Together, they wrote songs such as 'Black Friday Rule' and 'Selfish Man', which was the beginning of Flogging Molly's sound. Putting Dave's poetic lyrics to rocking melodies, they played at a Los Angeles pub called Molly Malone's weekly, building a small but loyal following. They began to play a mix of Irish traditional and rock. In 1993, King met guitarist Ted Hutt, bassist Jeff Peters, and violin player Bridget Regan and put together a rock band with a Celtic feel. King negotiated out of his record deal to go his own way musically soon after. Afterwards, Dave King retained a record deal with Epic records and began to work on a solo album, but began to reconsider his record deal when the label opposed his idea of bringing in traditional Irish instruments. He later fronted a hard rock band called Katmandu (1991), featuring Mandy Meyer of Krokus on guitars. Prior to forming Flogging Molly, Dublin-born Dave King was the lead singer for heavy metal band Fastway featuring guitarist 'Fast' Eddie Clarke of Motörhead and bassist Pete Way of UFO in the early to mid '80s. They are signed to their own record label, Borstal Beat Records. Flogging Molly is an Irish-American seven-piece Celtic punk band from Los Angeles, California and led by Irish vocalist Dave King, formerly of the hard rock band Fastway.
