New documentary relives the magic of The Dogmatics

Canton’s Jerry Lehane performs in a show with his band The Dogmatics.

In 1981, Jerry Lehane, along with some friends who had all known each other since their childhood in Dorchester, became The Dogmatics. The rock band gained a reputation as Boston’s house band, touring with The Bangles, The Fleshtones, The Replacements, and Beastie Boys, and releasing two albums of their own material. Following the death of one of the band’s members in a motorcycle accident in 1986, the band members remained friends, but stopped performing for several years.

Now, a new documentary by Rudy Childs, The Dogmatics: a Dogumentary, tells the story of this group of childhood friends and how the survivors are still making music. It is an official selection of several film festivals, including the recently wrapped Independent Film Festival Boston, where it had a sold-out screening.

“We all grew up together in Dorchester and went to Catholic school together since the first grade,” said Lehane, now a Canton resident. As young adults, two of Lehane’s friends started playing in rock bands and moved into a loft on Thayer Street in the South End. Another friend, Paul O’Halloran, decided to move to the same area and asked his identical twin brother, Peter, and Lehane to move with him and start a band.

“That was in 1981; that’s a long time ago,” Lehane said. “We did pretty well for the genre that we were playing.”

A press release for the new documentary explained that The Dogmatics were “no different than any other talentless, self-deprecating, beer-swilling, girl-chasing lunkheads with guitars.”

According to the press release, it “wasn’t about money” for Lehane and his bandmates. “Catching a girl’s eye, a free round of drinks, or simply completing a song in unison were their rewards. But somehow, success would discover them as they created music that everyone could agree on.”

Dan Shannon came on board as the band’s drummer and played for two years before being replaced by Tom Long, who still plays with The Dogmatics today. Peter found the name for the band by looking in the dictionary. “He liked the meaning,” Lehane said. “We were Catholic school boys and it seemed to apply to us.”

Lehane has written hundreds of songs, many of which were covered by other bands, including the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. “Once you learn how to write with the guitar, it becomes fairly easy,” he said. “To write [prolifically] is harder, so we write about what we know most of the time.”

Paul O’Halloran’s tragic death in a motorcycle accident at age 26 changed everything for The Dogmatics. “After that we all stopped playing,” said Lehane. “We were very close and we all lived together in the loft. It wasn’t the same without him. It was very tragic … We couldn’t go on. We got jobs and got married and had children.”

Lehane enrolled in the Peterson School of Engineering and earned a license to work with high pressure boilers. He would go on to work for the Boston Housing Authority for 18 years until 2007, when his job was eliminated. During that same time he was working part-time as a plumber. He decided to continue in the field and earned his journeyman license and later became a master plumber, starting his own business, Lehane Plumbing, in Canton. He and his wife, Jeanne, live in Canton and they have two children, Grace, who is a recent graduate of UMass Amherst, and Owen, who’s a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Both of their kids went through the Canton school system and are CHS graduates.

“The town has been awesome,” Lehane said. “It’s just a wonderful town. I love it.”

After The Dogmatics disbanded in the 80s, Lehane continued to play with other bands in the Boston area. He remained friends with Peter O’Halloran and Long and they saw each other frequently. When people started suggesting that they get together again, The Dogmatics started performing in reunion shows for charity, joined by two other O’Halloran brothers: Jimmy, who is the current bass player, and Johnny, who still plays with the band from time to time when he’s in the area. The band has also added James Young, who plays the mandolin and other instruments, sings, and writes.

Paul O’Halloran, Tom Long, Jerry Lehane and Peter O’Halloran in an early band photo

The Dogmatics have raised significant funds for a variety of good causes since starting to play together again. “We don’t do it for the money,” Lehane said. “We play for our friends and our fans and the camaraderie that we have. We’ve just been fortunate that people still enjoy it.”

Their music is played on the radio and is available through streaming services. In 2019, the band signed with Rum Bar Records and made two albums — their first new recordings in over 30 years.

Producer and director Rudy Childs grew up with the O’Halloran twins and kept in touch with them after moving out of state with his family. “When the band started, I visited the loft and went to their shows in Boston,” Childs wrote in an email. “When they played the 930 club in 1985 in D.C. they all stayed at my house and I had my video camera and recorded the whole set. When Paul died in 1986 I came back to go to the funeral to support my friend. The grief was overwhelming.”

In 2010, Childs started creating documentaries out of the old footage he had recorded in the 80s. “In the back of my mind I always wanted to do one on the Dogmatics, but didn’t want to do one that just ended with Paul dying,” he said.

But when Childs learned that the band was going back into the studio, he said he “knew it was time.” Peter introduced Childs to his niece, Jada Maxwell, who had a collection of footage and history of The Dogmatics and ultimately joined the project as executive producer. “Jada had done a tremendous amount of archiving the band history and we were off to the races,” Childs said.

“I feel that Dogumentary is a tribute to the brotherhood of the band members, especially so the brotherhood of the O’Hallorans,” Childs wrote. “I am very proud to have witnessed those days and have those videos out there for the next generation to enjoy.”

“We think he did a really great job,” Lehane said of Childs’ work. “There’s some tragedy in there, so it’s a little sad to watch. But a lot of memories come flooding back, so it’s a lot of happiness. I think it’s a good representation of kind of a big part of our life.”

The Dogmatics will play at the New World Tavern in Plymouth on Saturday, July 22, from 6 p.m. to close. For more information about the band or the new documentary, visit thedogmatics.com.

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Posted by Mary Ann Price on May 12 2023. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.