The MeidasTouch Podcast - Dropkick Murphys Lead Singer Stands Up To Trump at Shows

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews Dropkick Murphys lead singer Ken Casey on the band calling out Trump and MAGA before their working class fan base. Watch Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick Days LIVE Event: https://veeps.events/dropkickmurphys Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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exclusions and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over deliver. My favorite punk band, the Dropkick Murphys, been making headlines across the country as they are touring and they are not afraid to call out MAGA when they see that occasional MAGA hat that's still in their crowd. Look, the Dropkick Murphys has been making music for working class fans now for about three decades. And I think they're seeing firsthand, though, what Donald Trump and what MAGA has been doing to some of these people. I want to share with you this video that we exclusively broke at the Midas Touch Network. This happened on stage in the past day or so in front of 6,000 Bostonians at the Dropkick Murphys concert.

Watch this. Chinese fucking red that they all wear. And I think it's dying their brains. You got the black on black Elon Musk true Nazi edition. And then my man here, he's getting ready for summer with a nice fucking light white one. No, bro, listen, I admire your dedication, but I will ask everyone, if you're in a room full of people and you want to know who's in a cult, how do you know who's in a cult that's been holding up a fucking hat the whole night to represent a president? This is America, there's no kings here! anyway anyway do you mind sir we're gonna we're gonna play a song about our grandparents and people who like fought nazis in the war and shit you know so if you could just shut the

fuck up for five minutes let me show you another incredible moment from another show recently where the lead singer, Ken Casey, just showed the crowd and an audience member who was wearing a MAGA cap the difference between made in America versus made in foreign countries. Here, watch this. Where the fuck are all the other punk bands? The reason we speak out, we don't care if we lose fans because when history is said and done, we want it known that Dropkick Murphy stood with the people, we stood with the workers. Okay? And, and, and, it's all a

f***ing scam, guys, okay? I want to propose in the name of decency and fairness, sir, I'd like to propose a friendly wager. You can't lose this wager would you, in the name of dialogue and discourse, and I appreciate you being here

would you agree to a friendly wager? he says sure that's a good sport well first of all, do you support American workers? of course you do of course you do, okay so, do you support American businesses, obviously. Okay.

So, I don't know if you guys are aware, because we don't go around f***ing bragging about it, but Dropkick Murphys always sells proudly made in America merchandise only. And here's the bet I'd like to make. If you lose the bet, we switch shirts, okay? If you win the bet, I give you $100 in the shirts, right? That's why I said you can't lose, right? All right. Matt, can we get a little drum roll, please?

This is fucking high drama here. American Mate, sir, could you both turn backwards? Don't worry. He just needs to check your tags on your shirt and your hat. Just need to see where they're made. No, no, no, no. The manga shirt. The manga shirt.

Let's see where that's made. It's made in Nicaragua! Oh! So, he is a good sport. He's taking the shirt off. We're taking crime off the streets. God bless your fucking heart. That's a good sport.

You get one proudly made in America Dropkick Murphy shirt. A proudly made in America Dropkick Murphy's shirt. Let's bring in the lead singer of Dropkick Murphy's, Ken Casey. Ken, how you doing? Tell us about your tour. We're big fans of Dropkick Murphy's here at the Midas. Tell us about the tour, what you're seeing with your audience and your ability just to call out MAGA for what it is. Yeah, so, you know, obviously being around as long as we have and since our very first album, you know, when we started in 96, we've always kind of been this, you know, pro-working class,

pro-union band, and a lot of our politics have been about our experiences in the workforce before we started the band, and family history, and unions, and union politics, and union organizing. So it's always been near and dear to our heart. And our fan base was lockstep with us. And we had a lot of military support first responders you know rank and file union people and once that guy came down the escalator man and started telling

everyone the lie you know all of a sudden you know a big portion of our fan base is like what's with this politics all of a sudden they said all of a sudden, one thing I can say is we have not changed our message from the beginning in 1996 till now. Unfortunately, a lot of people that are in all those categories I mentioned have been tricked to think that a grifter billionaire who wouldn't know how to, you know, sit in a room for regular people, you know, is looking out for their best interests. So, you know, my goal is not to come out on stage and berate our fans. Those two instances you just showed, the first one, the second one that you showed in Florida, when I did the wager with the guy. He was actually a very good sport, you know, and, you know, he lost the bet and he took off his shirt and it was good.

And after the show and I was talking to fans down front, he was there. And I said, Hey, thanks for being a good sport. And he said, I've been coming to see you for 20 years and I don't let politics and I consider you family and I don't let politics come between family. And I was like, man, that gave me a lot of hope, you know, that we can come back together because ultimately if, you know, if it's just that by an uprising or whatever it is, we, you know, gain, you know, power back, there's a general strike,

whatever it might be, you know, we're still going to be a divided country, you know? So I'd love to have the hope that someday politics might be boring again and we can all be friends again. The other guy, the first clip he showed with the hat, he was coming in more of a, he held the hat up all night, putting it in people's faces, and he was looking for the attention. So I'm not really looking to, you know, stop. I'm looking to play music and I oftentimes will comment before a song, you know, something about our beliefs. But I'm really not looking to stop the show and turn it into a political rally. But, you know, I do have to call out the hypocrisy when I see it, especially if it's being put in my face at a show, you know. fired. You got Elon Musk calling social security a Ponzi scheme while destroying government agencies

