Monkeyshines and music: ShamRockers celebrate 20 years

Guests were nodding along as The Montana ShamRockers sang “I’ll be Home with Bells On.” The quintet brought their music and shenanigans to the stage at KwaTaqNuk Resort Dec. 20 for a Warming Center benefit. Just a few nights earlier, they delivered their annual free Christmas concert at the Theatre on the Lake in Polson.

Each member of the  ShamRockers has their own moniker. John Glueckert is Liam O’Leary, Neal Lewing is Niall O’Connor, Mike Lozar is Paddy Doyle, Rick Skates is Mick Houlihan, and Rob Sloan is Robbie Flynn. Their wives are dubbed  the ShamRockettes. 

With lightning fast comments and corny jokes, it’s like watching tennis at Wimbledon, bopping back and forth from one sassy remark to another. The boys, as they call themselves, sing and play and laugh, having a great time and consequently so do their audiences. 

The lads are celebrating their 20th year as a band. With four CDs and two trips to Ireland in their credit column, it’s been quite a ride.

Lewing said 20 years together has brought changes to the group. Skates has gotten “really good” at playing the guitar, Lewing and Lozar play more instruments, and everyone is more relaxed. The harmonies sound more angelic, too. Instruments they strum, pick and pound include guitars, mandolin, fiddle and percussion.

With more than 200 songs in their repertoire and even more tunes they know but don’t perform, the ShamRockers have a democratic way of deciding whether or not they’ll master a song. 

According to Lewing, all the “boys” bring music to rehearsals –  something they heard on the radio, a song a friend mentioned, a snippet of a song in a book. They play it, sing it, kick around the arrangement, and take each other’s suggestions seriously. If someone doesn’t like the song, it’s out.  

Some of their favorite tunes are Jackson Browne’s “The Rebel Jesus” and “The Day the Irish Start to Sing and Dance,” written by Lewing. 

The Black Paw music website, where the band’s CDs are available, describes the ShamRockers and their tunes as “American-made Celtic music. Vocally-driven Irish quartet captivates with a unique brand of musicianship and humor. Traditional and original Celtic tunes, from toe-tappers to hanky-soakers, have graced venues from schools and churches to brewpubs to international festivals and Highland Games all the way to Ireland.”

“But mostly we sang in pubs,” Lewing said of their Ireland adventures. 

Glueckert said different groups of musicians the group talked to “discouraged us from doing Irish music over there. But Neal would, after a couple of Guinnesses, send me up to ask if we could sing.”

“They laughed, cried, clapped, sang along, and asked us back,” Lewing said. 

“We all have Irish in us,” he added, “some more than others.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Glueckert said. “It was absolutely wonderful — even if I did have to go with these guys.”

They all laughed.

One of Skates’ favorite venues was Murphy’s Pub, where the ShamRockers sang and borrowed a local man’s guitar. 

To fund the latest sortie to Ireland in June 2014, the ShamRockers put their earnings in a pot and had enough to buy some new sound-system components and pay for a 10-day trip for themselves and the ShamRockettes.

Interested in history, and particularly Thomas Francis Meagher, Montana’s acting territorial governor after the Civil War, the group visited Munster province and specifically  Waterford, Meagher’s hometown.

Meagher’s birthplace is now the Granville Hotel, and the ShamRockers sent Ann Cuzak, the proprietor, a flag flown over the Montana Capitol in Helena. 

The Granville Hotel had a sword that once belonged to Meagher, and when the staff produced it for the lads, The ShamRockers were stoked, recalls Lewing.

In 2008, a sculpture of Meagher was unveiled at Fort Benton, at the site where he disappeared from a docked steamboat. The ShamRockers supplied music for the whole celebration, put on by the Ancient Order of Hibernians of Helena.  

“If it (the ShamRockers) quits being fun, we’ll quit,” they all agreed. From the show they put on, that likely won’t happen soon.