30 years in, playing punk rock is still a natural

Unnatural Axe (from left): Richie Parsons, Tommy White, Jack Clark, and Frank Dehler. (Tom Here/Globe Staff)

There's the snarling singer prowling the stage, fronting his longtime punk band Unnatural Axe. Then there is this mild-mannered 48-year-old sitting in the Eire Pub in Dorchester, nursing a Guinness on a Friday night.

"It's a very comfortable place for me," says Richie Parsons. He could be talking about yelling his lungs out onstage, but he means the pub. Parsons grew up three blocks away and lived in Dorchester until 16 years ago, when he bought a house in Quincy. He fits in here; people know him. He laughs at how local he's remained.

But it wasn't for the lack of opportunity. Unnatural Axe played with every punk band traveling the land. After Unnatural Axe opened for the Police at the Rat in 1978, the band's manager, IRS Records owner Miles Copeland, was so impressed, he offered Unnatural Axe shows in New York and a tour opening for Ultravox.

"We said, 'Sorry, no, we can't do it. We have jobs,' " Parsons recalls. "We didn't know any better. We were of that mindset of put on a show and maybe people would come." Did the band not consider music as a career option?

"We didn't think that way," he exclaims. Didn't he have dreams of being a rock star?

"No," he says more adamantly. "I knew that punk rock didn't mean that."

Any regret etched on his still-boyish face is fleeting. He's far too excited about the present, especially Unnatural Axe's 30th-anniversary extravaganza tomorrow and Friday at Church and Saturday at the Middle East Downstairs. These are not reunion shows, mind you. Apart from a split in 1980, when Parsons started a more pop outfit called Future Dads, and despite his mid-'80s hard-rock side project called Band 19, Unnatural Axe never called it quits. The longtime band members include guitarist Tommy White, drummer Jack Clark, and bassist Frank Dehler.

Familiarity breeds content in Parsons's life, it seems. For 24 years, he has worked for Newbury Comics, which coincidentally marks a 30th anniversary this year, too. But it was at his first job that Parsons began writing songs.

" 'Shopping for a Friend' is about Filene's Basement and my experiences there. I still have all the original lyrics, written on the back of bags," he says.

At Filene's he made friends. "I met Jonathan Richman. He taught me how to play Stooges songs," he enthuses of what became a lasting friendship. He also influenced people, something that became apparent in 2006, when his college-age daughter started an Unnatural Axe MySpace page.

"I said, 'Look at all these kids from Italy who want to be our friend,' " recalls Parsons. Next thing he knew, he was playing a punk-rock festival in Rome. Not bad for a band that only released a single and an EP in 1979: "I sold one on eBay for $400," says Parsons. "Now it goes for $250 because it's been bootlegged and the market's flooded."

In 1998, local indie Lawless Records issued a compilation of rehearsal recordings, "Unnatural Axe Is Gonna Kick Your [Expletive]," marking the band's first full-length, and followed up this summer with a double-vinyl tribute album, "Ruling the World From the Backseat." The album features 28 bands performing Axe songs, including Boston's the Mighty Mighty Bosstones ("Shopping for a Friend"), the Neighborhoods ("The Man"), and Mission of Burma ("The Creeper"). When Burma performed at the Paradise this summer, the band included the song in its setlist and invited Parsons to sing it.

"There were four songs that we liked, but we picked that one. It seemed natural for us," says Burma's Peter Prescott. "They were one of the early Boston punk bands that I liked a lot. They were these regular guys who were just lots of fun. It's such a small town; we'd always run into them."

That's the past. What's really exciting for Parsons is that after decades of running through Axe oldies, he's writing new songs. Sadly, that began when his wife, Judy, was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. ("She's doing well now, in remission," he adds with a thankful nod.)

"It stirred up so much. You know, you wonder what you used to write about and then things get shaken up like that and stuff came out." Granted, it's not exactly like when he was young and songs popped out onto Filene's bags. Now he crafts and labors.

"If I have a musical idea, I put it down and then wade through my book of lyrics to find something. It's OK to do that," he reassures himself. "You can craft a song."