and then kind of just mocking working class people. I think Elon Musk says that, and Trump has said before, I think that they don't even believe in the concepts of unions or Trump's laughed when Elon Musk fired striking workers and Trump found that hilarious. And so look, this is a major topic of conversation right now. Are you seeing though at your shows a different reaction now than maybe you saw even a year ago or two years ago? Right now, specifically with all of the things that Doge and Musk are doing? Yeah, well, people will say to us, like, yeah, we know this is your politics, but why are you, like, you know, they want to, the right that follows us wants to be able to just kind of know our politics

but not have to be faced with it, you know? And they say, well, why all of a sudden so much? I said, well, we always have. If it's more now, it's because we're in a crisis, and if we don't speak up now, we're going to lose the opportunity to speak up. And and all the things you mentioned, especially, you know, like organized labor. And I get it. I get the anger and people feel like the Democrats have let them down as well. But if you want to look at the voting records and you want to look at, like you said, the two guys in charge, whoever you want to call the president, I'm not sure which one really is. They literally

laugh at working class people. How you can vote with that, I don't know. And I do see a change because I think that, especially like in the online world, you know, the bullies will always bully, but like MAGA had dominated that they almost had scared people into submission and people would even a lot of other bands they just kept their head down because they didn't want it to affect their business they didn't want it to you know put the bullseye on them but listen they're coming for everybody eventually right so you better speak up now and don't be afraid and if you want to be silenced because you think it's going to be better for your business, it's like in the long run, there's only a few ultra, ultra wealthy people that this is going to benefit. Everyone else is going to suffer. And someday you'll also carry the shame if you're a band or whoever that you didn't speak up when the time was called for. So that's why we do it now. And, you know, we've just, it's what we've always been about, you know? And I think that, you know, working class people on the left in particular need to,

you know, stand up because there's this whole like mentality that MAGA has painted that like, you know, you're either MAGA or you're, you know, drinking soy lattes, you know, whatever, you know, and there's a lot of people that are just like, we're just regular people, but we don't want a dictator. We don't want to see people rip, people's benefits ripped away, especially veterans and people who have worked their whole life to pay into Social Security. I just don't understand, you know, if someone was going to trick Americans into what what has happened i would i would have like thought it might have been like a brad pitt or someone a little bit cooler or whatever

like the fact that elon musk the guy looks like he's he's literally seems like a villain from a movie so me mixed with the guy that's like mid-nervous breakdown and donald trump's just a clown i just can't believe how they've been the two that have been, that are swaying people's views. It's crazy. And I'm a hundred percent convinced that Donald Trump is a Russian asset, you know, and because his behavior and the things he's done.

And one other thing, dropkick Murphys has always been about is like a lot of songs about standing with your friends and family and the things you believe in, whether it's politics or just how you were raised. And Donald Trump is the exact opposite of everything we sing about. You know, he's turned on his friends. He's turned on his, he's turned on America's friends and our allies. And he's a rat and a coward. You know, when you think of it that way, America shouldn't be turning on our allies, you know? So that's, that's how we feel. One of the things that they do, though, to try to ingratiate themselves in the culture, as you say,

like how do people buy into what they're saying, though, is they take a lot of cultural moments and songs and music, and they pretend that they're endorsements of them. You've seen this recently as well, where someone like Don Jr. as of what, last week, was posting your music. He was posting your song, Returning to Boston. And then you responded as follows to him. This was the DM. This is a cease and desist letter, if I've ever seen one right here.

He posts your music and you go, take down our music, you nepo dictator crackhead. And he was posting, I'm shipping up to Boston. He was playing the music. So tell us about your version of a cease and desist letter and what went through your mind when you heard him playing your music. Yeah, I mean, it's just kind of stupidity it's just not you know it's like you know these people just don't read the room you know and um i mean don jr don't even get me started um you know they're definitely not welcome to play our music they have a very limited amount of musicians that want them will allow them to play

their music, you know, and yeah, I just don't want, nobody wants, you know, their work associated with this regime, you know, and it's sickening, but it also shows how like little they're reading the room, you know? Absolutely. I want to tell everybody about your live show this evening. You can go find the live show right there. It's at veeps.events.com. So tonight, the Midas Touch podcast goes live at 5 Eastern, or rather 5 Pacific, 8 Eastern. And so right after the Midas Touch podcast ends, you can go and tune right into the Dropkick Murphys concert. We didn't plan it that way, but as soon as our show ends, go and watch it. Anything else you want to say before we go, Ken, just to your fans and to the American people in general? Yeah, I just like that the American people, like I said, we started to touch on it. But I got a little sidetracked to say that I now see that I think that people are starting to, you know, take back the airwaves, starting to rise up, you know, the mega cancel culture and all that, like go woke, go broke.

That's over, man, you know the mega cancel culture and all that like go woke go broke that's over man you know um and like we've been around do what we do before the word woke existed you know so like whatever that whatever you're trying to do with the go woke go broke is uh it's not working you know what i mean it's not working and uh we're we appreciate uh all the people that have supported dropkick murphy's and our message and our music. And, you know, yeah, cool if you tune in tonight. It's the final show of our tour, the final show of four shows in Boston. We do a little special thing tonight where we play, like, all the old school music back from a lot of the songs from the 90s and stuff.

And, yeah, it's a special night to wrap up in our hometown on St. Patrick's Day. I'd like to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick's Day. And thank you guys for all you do on behalf of democracy. And it's awesome to have your platform reaching so many people. Well, appreciate you. We got Ken Casey from the Dropkick Murphys on St. Patrick's Day, on the last day of the Dropkick Murphys tour. Ken, great to see everybody. Check it out,

veeps.events.dropkickmurphys. As soon as the Midas Touch podcast ends tonight, go check out the Dropkick Murphys concert. Thanks, Ken. Thanks, Ben. You too. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski, and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.