The MeidasTouch Podcast

Dropkick Murphys Lead Singer Stands Up To Trump at Shows

March 17, 2025 19m
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

Listen and Follow Along

Full Transcript

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet.
ShopPay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha-ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to sell wherever your customers are.
Visit Shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. My favorite punk band, the Dropkick Murphys, has 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 Murphy's concert. Watch this.

Chinese fucking red that they all wear and I think it's dying in 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 and white one, alright?

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 the cult,

how do you know who's in the 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 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 f*** 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

scam guys

okay

I want to

propose

in the

in the

name workers okay and and and it's all a scam guys okay i want to propose in the in the name of decency and fairness sir i'd like to propose a friendly a friendly wager you can't lose this wager would you in the name of dialogue and discourse and i appreciate you being, 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 Murphy's always sells proudly made in american merchandise only And here's the bet i'd like to make If you lose the bet We switch we switch shirts, okay If you win the bet, I give you a hundred dollars 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 high drama here.

American made.

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 what it may.

No, no, no, no.

The manga shirt.

The manga shirt. Let's see what that's made.

It's made in Nicaragua!

Oh!

So,

he is a good sport. He's taking the shirt shirt off we're taking crime off the streets god bless your fucking heart that's a good sport you get one probably 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 tell us about your tour we're big fans of dropkick murphy's here at the might of such over 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, you know, 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 you know and we have 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 we one thing i can say is we have not changed our message from the beginning in 1996 till now unfortunately a lot of people you know, that are in all those categories I mentioned have been, you know, tricked to think that a grifter billionaire who wouldn't know how to, you know, sit in a room for irregular people, you know, is looking out for their best interest. So, you know, my goal is not to come out on stage and parade our fans those those two instances you just showed were the first one in the second one that you showed in florida um 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 that we can come back together because ultimately if you know if it's just that by by an uprising or whatever is, we gain power back, a general strike, whatever it might be, we're still going to be a divided country.
So I'd love to have the hope that someday politics might be boring again and we can all be friends again. You know, the other guy, the first clip the hat he was coming in more of a you know he had held the hat up all night putting it in people's faces and uh you know he was looking for the attention so like i i'm not really looking to you know stop but you get 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.
Yeah, look, in this particular moment, too, we're seeing with Project 2025 and Trump's other agenda how, you know, these billionaires are gutting our government. We're seeing veterans being fired.
We've 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 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 said, 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 all the things you mentioned, especially, you know, like organized labor.
and i get it i get the anger and and people feeling 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 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 um and i do see a change because i think that especially like in the online world that 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 They didn't want 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 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 stand up because there's this whole like mentality that MAGA has painted that like, 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 people's benefits ripped away especially veterans and people who've 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 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 must the guy looks like he's he's literally seems like a villain from a movie so 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 that are swaying people's views it's crazy and i'm 100 convinced that donald trump is a russian asset you know and um because his behavior and the things he's done and one other thing dropkick murphy's 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 You know, he's turned on his friends. 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 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 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 i you know they're definitely not welcome to play i mean i music they have a very limited amount of musicians that want them will allow them to play their music you know and uh yeah i just don't want nobody wants you know their work associated with this regime, you know, and it's 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 slash dropkick Murphys.
Veeps.events slash dropkickmurphys starts 9 p.m. Eastern time, 6 p.m.
Pacific. 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 uh 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 um and like we've been around doing 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, it's not working.
You know what I mean? It's not working. And we appreciate all the people that have supported Dropkick Murphys and our message and our music.
And 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 uh yeah it's a special night to wrap up on our hometown on st patrick's day like to wish everyone a happy st patrick's day and uh you know thank you guys for all you do on behalf of democracy and uh it's awesome to have the your platform uh reaching so many people well appreciate you we got ken casey from the dropkick murphys on saint patrick's day on the last day of the dropkick murphys tour ken great to see everybody check it out veeps.events dropkick murphys 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.