that the reason we like all The Dubliners’ songs and The Pogues is because they’re rebellious as well. So they all have a lot in common. There’s one vein throughout our whole musical existence and it’s kind of anti-authority. That’s the thing – we don’t really like being told what to do, even if it’s actually for the good of us.”
The Hendy brothers speak reverently of Dundalk. It’s a place they still clearly adore, and it’s made them who they are.
“There was always a good music scene in Dundalk,” says Charles. “It was like a DIY scene by teenagers for teenagers, which is really funny because it wasn’t like a youth group involved or anything like that. It was just teenagers putting on these concerts in bowling alleys with bars that served teenagers drink… it was carnage. It was like all these drunk teenagers falling around the place and getting beaten up by people who didn’t like metalheads or whatever. So it was great and it still is great. The energy around about Dundalk is fantastic.”
“There’s a healthy disrespect for authority in Dundalk and a bit of lawlessness,” Andrew adds. “You also can’t take yourself too seriously here, if you have too many notions about yourself, it won’t be long before you’re hearing back about it. It keeps you grounded.”
The Irish notion of ‘notions’ is that of being boastful and above one’s station. Since they exploded internationally via their Stay at Home With The Mary Wallopers livestream series during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown era, the band have toured all over Europe and the US in increasingly larger venues each outing.
They have reason to be quite happy with themselves, but the overall feeling is that from a young age they were taught to get by and get on with things and that music is simply what they do. They are a DIY band in every sense.
“If we were to not be able to play all over the world tomorrow, we’d still be playing in Dundalk,” Charles states. “So we need to play music. The reason our father started playing the accordion is that he used to work in a landfill. He drove a bulldozer and found an accordion in the landfill and took it home with him and taught myself how to play.”
“It was in our upbringing as well that we didn’t really have that much money, so if we wanted anything we just had to make it,” Andrew recalls. “So, if we wanted a go kart, he’d turn an old lawnmower into a go kart. It wasn’t very safe but it was also like, anything we wanted, we had to make ourselves. I think when we started learning music, we were just handed instruments and had to figure it out ourselves.
“And we’ve kept applying that to everything. We learned how to livestream, we learned how to make videos, we learned how to record songs, we’ve learned to print t-shirts, picked vans, organised tours… everything that you need to do to be in a band we’ve just taught ourselves.”
“And we’ve taught ourselves everything we don’t need to do to be in a band,” Charles adds with a hearty laugh. “Or how not to make touring incredibly hard. We learned that one so we don’t drink every day on the road.”
Was it a hard lesson learned, that one?
“It was a hard but fun lesson and a hard but necessary lesson,” Charles responds. “When you’re woken up by people having sex in the same room as you’re trying to sleep in then you go, ‘You know what? Maybe rock ’n’ roll should die!’ (laughs).”
Performing on a building block of traditional songs made popular by the likes of The Chieftains, The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners, Domenic Behan, Hamish Imlac and more, The Mary Wallopers are in many respects curators of the music of their countrymen and are invested in keeping that flame burning.
“People always say, ‘Oh, there was a gap in the market for a band like you [to] come along,’ and it’s like, well, there must have been because we wanted to hear it,” Charles says. “So we’ve just made it.”
Even so, on their second album, last year’s Irish Rock N Roll, The Mary Wallopers incorporated their own songs into the band’s repertoire. Sidling their own songs with the traditional tunes was somewhat daunting.
“You feel like you’re not worthy,” admits Andrew. “Like these are great songs and you feel like you’re not good enough to write something that could sit in among them. There’s a bit of impostor syndrome. And also the songs have developed over 100 years – there’s so many different versions of a lot of the songs that have been written and they’ve become the best versions of themselves.
“We’re still figuring that out, but it gives us an opportunity to make whatever type of music we want when we’re doing it ourselves. And I think for a while we were probably too concerned about them sounding like the other songs sound. Whether they sounded like ballads or like us. Whereas now, even on the newer songs we’re working on we’re realising we can just do whatever we want.”
“The last two years of our musical lives have been very intense, very rushed, with not a lot of space in between things,” Charles says. “This year, we have a bit more time… like we just had two months off, and that space is important. So it’s become a bit more exciting, the prospect of writing songs again now, because you have the space to catch yourself off guard.”
Amongst those spaces, however, are tour schedules that will take The Mary Wallopers through the US and Europe again, as well as Australia for the first time. Fortunately, the stage is still their favourite place to be, and a folklore has built up around the band’s live performances.
“I think that’s the most important aspect of us, musically,” Andrew says. “It’s not really or hasn’t so far been as much about recording as it is about live performance. I think it’s just the realest way to connect to people and you play the songs a bit differently every time. There’s always different energy coming from the audience.
“To be honest, whenever you record something, I just never listen to it again. Once you’ve recorded an album, once it’s gone through mastering, that’s it gone out of my head. Live performing is definitely where it’s at for us.”
“Yeah, it’s my favourite thing,” Charles adds. “I despise recording with a passion that I actually did not know I was capable of, but playing gigs? I love it. It is the best thing in the world because it’s dangerous; you don’t really know what’s going on.
“Anything could happen,” he concludes, looking at Andrew. “He broke my guitar when we played a gig last year. Smashed the head clean off it!”
The Mary Wallopers 2024 Australian Tour
Presented by Frontier Touring
New Show: Frontier Members pre-sale
via frontiertouring.com/themarywallopers
Runs 24 hours from: Thursday, March 14th (10am AEDT)
or until presale allocation exhausted
New Show: General sale
Begins: Friday, March 15th (11am AEDT)
All other shows on sale now
via frontiertouring.com/themarywallopers
Wednesday, May 8th
The Triffid, Brisbane, QLD
18+
Friday, May 10th
Metro Theatre, Sydney, NSW
18+
Saturday, May 11th (SOLD OUT)
Northcote Theatre, Melbourne, VIC
Monday, May 13th (NEW SHOW)
Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
18+
Wednesday, May 15th
The Gov, Adelaide, SA
18+
Thursday, May 16th
Astor Theatre, Perth, WA
18+
