Interview: Murphy’s Law (NYC) - Debut New Zealand Tour

Straight up legends of New York City hardcore punk music (NYHC), Murphy’s Law are finally heading to Aotearoa New Zealand after more than four decades of active duty, headlining Whammy Bar in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and Embankment Tavern in Ōtautahi Christchurch next week. Founding frontman and famed raconteur Jimmy G (Jimmy Drescher) had a great conversation with Naarm-based UTR interviewer Lucia Taylor. He shared some wild touring stories, chatted about the upcoming first new Murphy's Law album in 25 years, plus lots more...

Murphy’s Law 2026 NZ Tour

Wednesday 20th May - Whammy Bar, Auckland w/ Cootie Cuties, Drop Off Point
Thursday 21st May - Embankment Tavern, Christchurch w/ Carradine Choke, Crisis

Tickets on sale HERE via UTR

Lucia Taylor: Murphy's Law formed in New York City's hardcore scene in 1982. How did that feel at the time? And what is it like to look back on retrospectively? Because obviously it was such a big moment, did it feel like that at the time?

Jimmy G: No, it didn't at all. It kind of happened organically. We were just a bunch of kids from the boroughs — the boroughs here is like Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island [and Manhattan] — and all the kids that were from broken families met up, we all had a love of music and it grew. So we would hang out in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which was a really bad neighbourhood at the time, now it's a very rich neighbourhood.

Classic.

Then, it was like abandoned buildings for blocks on end. You could literally go in the park and set a garbage can on fire to keep warm and nobody'd come. We had one little club called A7, and that's where it all started out. It was an after-hours club for a lot of strange people. But to see it now, I think 43 years later? Oh my god, I don't feel it. I mean, irresponsibility is definitely the fountain of youth... The band started as a joke and the joke’s on me now, cause I'm still doing it. Now I'm coming down to see you guys! It's taken me all over the world.

I was just watching some kids in Africa playing hardcore punk in the middle of a village, it’s everywhere. It couldn't be more of a flattering, mind blowing thing to see everybody [into punk], and it's far from dead. If you've seen Haywire shows and now the Circle Jerks are doing [shows], it's like even at retirement age that they're selling out shows. It’s amazing. I am not the guy to say it, but it's good vibes. It's really good.

We went through a lot to get to this point, ’cause we went through a period where nobody knew what we were doing. Our form of dance, whatever you want to call it, moshing, slam dancing, was terrifying venues and terrifying security and police, and then we also had a big problem with Nazis and shows, and we beat the shit out of them. Now we've kind of reached this plateau of good vibes. There's really no problems at shows. The promoters take good care of us, we don't get ripped off anymore. The venues understand and know what's going on. So here I am at 60 years old, lying back and enjoying it finally without having any stress.

Yeah, well, there's been such a resurgence in hardcore recently, like in the mainstream. What do you think that's a response to? I've considered whether it's a response to like the political state we're in currently, or if it's a response to the rise of AI and we're embracing the messiness and human-ness of hardcore again? What do you think this resurgence is?

Well, for me, it's great. I sell more t-shirts and do more shows [laughs]. So it's a good thing, I love a resurgence of what I do, it really hasn't stopped for me. I've been doing it since the beginning of the band... and to be here 43 years later with the band still doing it and seeing a resurgence and so many new bands starting out, whatever flavour or style it may be, it still runs through the same vein of hardcore punk music.

With Murphy's Law, I don't get involved in the politics. Politics separates people, religion separates people, and I don't like people separate. I like people together. I'm all about singing dumb, ignorant, fun songs about silly shit and making people laugh and forget; hopefully forget about politics for the hour I'm up there and forget about their problems and forget about what's on TV and forget about their parents or their divorce or death or whatever. I want to be a positive, fun influence to somebody where they could come in for an hour and go, "Holy shit, I forgot about everything. I just had a great time, wow, this is great."

It doesn't necessarily have to involve drinking beer and smoking weed like a lot of people think I do, which I do. But it's funny, there’s this infatuation between myself and the straight edge community where they love me and I love them. I respect their fortitude, and I respect that it's even bigger now and stronger now than it's ever been, and I think that's that's a great thing.

