The Rumjacks Embrace Their History with ‘Dead Anthems’

The two rival gangs know shit is about to go down. 

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Serious-looking faces make their way across cobblestone streets, eyes staring intensely ahead under caps, hoods, or furrowed brows.

Mike Rivkees is lying on his back, blood trickling out from his mouth and coating his teeth.

Out the gate, line em up and start em young

Out the gate, it’s violence immediately.

Violence like this, gang versus gang, us versus them, man versus man—or maybe even God—is at the heart of Celtic punk bands like the Rumjacks.

The multinational band, made up of Irish-Americans and Irish-from-Ireland, borrows much of the imagery used from the musicians that came before them. That’s sort of part of the deal when your genre uses so much of the traditional sound—“trad” to those in that world.

This battle playing out on screen is the music video for The Rumjacks’ “An Eye for an Eye,” from their February album Dead Anthems. Mike Rivkees calls it one of their most “cinematic” songs to date.

This says a lot about a band whose subject matter often revolves around character-driven narratives where hard-luck individuals try to do what’s right, to mixed results.

With “An Eye for an Eye,” the Rumjacks return to the well so often drawn from by musicians with any connection to Ireland: The Troubles, the decades of violence between different warring factions in Northern Ireland—Catholics and Protestants, Republicans, and loyalists. Neighbors.

When it’s eye for an eye

It’s one for another

We mix blood on our hands

With the tears of our mothers

When it’s eye for an eye

It’s one for another

We destroy ourselves

We destroy our brothers

It’s not a ripped-from-the-headlines story, though. Rivkees and the Rumjacks use the backdrop of Belfast to tell a story that the listener can place almost anywhere in the world, unfortunately, to some degree: violence against your fellow man and the collateral damage that results from it.

“We didn’t go too specific as far as a story,” he says from his home studio in Providence, Rhode Island—far from Ireland. “It’s not about a specific news story or event that happened. It’s kind of meant to be just a bigger picture, overarching theme of cyclical violence and generational hatred.”

That same idea is addressed in “Father’s Fight,” which feels more at home on American television than Irish lately.

I wish I hadn’t heard the bloody news today

It’s always just a fuckin shame

“Another lone wolf”

“Did he learn it at home?”

Tomorrow he’ll be sent away

Celtic punk bands like the Rumjacks deal heavily in character-driven narrative. Across Dead Anthems, Rivkees sings about heroes, anti-heroes, losers, winners—all complicated humans in some struggle either internal or external. Some are violent epics, some are triumphant cheers over sloshing beer, others are tears in whiskey and broken hearts, like “An Irish Goodbye on St. Valentine’s Day,” which tells the story of a relationship that just couldn’t make it. 

I drank until I slurred and swore I’d never love again

And I don’t blame you, not one bit, for walking when you did

And now I’m standing here in the freezing rain and you’re already home

And I only showed up to this place so I wouldn’t die alone

Listening to and reading these stories, one can’t help but think about who came before the Rumjacks. When you’re any amount of “trad” in Celtic punk, you have to pay homage to the ones who paved the way. Dropkick Murphys are one of, if not the, biggest, stateside at least. And after a tumultuous past with the Rumjacks’ previous singer Frankie McLaughlin, Rivkees’ addition to the band in 2020 helped smooth things over with the guys from Boston. 

For a band that sings about violence so much, the Rumjacks do know who they should avoid picking a fight with.

“No one wanted a rivalry, especially with the Dropkicks,” Rivkees says. 

Rivkees is diplomatic in telling the story, relating mostly that it cost the band a good working relationship with the flag bearers of the genre for a long time. But when Dropkick Murphys vocalist Al Barr had to step away from the band to care for his mother in 2022, Rivkees stepped in. And Dropkicks leader Ken Casey hopped into the studio to lend vocals to The Rumkacks’ ‘25 single “Cold Like This,” a seaworthy singalong about fighting against the brutal Boston wind chill.

If we’re talking about role models and artistic legends within that Irish musical diaspora, though, there’s really only one who reigns supreme.

Bono.

Just kidding.

Shane McGowan. [Writer does sign of the cross.] 

He’s the north star to Irish bands across generations, whether they still rock a tin whistle or they’re searching for a more modern sound like Fontaines D.C., and his shadow looms large.

For Rivkees, McGowan and the Pogues were the ones who exemplified how you could incorporate traditional Irish music with rock ‘n roll. 

“The biggest impact of McGowan and the Pogues was that there was an entire world of people that were like, ‘Oh, wait a minute, we can blend traditional music with punk music and it works really well.’”

Rivkees wrote “Some Legends Never Die” upon hearing about McGowan’s death in 2023, celebrating his ability to inspire the world with writing that perfectly encapsulated the duality of Irish identity of joy and sadness. Light and dark coexisting. But someone larger than life is still not immune to death.

All that’s said and done, you don’t have long
You can live forever only in a song, he wrote. 

Rivkees would like his songs to live forever. Anyone would. He feels like this collection of songs has “timeless” elements and stories that, inspired by places that make up his own DNA, resonate with any listener anywhere.

And he’s hoping that maybe that cinematic quality of some of the songs from Dead Anthems catch the ear of Hollywood. No easy task, he admits. The means of marketing a band have changed dramatically in the social media age. He knows that all too well. 

“We’re not having these, like, big viral moments,” he says. “It is interesting to see the state of social media for musicians. I call it slot machine marketing, where people are hoping to hit a jackpot and thinking that their career is going to take off from it.”

That’s how we end up with bands posting 20-second clips of the same bridge or chorus every day for months, hoping that it’s sticky enough to cling onto some TikToks or reels and then the magic happens. 

But the Rumjacks know they’re underdogs here. They don’t want viral moments. They want connection and they want to resonate with the right people for the right reasons. 

“I’m proud of this album,” Rivkees says. “It is a damn good album.”

But what would their slot machine payout look like if it hit?

“Best case scenario, ‘Eye for an Eye’ lands in a movie or something.”

But what would the movie be? Rivkees seems to have a vision for these heroic tales playing out in his head. 

“Jeez. I mean, you know, ‘Shipping up to Boston’ did so well in The Departed,” he says. “So we’ll take The Departed 2.”

Even in a conversation about violence, fallen heroes, and the harsh realities of being a band in 2025, there’s room for a joke or two. There’s room for comedy even in a tragic story. The greatest Irish poets and writers knew this. 

Bittersweetness permeates the songs and stories. Perhaps that’s why the Rumjacks amend their February release with what Rivkees calls “the most famous Irish song of all time—“Danny Boy”—a story of being called to leave your home, maybe for a better life or maybe for battle and eventual death, but finding peace nonetheless.”

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