Growing up sucks. Maybe not for everyone, but if punkers The Menzingers‘ seminal album On The Impossible Past is any indication, it certainly did for them. It’s a nostalgic album about recapturing “the good ol’ days” of your early adulthood with all its love, loss and growth. But they were only in their mid-20s at the release of the album, just young enough to think you know what old means but really have no clue.

Now in their mid-30s, the Philadelphia punk band is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with people around the world. Just this fall, they toured Europe, flew back for a punk festival in Florida and went Northeast for a leg there now with plans to fly down to New Orleans for a show at Tipitina’s, November 29. The reason for the bizarre tour route? Mostly weddings—a byproduct of aging. So now the punk band that used to drive hundreds of miles in a white van to play basements, anxious about losing their youth, can afford to fly members around the country for weddings and sellout 1,000-cap rooms for their music. 

OffBeat asked vocalist and guitarist Tom May about what it’s like to be an aging punk, why New Orleans is their favorite city to tour and his theory on ghosts.

Edited for clarity. For tickets to the upcoming show, visit Tipitina’s website.

 

Have you ever been to New Orleans?

We’ve been to New Orleans a lot of times. Every time a family member asks where my favorite place is to go in the United States on tour, I always say New Orleans. Our other guitar player and singer Greg [Barnett] has family connections in New Orleans, so he’s been going to the Blues Festival [Jazz and Heritage Festival] there since he was a kid. And a lot of that shaped our sound as a band and we just absolutely love going to New Orleans and reading about New Orleans.

How has New Orleans influenced your music? I can hear it in some of your recent albums. Has that always been there?

It’s kinda always been there. I think a lot of it was we were too angry and not good enough musicians—we were too much into punk to try to expand out. And then once we started to play with cleaner tones and started to pay more attention to what we were doing with the guitars, I think we inevitably took a detour into some of the more complicated music like jazz, blues and rock. We’re not getting too much into  Americana while we’re writing now, but on the last record, there’s certainly a bunch of influence on that— that being Hello Exile. When we wrote and recorded On The Impossible Past, that was the first time that we really started to record softer or record things more without having just driving punk parts. On The Impossible Past was when we first started touring the US and one place that we went was New Orleans. More specifically, we had spent time a little bit of time in Houma, Louisiana. And just being in that section of the country that’s so famous for music, the food, and just meeting people that were so much different than us in their dialect, you know—it really opened up our eyes to a broader cultural understanding of the country.

So, you’ve played in New Orleans before?

Yeah, we played in New Orleans a bunch of times. We take days off in New Orleans more than we play there. For whatever reason, in the past, we haven’t had a large punk fan following as compared to other cities of the same size around the country, so we didn’t do that many shows. But we have played New Orleans a bunch of times and every time we do it’s so much fun. 

Do you, do you remember any places you thought were cool or things that you did while you were in the city?

Oh my God, yeah. One night, it was an off-day on the Rise Against arena tour that we did 10, 12 years ago, and we went to New Orleans for three days. We played one show with them at the House of Blues. And then we had another two days there. But one of my best friends that we were on tour with, he and I climbed onto the roof of the hotel/bed and breakfast that we were staying in and we just ran across the roofs and went down to a couple different bars and then met up with his friend and sat by the water until like five, six o’clock in the morning. And that was just one of my favorite nights of all time. It was just so goddamn fun. 

But New Orleans is always like that. The last time we were there was very strange. At the time New Orleans was the leader in per capita COVID cases in the country. And we had to go there even though the show was canceled because we needed a part for our bus. Walking around New Orleans in that environment was still really fun, but it was kind of surreal and a bizarre situation to be in—almost dreamlike. 

So back up just a second, you were in the [French] Quarter running on rooftops?

Yeah, I dunno if I should say that I’m definitely the tourist that came in and acted like a fucking buffoon but it was all in good faith. We were just young. We just ran through. I feel like you almost meet people in like a spooky, serendipitous way [in New Orleans]. Like, I ran into somebody that I knew from somewhere else on the street. We talked to a bunch of people and then his friend met up with us and took us on a walking tour down by the water. We watched some of the boats come by and it was just incredible.

