The Mighty Mighty Bosstones represent the best in the tradition of hard-working, house-rockin' road warriors. Live gigs are their calling card, which is why we sent correspondent Ted Drozdowski from Boston to St. Louis to cover them for our March '98 Interview. What about a photo shoot? No problem; there was a hole in their schedule between shows in . . . the Netherlands.

On Singing

"I just bought a new Dean Martin double-disc set, and the first lines of the liner notes were like, 'The greatest thing in my life was the day I realized I could put on a nice suit and make a living singing a song.' That's me!" -- Dicky Barrett, lead singer

On the Rigors of the Road

"I work for an hour onstage and sit around for half an hour afterwards and meet people. Out of an eight-hour day, only two of them are filled with anything remotely taxing. It's not like I'm back roofing houses." -- Dicky Barrett

On Starting Out

"Back then we were in a fifteen-passenger van, just so happy to be out that it was fun. We were shit-faced on a big trip. We didn't really know where we were going, we didn't know if the next show was going to happen. We were just out there." -- Joe Gittleman, bassist

On Arranging for Horns

"The unique thing is that we can play two roles. We can be very dense and chordal and massive and brassy, but we can also play lines and skip through melodies that give the music a different kind of flavor, the way a guitar can with power chords and distortion or single-note lines." -- Dennis Brockenborough, trombonist

On Chord Voicing

"Instead of just vamping on chords, I'll build harmonies or new chords off the tonic, playing a lot of sevenths and ninths. I got this one trick from Dr. Know of the Bad Brains: Normal power chords played with a bass line would be on the I, but I'll play on the V and drop it low so the tonal effect is almost like a drone." -- Nate Albert, guitarist