'People need to be able to talk about what's going on in Gaza'

Irish Daily Mirror

17-05-2025

Dublin post punks The Murder Capital are gearing up for their 'biggest headline show to date' this summer at the Iveagh Gardens.
The five-piece outfit are currently on tour around Europe after dropping their third album, Blindness, earlier this year. The record was penned throughout Europe and recorded in a three-week stretch in Los Angeles.
'It had been a dream of mine to just go to LA in general in my life', The Murder Capital's bass player Gabriel Paschal Blake told the Irish Mirror.
'When I was a kid watching Illegal Civilization skate videos and wanting to hang out in North Hollywood, and for whatever reason, I was just really taken by witnessing in LA from being a kid.
'But at the same time, it was so amazing to have gotten there, but we still had a job to do.
'That was a big thing. I felt the responsibility almost of the opportunity that was in front of me. I was very aware that I was doing something that I've dreamed about since I was a kid, and that just made me lock on. This is an opportunity, a huge one, and it's to be respected in that way.'
Last year, the group played a string of dates supporting Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Gabriel revealed that the legendary Australian songwriter 'completely broke down any sort of barriers or hierarchy' when the group first met him.
'It was funny, the two songs that he pointed out,' Gabriel said. 'I think, on the second or third day we came in, and we just went into the canteen to get some lunch, and he was sitting there all on his own, in a beautiful, powder blue shirt.
'He looked amazing… that was the first time meeting him.
'And obviously, I thought that there was going to be... prior to meeting him, he's quite an enigma, he's almost like a character in a story book rather than somebody in real life, but from the jump, he completely broke down any sort of barriers or hierarchy. We were just talking to each other.
'The first thing that he started speaking about was the album, because he went out of his way to hear it before it was out… which, in and of itself, was a crazy feeling.
'But it was funny, the two songs that he pointed out as his favorites were Love of Country and Swallow, which is mad, because those are the two songs that were almost not put on the album.
'It was really interesting that the two that nearly didn't make it were the ones that he liked."
The Murder Capital recently joined over 100 artists, including Fontaines D.C., Lankum and Massive Attack, to sign an open letter in support of Kneecap organised by the trio's record label denouncing what it described as a "clear, concerted attempt to censor and ultimately deplatform" the group.
'People need to be able to talk about what's going on in Palestine,' Gabriel said. 'People need to be able to talk about what's going on in Gaza.
'This is as old as the hills, 'don't speak about the abuse that's happening'... 'Everybody just shut up and go along with it and sweep it under the carpet'.
'The thing that's been going around my head a lot is, and through navigating ourselves as a band, through a time like this is Sinead O'Connor, post her SNL (appearance where she tore up a photograph of Pope John Paul II), where she called out the Catholic Church for its abuses in Ireland. She was bullied and everything that happened to her was, it's just catastrophic and horrific.
'After her performance, Joe Pesci was talking about smacking her like and people were laughing at the idea of somebody hitting a woman, because the industry made it okay for people to bully, be misogynistic towards and just degrade her for speaking out about a truth.'
'She's such an inspiration to us,' he added. 'Not only because of her music, but how she carried herself as an artist, and especially as an Irish artist.
'If people can't speak out about atrocities that are happening, then they're just going to continue to happen.'
The Murder Capital's third record, Blindness, is out now. The post-punk outfit will play their biggest headline show to date this summer with Soft Play and Mary in The Junk Yard at the Iveagh Gardens in Dublin, on Saturday, July 19.
Tickets cost €39.90 and are available on Ticketmaster.