I’m just picturing you like, I don’t know, Assassin’s Creed diving from rooftops.

Was not far off in my memory at least, we were kinda drunk. I remember climbing down and getting chased by some guy who was like screaming with just the thickest Cajun dialect, while we were climbing over this balcony. Rightfully so. But it still makes for an adventure

That reminds me, y’all are a punk band that somehow made it past 35 [years old]. Now, you’re doing the On The Impossible Past’s 10-year anniversary tour. How do you feel about being out of your 20s and this album that defined that period in your life?

That’s a great question. I try not to come out immediately with judging the feeling—if it’s good or if it’s bad. It’s certainly a great thing that we are touring on this record and that this record touched so many lives. But to be frank, when we first were pitched this idea of doing a 10-year anniversary of the tour, we didn’t want to. We don’t wanna be the band that is hammering back on something, like we were trying to relive an experience in our lives that we can’t relive again. And then, as we started to realize it, how the record had touched so many people and how it made them feel and how it made us feel, and when we looked at it in an honest way, we realized, you know, it is a good thing. 

It’s been super-interesting because we’re in the middle of writing another record. So we’re looking at this record, which is exactly where we were, you know, in a quarter-life crisis situation. The narrative [of On The Impossible Past] was basically a distorted mirror image of our lives at the time. And we’re looking at that now asking ourselves, ‘How do we write that now?’ Is being in your mid-thirties in a successful punk band as relatable? There are such strong emotions in the chaos of your mid-twenties. Maybe it’s not as exciting or fiery, but it is a good way to reframe our lives now and look at how that can be reflected forward. 

It feels like a really big sense of kind of accomplishment. We feel a little bit older and wiser. We realized that we actually did accomplish something by putting this record out and we can still share it with people.

I think that’s one of the interesting things about being a “punk” band. There comes a time when you’re like, ‘Am I too old for this?’ Did you have that sort of realization at some point?

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, punk means something different to everyone, but if you need to explain it to an alien or something, one of the main components is the do-it-yourself ethic. There’s a certain politics that usually goes along with it and clearly a sound that goes along with it. But one thing I found the most interesting to examine about the punk ethos and being a punk band is that contrarianism that’s baked into the attitude of the culture. So it’s not like a clear virtue or a set of morals. A lot of it literally is just being contrarian to whatever is popular or whatever the “right way” is, whether it’s the nepotism of the music industry or it’s how you do music.

And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten better at catching myself being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. I think that that can lead down a bit of a jaded and cynical path. So yeah, looking now and trying to reconcile what it means to be a punk band and what it meant to be a punk band with what we’re becoming now— there’s a lot to think about there. And you know, as long as we’re honest about it, it works out better. But then there’s also the component of it getting harder as we get older. The amount of physical energy that goes into the show is, is easy, still fantastic. But then the aftermath you get a little bit more sore these days. It’s pretty funny.

Like a post-show hangover but you didn’t drink? 

Yeah! On days when I’m feeling particularly cynical or cranky, I’ll think of Cargo Cults. There were these groups of people that lived on Pacific islands used by the military in World War II and [the army] brought all this food, medicine and then the army left. Some anthropologists went back to the islands decades later and noticed that people were making fake watch towers and fake binoculars and they were like ritualistically reenacting the things that they saw the soldiers doing. And on the days I’m the crankiest, I think, is that what we’re doing? Are we just like those ‘90s rockabilly bands that are trying to reimagine the ’50s? Are we a punk band that’s reimagining what life was like in the ‘80s? You know? And I think that’s not a very helpful way to think.

That reminds me. Your tour brought you to The Fest in Florida, which one of the largest punk festivals in the South. But I bring it up because it’s one of the few places you can go and not feel weird for saying, “Hey, I wanna still be into punk music and I’m older.” Can you tell me about your Fest experience this year?

