The Shillelaghs

Our first show for quite a while (apologies), is a banger, joined by other legendary bands, we're returning with a new lineup with a bunch of our latest and greatest songs to summon a new year, but it's up for tickets!

https://www.showpass.com/punk-rock-take-over-w-the-shillelaghs-guests/

Hey everyone, it's Dave. What can I say? It's been a while of radio silence over here in our bands little world for quite some time now, and it has been probably the most introspective time of my own personal life thus far. At first, I was dealing with a number of new developments physically and mentally, which led to months of deep contemplation and self reflection as I continued to live my crazy life and do most of the activities I do outside of my musical life. There were weeks where I would put on background noise and sit and stare off into space thinking, determining our path forward and our next moves, and dwelling on the path I had already made. It's been a long, nearing 20 years long, journey as a band, and after such a long time and all the friendly faces that have come and gone over the years, it's important to splash some cold water in your face, look in the mirror, and take stock of your direction, where you've been, and your future going forwards.

Thankfully, as I came to the conclusion that I was not finished, not even close, with this project, other factors made it abundantly clear that the band was not done with me, either. After a bunch of experimentation musically, I reached out to my brother Kyle, who was on my page with everything, as usual, and similarly supported by my other brother, Andy, who pushed us to break my paralysis and make the hardest decision in the bands history.

We made the agonizing decision to part ways with our longstanding drummer, Van. We won't go into the details here because we really are a private band at the end of the day, and the decision really rests, as always, on my shoulders. As always, I will always make what I believe is the best decision for the band, to move it forwards to where I think it needs to go. It's always been hard to find people in this province that want to try to create this off the beaten path style of music that everyone that's ever called themselves a Shillelagh has tried to create. Van was not one of those cases, and was not someone who couldn't hang in this space, but bands are very tricky to nail the mix, and it extends beyond the best intentions and controls of everyone involved when you gotta make calls of this nature when outside circumstances arise. It fu***ng sucks.

Now that I've done heart surgery on myself, I can get on to better news, and that is after the period of aimless soul searching I engaged in, the band ONCE AGAIN has new direction and purpose, and as always it comes in the form of friends. An old friend of a friend, and an old friend of mine personally. It comes in the forms of more extremely talented individuals, drummer, and the infectiously likable, Stefan Chovancak, and the infusion of the pure drive of Bassist Mitch Hamilton. Both have graced the stage in prior bands locally, and both have learned all of our latest and newest songs and the best of our catalog. See you soon (on December 6th at the Blox!)