The Ruffians' Sean Griffin Announces New Album With 'Be My Girl' Video
(GAMM) Today, veteran Northeast rocker Sean Griffin, frontman of the Irish punk band The Ruffians, has announced his debut solo album, People Are Mad. Set for release on April 17, the project is a rollicking, deeply felt collection of songs pulled from both Griffin's present day and his considerable past. Extending the burly, rambunctious sound established under The Ruffians while bringing his multifaceted songwriting to the foreground, it marks another significant achievement in Griffin's storied career - promising a punk-infused, bar-brawl of a good time. Blending traditional acoustic Irish instruments with a punk rock ensemble, the project delivers surf-punk jams, boozy Irish laments, and pure garage-rock mayhem.
Alongside the announcement, Sean Griffin shared the single + video, "Be My Girl." The upbeat folk-rock track has Griffin leaning into his natural storytelling instincts. From its opening romantic sway to an explosive rock hook, the song unfolds as a love story about discovering purpose and the profound sense of wholeness that comes with finding your other half.
Griffin says, "It's a raw expression of deep loneliness and daily grind, where the weary, isolated narrator pleads for a woman to become his partner and provide the companionship and understanding needed to escape his emotional pain and empty routine. The idea of complementarity and purpose in a vocational approach to a relationship and marriage."
Sean Griffin's People Are Mad is, in a sense, decades in the making. The album arrives after 25 years of The Ruffians establishing themselves as a formidable voice in Irish punk rock, a reputation that's led to them sharing the stage with Irish punk icon Shane McGowan and earned them the distinction of being called the "Y-Generation Pogues" by legendary rock critic Jim DeRogatiis.
As the bones of People Are Mad started to come together, Griffin reached out to Grammy-winning producer Kenny Siegal (Langhorne Slim, Chris Whitley) in 2023, and the pair got to work and recorded the entire album within the year while capturing the same in-the-room sound that The Ruffians built their name on. That live feel was brought to a perfect finish courtesy of Grammy-winning engineer Mathew Cullen, as well as respective mixing and mastering jobs by Paul Kolderie and Greg Calbi. The project also features contributions from Lee Falco on drums, Brandon Morrison on bass, Will Bryant on keyboards, Siegal throwing in pedal steel and guitar contributions, fiddle player Eugene Bender, and harpist Michaela Davis. In addition, Kaia Dedek provided backup vocals, after her recent stint in Sam Smith's band as part of his recent Brooklyn residency.
Across the record, Griffin brings in a wide variety of his own instruments as well - including a Gibson ES-135 that he bought from former bandmate Charles Butler. "I've played hundreds of shows with it," he says about the guitar that he plays across People Are Mad. "There's something magical about picking it up with a fresh set of strings. Gibson guitars just speak to a part of my soul, and they've been on so many records that formed me as a musician." Griffin also wields a Remo Bodhran, the electric Irish drum that he frequently brings out for live performances. "I love its stability and durability," he says. "When I dig into it, it always gives back what I put in. It's always a special moment when I bring it out. It makes people ask, 'What is that?'."
Lyrically, People Are Mad finds Griffin drawing from his natural storytelling abilities as a songwriter - constructing characters and embodying them in a way that communicates true universality to the listener. "I try to be a very visual writer when it comes to storytelling," he says. "I focus on characters, and a lot of times I'm singing in the first person as these characters. I'm trying to take people on a journey through different types of experiences." At the end of the day, People Are Mad is a natural extension of what Griffin's been known for since The Ruffians took the stage for the very first time more than 25 years ago - as well as a full realization of what drives him as a songwriter and musician. "What stays the same for me is the urgency to want to have songs that I've written see the light of day," he ruminates while talking about how this album represents the latest phase of his career.
People Are Mad Tracklist:
1. People Are Mad
2. Space Girls
3. Wrong Child
4. Be My Girl
5. Gypsy Girl
6. That's All She Wrote
7. Youth Is Wasted On The Young
8. JFK
9. Nothing
10. Molly
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