Being 60 years old now and seeing a lot of my drug abuse and drugs that I've done and hangovers and all this shit. That really got in the way of me being a better musician and a better person and finishing school. A lot got in the way. Don't get me wrong, a lot of good times, but with good times come bad hangovers. It also gets in the way of productivity. And to be in a band, you need to be productive. That's why finally we have a new record coming out, because I'm levelling off on my partying and focusing more on creating new music with my bass player, Brendan, who's a great writer. We have a whole new album coming out soon, hopefully it's going to be with Trust Records.

Are you able to speak a bit more on this album? You mentioned the partying, chilling out a wee bit and stuff, how do you think that's reflected in the sound? 45 years after beginning, how has this album developed from what you started with?

It's been detrimental to have such a good time for so long, because if I'd been more focused on putting out new music, I'd have like 20 records out by now. Instead, we have five because we've been continually on tour and continually partying. I think finally at my age now, it's kind of harder to do that, never mind in New York City, there's no really venues or any punk [anymore]. There’s a couple places to go within our community, but it used to be when I was — I hate to be this guy — when I was younger, there'd be like five or six shows going on every night. I was out every night, and now I'm home writing new music and going back and forth with Brendan and creating new stuff.

We have almost two albums done already, after waiting all this time. Some kids weren't even born when our last record came out that are fans of the band. So it's kind of crazy, but I'm looking forward to the record coming out because we put a lot into it. I funded the whole record myself, no label yet. I wanted to pay for everything, I wanted myself and the band [to be] the ones that create it and own it, as opposed to in the past, we've been ripped off.

When we were all kids, myself and the Cro-Mags guys and Leeway, we were taken advantage of by a record label. We were teenagers and we didn't know anything about the business, we were just excited that a label wanted to sign us, and we didn't know that we'd be screwed years later. But now, hopefully, in my being smarter and older, we're taking advantage of going after these labels that haven't paid us a dime in 30-plus years. But what keeps the band going, keeps me going, is people coming to the shows and requesting interviews and shows and tours. It hasn't stopped. I mean, in 43 years! If it stopped 40 years ago, I would have stopped. If people just never showed up and never called me. But it's just constant requests, so I keep going. I'm not wanting to turn down a good time.

It must feel pretty good to still be at it.

It's humbling, having it continue for so long. People are always excited and want me to be the guy that leads a good time. It's a big responsibility sometimes, but it's flattering that people want to see me and listen to me tell jokes and bust peoples' balls, and now I get to go halfway around the world to do it. I went to Japan like 15 times and Europe, so many times, been all over the world, Australia and New Zealand — there’s a kicker too, I didn't expect we were going there. It's amazing. The Saints are one of my very favourite bands, top five bands; AC/DC, Mad Max, wombats, one of my favourite animals, [it’s all] Australia. I've been imitating the Australian accent since I first saw Mad Max when I was a teenager. So here I go. I'm excited to be in the land of Mad Max and The Road Warrior.

Yeah! There’s some pretty awesome New Zealand punk around as well. There's quite a bit in New Zealand that's got the comedy element that you guys have.

Well, you know what that means? Now I’ve got to come back. I'm not even there yet, and I've already planned to come back. I hope I survive the first show [in Australia] because there's like 14 opening bands, and I'm like, “Holy shit, there's 14 opening bands. If each band buys me a beer and wants to sit down and talk shit, I'm going to be destroyed by the time I’ve got to get on stage.”

Oh, man, it’ll be fun.

Oh it's going to be. I can't wait. There's already somebody who's got, you know, the beer down there, VB?

That's my favourite beer!

Well, there's a kid that got a — we have a character called the Killer Beer — and he got a Killer VB can with the Murphy’s Law [logo]. There's already people getting Murphy's Law tattoos down there, we haven’t even played!

Yeah, so it's your first time coming — what are you most looking forward to, apart from VBs?

Surviving it! It's scary because once again, drinking beer with my friends, I’m going somewhere, and I know I'm gonna make a shitload of new friends; it's really exciting. Never mind the show, that’s my bit. I like making friends with people... Making friends is very painful at times, and we're flying to every show, so it's going to be miserable at airports in the morning. I don't know. This is a whole new ballgame for me. We were excited to fly to a show, never mind fly to every show. Here in America, we just have a big camper. The camper is like a rolling green room and rolling clubhouse, so to fly show to a show, it’s pretty rock star for me.

