The Murder Capital on touring with Nick Cave and how the Dublin riots shaped their urgent new album

As The Murder Capital gear up to head out on tour with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, the Dublin band have told Rolling Stone UK about hitting the road with the Aussie icon and the urgent, state-of-the-nation direction of their upcoming third album.

The group, who returned late last month with the soaring single ‘Can’t Pretend To Know’, will start a run of arena shows with The Bad Seeds in Zagreb this Sunday (October 13) before traversing the continent until the end of the month.

Speaking to Rolling Stone UK, frontman James McGovern explained how both acts shared a similar connection in their exploration of grief through music. The Murder Capital’s first album When I Have Fears saw them tackle the suicide of Irish musician Paul Curran, a close friend of the band.

The Bad Seeds’ 2019 album Ghosteen, meanwhile, saw Cave offer up a brave and forensic examination of the accidental death of his son Arthur in 2015.

“We’ve both explored these themes of grief, but he’s done that more than anyone who comes to mind,” explained McGovern. “So we’ve definitely got a connection there and it’s going to be interesting to explore that.”

Drummer Diarmuid Brennan added: “I went to their show in Berlin recently and it was amazing to see how he connects with his audience. He’s so beloved by them, but also it gives him a space to be relaxed. It’s like he’s playing in his front room and if he forgets lyrics he’ll just joke about it. It’s intense, but also he manages to pull the curtain back on himself a bit too. He has this great human, approachable quality. It’s no wonder so many fans ask him questions through the Red Hand Files.”

The tour comes weeks after the band released ‘Can’t Pretend To Know’, a hurricane of a comeback tune which sees them explore the end of childhood innocence.

“Our bassist Gabriel has often posed the question of whether you ever knew it was the last time you’d go out and play with a childhood friend or whether you knew it was the last time you’d play with your Lego. You never know you’re in that moment. To me, the song reflects the moment from then when there’s a, I don’t want to say emptiness, but a space between that person and the person you are now.”

It’s the first taste of the group’s first record, which saw then head to LA to work with producer John Congleton – who also worked on their second album Gigi’s Recovery.

This time around, the group say there’s a sense of examining national identity in the wake of the 2023 Dublin Riot, which was sparked by far right activists after three young children were stabbed outside a primary school. The unrest was described as the most violent in the city’s modern history as vandals ran riot.

“As a nation of emigrants we just hold no place in the world to have any hatred or racism towards anyone coming into our country. I couldn’t tell you the exact number of Irish passports that are out there in the world, but it’s a hell of a lot more than there are in Ireland,” said McGovern.

“I never understood patriotism as an idea and it always confused me, even as a kid. I just never understood the sense of ownership over a lottery of where you were born. I think a sense of pride and protection over a land and respect for culture is beautiful, but it needs to be kept in the confines of being something to be shared.”

Brennan added: “The way that groups like that work is that they are able to infiltrate a moment of uncertainty in people and that’s when they prey on those people’s emotional responses. There was something like very tragic and horrible that happened in the city that day, but people ran loose with just an idea of vengeance. That just doesn’t represent what our country is all about.”

In turn, the group explained, it reflects the straight-forward ethos they’re trying to achieve. “We wanted to make tunes that just had no fat on them. They wanted to make songs that go straight into the feeling of them. So that’s what we’ve done.”