I guess I’ve been listening to too much Lady Gaga and movie music scores, because I was today-years-old when I learned of Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys. (Massachusetts, please forgive me!) Anyway, the band is touring and has won me over as a new mega fan. Not because I’ve attended one of these concerts, but because band member Ken Casey has been making a habit of calling out Maga hat wearing audience members that he spots from onstage. It happened at a Florida show earlier this month, and again over the weekend in Boston. Both instances made their way to social media, prompting President Elno’s X to say Dropkick Murphys’ official account had been “suspended for violating X rules.” Only the band had receipts, which even X couldn’t deny, that proved the band hasn’t operated that account since 2022. Or as Dropkick Murphys put it themselves: “We quit Twitter in 2022 when he was only half a Nazi.”
[Ken] Casey, Dropkick Murphys founder and lead vocalist, had a few choice words about MAGA merch after he spotted a fan wearing a white cap at a sold-out show in Boston on Saturday night.
“The Chinese (expletive) red that they all wear, and I think it’s dyeing their brains. Ya got the black-on-black Elon Musk, true Nazi edition And then my man here is getting ready for summer with a nice (expletive) white white one,” Casey says in a clip reposted to YouTube.
Casey went on to say that he admired the man’s “dedication,” asking the audience: “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? They’ve been holding up a (expletive) hat the whole night to represent a president.”
“This is America, there’s no kings here,” Casey yelled to a cheering crowd.
Various media outlets reported that the Dropkick Murphys account was suspended on X after the interaction between Casey and the fan.
The Dropkick Murphy X account currently says it was suspended for violating X rules, but the band says they have been off X, formerly Twitter, since 2022. The exact details and the timing surrounding the band’s suspension were not immediately available.
“We broke up with him first. We quit Twitter in 2022 when he was only half a Nazi,” Casey said in a Tuesday statement.
Someone else, unaffiliated with the band, later took the band’s X handle and pretended to be “our official account,” Casey said.
“So we filed a legal complaint to put a stop to that—which is why @dropkickmurphys shows as suspended,” Casey said. “Look, we pulled our account because we didn’t want to be part of that guy’s empire. But if we were still on there, I’m sure he would have suspended us by now.”
An X spokesperson confirmed to USA TODAY that the information shared by Dropkick Murphys on Tuesday afternoon was accurate.
Dropkick Murphys, who have been vocal about their disdain for President Donald Trump, also called out another fan sporting a MAGA hat at a show in Clearwater, Florida on March 8, according to a fan video shared by the band.
“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 the Dropkick Murphys stood with the people,” Casey said in the video. “We stood with the workers. It’s all a (expletive) scam, guys.”
“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 the Dropkick Murphys stood with the people.” THIS. Every action we take these days, the ways we choose to respond to this moment, history is watching. Casey’s expletive-laden manner of prose comes across a bit aggressive just reading as a transcript, but in watching the clips I found him more playful during the interactions. It’s not just him yelling at a concert goer “WTF?!” It’s Casey asserting that as an audience member, you’re on the band’s turf, so to speak. So if you show up in a convicted felon adjudicated rapist con artist snake oil salesman’s hat, you’re gonna hear the band’s thoughts on the matter. At the Florida show, Casey even got the Maga hat attendee to do a wager in which Casey bet that the Maga hat would not be made in America (whereas all Dropkick Murphys merch is). Guess who won?
Erin go bragh!
This video is NSFW or around kids:
Photos credit: IMAGO/Christoph Hardt/Avalon, IMAGO/Eibner-Pressefoto/Daniel REINELT/Avalon, Getty and via Instagram