I believe it’s been about three years since we played Fest. It was fucking amazing this year. It was like playing a basement show in front of 5,000 people or whatever. A lot of the same faces that we’ve seen over the years were in the crowd. We played that record [On The Impossible Past] which launched our career side-by-side with Fest. Without Fest, we would not be the band that we are today. So, playing with all of our heroes on the same stage and getting to bop around to the other venues—it was amazing. It was like playing Fest years ago, but a lot easier because we were playing on the main stage and we got to stay in a hotel and all that stuff. But yeah, it was kind of surreal. It was kinda bittersweet. . It wasn’t like heartbreaking, but there was just something deep about it that kind of made me a little bit sad.

I would imagine it’s a little sad leaving, like going back to your daily life at home after a long tour/

Yeah. Oh my God. Trying to transition back into real life from being on tour is something that you figured after 12, 13 years we would’ve gotten down, but we absolutely do not. I still get home, curse too much, feel uncomfortable, get in arguments and then a couple days later be like, “Oh okay, now I’m back.”

Your tour right now is a little weird. Y’all are playing Boston tonight [November 15] and then making your way back down here? 

Yeah, we had a bunch of weddings. Greg [Barnett, who has family in New Orleans] just was there last weekend for a wedding which is why we had to move some shows around. Almost all of our entire band and crew is flying to New Orleans early instead of riding with the bus so we can have some more time to hang out.

That’s cool! What’s your plans for visiting New Orleans this time around? 

Oh my God. Food for sure. It’s my favorite culinary place in the entire country. You know, a lot of drinking and eating. One place that we always love to go to is that pirate bar at the end of Bourbon.

Jean Lafitte’s [Blacksmith Shop]?

That one! We usually end up usually end up there at the end of the night. That’s one of my favorite places to go. So spooky and awesome there. My wife listens to a lot of true crime podcasts and I always have her send me the ones that take place in New Orleans cause they’re always some extra cool about it.

Lafitte’s is supposedly haunted and a lot of those ghost tours stop there. Do you believe in ghosts?

I mean, it’s a weighted question I’d say. I think that there’s definitely aspects of human consciousness that we don’t understand or can’t measure yet, but the idea of somebody living on as a mist? I don’t think Casper is the ghost thing, but I definitely feel like there’s spooky things that happen that we still don’t understand.

Cool. Thanks for answering the hard-hitting questions!

Hey man, I come from a very Irish Catholic family which have plenty of superstitions and stories that I’ve heard since I was a kid. And then, you just hear things and see things on tour over the years that make you go, “This isn’t explained yet. I’m not gonna full-stop say we understand everything. At the same time, I don’t know if the ghost of Lafitte is running around scratching people in the back or whatever.

Do you have a tour ghost story?

Yeah, I saw a ghost at a venue in Montana. It was very innocuous. I just thought there was another guy in the room—and then he wasn’t there anymore. The door was locked and I was like, “That’s fucking weird. So I ran out and talked to the people who ran the venue and told them what happened and they were like, “Oh yeah, that happens to people all the time. I saw him by the pool table like six months ago.” 

And then you just went about your business like, “Oh okay, cool?”

Yeah. I mean, there was no cold feeling. There was no feelings of dread. I literally just thought that there was like a maintenance guy in the room while I was getting changed. And then I looked again and he was gone. And I was like, “what the fuck?” Most boring ghost story ever…

One question to close it out, what’s your favorite song from On The Impossible Past?

“Gates” because it paints a picture of our lives at that time. And…well the real reason too is I love fucking playing that guitar rhythm. It’s so fun and easy. It kind of lays over it. And it’s also when we started writing songs in a more open way instead of just driving guitars. It’s kind of got a dancing vibe to it. We wrote it with “Lost in the Supermarket” by The Clash in mind. It was one of the first ones that we wrote and it’s one of my favorite ones to still play to this day.

 

For tickets, visit Tipitina’s website.