What are some of your favourite touring stories?

I did the 1987 tour with the Beastie Boys and Fishbone, that was for the Licensed to Ill tour... We could be here for hours...

That was my first tour in a tour bus. We started touring with the Beastie Boys before Licensed to Ill went number one, and we were playing colleges — In America, the colleges had bars in them, talk about not getting shit done at school — we played the colleges, and then the record went to number one. We went from colleges to arenas on the same tour. I went from playing CBGBs to playing arenas. We flew across country to Missoula, Montana and got in our first tour bus and toured the country with them. It was just debauchery and chaos non-stop.

The arenas, this was before they had a pit, so they'd be all seats, and I'd run and dive off the giant stages into the seats. If we got through 15 minutes, I was lucky before the bouncers and the cops beat the shit out of me. It was nuts... It was very nuts. Got arrested, punched a horse, a riot horse. Angelo [Moore] from Fishbone and me, we were in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, and we come out of the bus in the morning and Angelo starts marching in one of the Mardi Gras parades, and the police jumped him. I tried to intervene, and this cop came at me with a riot horse, and I had to punch the horse... I'm sorry. But the horse had tried to stomp me to death! We both got shackled and taken to jail, but the promoters got us out in time to play. It was nuts.

That's crazy!

I could keep going from there. Oh, my god... Fighting Nazis in shows, playing Yokohama Stadium in Japan, 30,000 people. We're just a humble band from playing storefront clubs, and now we get offered these crazy shows. And I'm by far not professional at all when I'm on stage, so I'm off the stage — the stage is like 30 feet high — I couldn't get back up, I sang in the middle of the arena.

And playing Europe with the Berlin Wall up still, and now coming back to see how beautiful Eastern Europe is and how free everybody is there. I've seen a lot of things. I've seen Czechoslovakia turn to Czech Republic and people enjoying their liberty and freedom after getting rid of the negative government that was suppressing the people there.

I feel like touring for so long, you've probably witnessed so much change in the world!

Oh god, these glowing boxes make it easy now. We used to have maps and shit, now I go on my phone, and we find everything. We'd be in the middle of the town and not know where to get food. We’d be kids and not know where we were, we’d have to call the promoter on the corner pay phone.

We had to make our own flyers, make our own records. Everything was strictly DIY. Not to be cliche with the term, but it was, and to sell 50 7 inches, like what Minor Threat would do was huge; now the sky's the limit. Now it's good to see vinyl never died and people are still buying records. It's amazing. It's amazing also that people are paying like $10,000 for a Misfits 7”. It's ridiculous.

So are you coming to one of the shows?

Yeah, it will be fun!

I hope so, that's my job!

It's pretty clear that you're just a fun person, but how have you held on to that joy of it for so long? How have you not burnt out?

Because I have a puppy!

Oh, of course!

My life was tough when I was a kid. My dad was an abusive alcoholic, not to get depressing now, but I had a really tough youth when I was a little kid. I went to Catholic school, got abused by nuns and priests; I had a tough life when I was young. Life is what you make of it, and if you make yourself happy, usually the happiness will follow along. You just have to keep a positive head. I have support from my friends. I play music, I travel the world, how can I be bummed out? I’ve got to have a good time.

Music is the best medicine for making people feel better and making people happy, and our form of music is a community. We're going down, and all these people are getting tattooed and excited, sending me messages. They're not talking about the songs, they’re talking about hanging out and having a good time, and that's what means the most to me. They want to hang out and have an experience, and I'm there to do it with them. It's like when you're going to have a party with your friends, and you haven't seen them in a long time or never met them, and you're really excited to go hang out with your friends and have a good time. That's the best thing that I got with this band, people are excited to have a good time. That's important.

You're so right. It’s important to just be able to get there. Get to the gig, have fun, enjoy yourself, be a bit reckless for a while — an hour or two, probably more like ten — and then let yourself have fun for a while, because life's fucking rough sometimes.

Yeah, it's rough all the time. So for an hour, it's good to go to church with Jimmy here and have the mass of the good times.