The career of a musician can be a confusing mix of emotions. Often times, hopes soar too high and dreams get crushed just as fast as they are envisioned. If you’re Nancy McCallion, singer/songwriter of celtic, Tex-Mex, rock band the Mollys, you’re spending one night playing in front of 3,000 people at the Lincoln Center in New York and the next night playing to six people in some dive bar on the Jersey shore. “We sold lots of CDs, made a ton of great fans, and we felt like we were finally getting somewhere,” McCallion says. “Then the next night we play in front of six people who aren’t even paying attention to us.” McCallion has no bitter feelings about the show and still is able to laugh it off to this day. “We played our best show ever and our worst show ever back-to-back,” she jokes. Certainly the Mollys have had its share of bad and good in the 10-year career. The band’s beginnings can be traced back to 1990 where McCallion rounded up some musicians for a St. Patrick’s Day gig in the band’s hometown of Tucson, Ariz. “We started off doing traditional Irish music,” McCallion explains. “Then we added the bass and drums and just became a band.” Soon after, McCallion left her job as an elementary school teacher and took the Mollys out on the road when she realized she could make a living playing music. The Mollys’ most remarkable trait as a band is its diversity in styles that can be attributed to McCallion’s background. “It’s a mixture of things. Where we are from has a lot do with it but my dad is Irish so I was influenced by that to,” McCallion says. “And the guys in the band all come from different backgrounds as well.” The Mollys have been categorized in just about every genre of music from bluegrass to folk, celtic, country, rock and Eastern European. McCallion herself has been compared to Lucinda Williams as one of the finest American songwriters of the past decade. “I think people compare us because we are both Americana songwriters,” McCallion says. “My writing is quite a bit different. She writes more personal songs, and my songs tend to be more story type.” McCallion believes that her own life isn’t quite interesting enough to write about, so she “decorates” the things that happen in her life to make them more intriguing. “Other peoples’ lives are interesting, but I don’t try to bear my own life,” McCallion says. “It’s just not that interesting.” The Mollys have been touring consistently for six straight years, and as with all musicians, it can create quite a strain. In the Mollys’ case, the band recently lost its drummer and guitarist because of the tension. “They were touring hard for a long time,” McCallion says. “They were tired and wanted to retire.” The Mollys had no problem picking up new members with drummer Marx Loeb who played with an array of Tucson bands and Danny Krieger, a seasoned veteran of the L.A. music scene. The Mollys have been approached by many indie labels, but McCallion’s concern is that they can’t offer anything more than what their own label has done for the band. McCallion, though, hasn’t ruled out a major label as a possibility. “We’d really have to talk about the contract because you’re trapped with them, they’re controlling,” McCallion says. “If they’re not going to get behind the band and promote us, then we are better off on our own.” As for their future, the band plans to keep taking the direction they are going and hopefully grow with time. McCallion has noticed that the crowds have been improving every year and eventually she would like to minimize touring to a few months a year instead of the constant schedule the Mollys are filling now. “We’d obviously like to get much bigger,” McCallion says. “A lot of people are doing the country stuff. We’d really like to get up there with Allison Kraus.” McCallion’s ultimate goal as a songwriter is to have one of her songs be covered, and she is already taking the steps with her publishing company to accomplish this. “I would really like to have people cover my material, like the Dixie Chicks,” McCallion says with a laugh. In all seriousness, it may not be long before the Mollys are sharing the stage with the Dixie Chicks, a show that would certainly attract more than six people even if it were at a dive bar off the Jersey shore.