Lawrence.com

Few bands with banjos, fiddles and tin whistles are influenced as much by the Clash as by the Clancy Brothers.

But southside Chicago's seven-piece Celtic punk band The Tossers make no bones about its split personality.

"I've always described us as the Pogues meet the Violent Femmes with a swift kick in the chops," bassist Dan Shaw said.

After the self-released 1996 album "We'll Never Be Sober Again," The Tossers lost one of its founding members, and took a few years to play at clubs and regroup. Its new record, "Long Dim Road," is upbeat and raucous as well as somber and haunting. The band mixes rousing pub sing-alongs with ballads and punk burners.

The members of The Tossers, which formed in 1992, have learned that their live set -- the centerpiece of the band -- proves to be as unpredictable as the band's sound.

"We haven't written a setlist in four years. Every time we would write one, it would go right out the window," Shaw said. "The shows -- you never know what's going to happen. We could just bust into anything.

"When Eazy-E died, we did a whole night of Eazy-E songs, and we had never practiced. Last Saturday, we did three hours of songs we had never practiced together. There could be fire, there could be nudity. None of us know, and that's what makes playing so fun."

Bye-bye day jobs

In the band's eight years, it has rarely played outside the Great Lakes region. After a jaunt this week to Lawrence, The Tossers are tuning up for a national tour later this summer.

"We were all about touring a long time ago, and we had the opportunity to open for Black 47 on one of their tours," Shaw said. "We were all kind of spread out all over the place, and a couple of us finished up school. We are by all means ready to start touring. It's hard to find people willing to quit their jobs and dedicate their lives to a very uncertain future."

The band members' day-jobs hint at the working-class bent its lager-fueled lyrics convey. The Tossers soon-to-be former jobs include a high school auto shop teacher, a florist, a brick mason, a truck driver and a warehouse dispatcher.

The members' jobs, as well their backgrounds as young Irish-Americans, bring a sense of realism to their songs of pub fights, the I.R.A. and N.A.T.O. peacekeepers.

"People in the band are anywhere from first- to third-generation (Americans)," Shaw said. "All of our families are still pretty focused on that sort of stuff and force it through schools and religion and Irish dance."

Adding to the sound

The addition of the fiddle and banjo after the last record has brought additionally eclectic influences into the band's sound. The violinist, Jason Loveall, was classically trained and prefers jazz and progressive rock to punk. The banjo player, Clayton Hansen, had never played before joining the band and favors folk and country.

"We always have the definite Irish thing going," Shaw said. "It really wouldn't surprise me if The Tossers ever ended up releasing a straight punk album, no more than if we released a completely traditional folk album either."

In the intervening four years since the last record, the band has spent plenty of time writing songs and honing them live. Shaw claims they never practice, but work on songs before a live audience. Shaw estimates the band has another three albums worth of material its ready to record when it finishes its tour.

It's this fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants dedication to performing that has attracted fans from all walks of life to the group. Chicago rockstar and Nirvana producer Butch Vig has expressed interest in producing The Tossers' next album.

Despite the compliments, the band does not put too much stock in its recorded body of work.

"We don't care about selling records. We want people to have the record, and we want them to like it, but we don't care," Shaw said. "We raised a big stink on how much you should have to pay for it. All we want to do is write songs and play shows."