Music Critic Liza Glushak speaks to Cathal Roper, guitarist of The Murder Capital, about the band and their latest album, Blindness
Originally formed in Dublin in 2018, The Murder Capital has been marking its place within the contemporary punk scene. Having just finished two tours, one in the summer supporting Pearl Jam, and one in the autumn with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, they are now taking a break until the release of their new album Blindness on February 21st. Speaking to guitarist Cathal Roper, he recalls how special it was to get to play on stage with the legendary Jeff Ament, who has been a big inspiration to him growing up.
The Murder Capital caught Ament’s eye when their album When I Have Fears had been released, making it to his ‘Top 10 Albums’ list of that year. The band was stoked, of course. Two years afterwards, the Irish punk band supported Pearl Jam in Hyde Park, but was unable to meet in person due to COVID restrictions. So when this tour came around, ‘It was really nice to meet Jeff,’ shares Roper, ‘I mean he was a hero of ours, so it was lovely to get to speak about what’s influenced me. When I got into them I was also starting to play the guitar; I was learning riffs like ‘Even Flow’ and just deep diving into anything I could learn to play. We got to go on stage with them for one night, and that was wild. I never thought I’d be doing that.’
Though Roper is awfully humble, his ability to be without nerves on the stage is a nod to the extensive number of shows the band has been putting on since gaining mass recognition. Rather than nervousness, perhaps, what he feels is adrenaline: ‘Every now and again I’ll get a kick of nerves if we’re playing new tunes and it’s exciting, or if there’s an emotional element to a show where your parents have come out to see you or it feels particularly important.’ Having to navigate between synths, pedals, and occasionally setting things up mid-track for the following song, the guitarist rarely has the time to think about much else than the matter at hand when he’s on stage. Though ‘if it’s a dead show,’ he admits, ‘I’ll literally just be thinking about my room, or about stuff that happened throughout the day or things I need to do.’
“‘Every now and again I’ll get a kick of nerves if we’re playing new tunes and it’s exciting…
Despite now having listeners come from all over the world and the members themselves being spread about across Ireland, London, and Europe, they maintain a strong sense of what, during the interview, we establish as ‘Irishness’. ‘It’s important to us, because we see Irishness as a lens sometimes. There’s so many people in Ireland that leave and go across the country, but the soul and the way we view the world is very much the same. The poetry to that perspective is so relatable between ourselves. Whatever the soul of an Irish person is, it seems to really translate worldwide.’ Roper connects this notion to the history of the country: ‘I do love the way we’ve done things, we’ve always had our own way. We’ve had our language stripped away from us, so we decided to make the English language our own. Joyce was a master of it and did it his own way. We inhabit, and we make it ourselves. We’re people of growth.’
Oftentimes though, national pride becomes tainted by the actions of a corrupt government, and that is a nuance that is featured in Blindness, in songs such as ‘Love Of Country’. Roper explains: ‘One thing we saw last year was the Dublin riots – a far right anti-immigrant riot of less-privileged people aggravated about their problems. They burned down a couple of buses and trains, and it’s horrible because Ireland is a place where we welcome people from all over the world. And of anyone to deny entrance to a country – we’re f*cking everywhere! So that sentiment doesn’t sit well with the general population of our country.’
“That’s what we meant by the idea of blindness. This vision of taking everything in…
Ireland isn’t the only place that has influenced the album, where the overarching theme in Roper’s eyes is ‘Unknowingly your environment influencing your work’. The band recorded Blindness in LA, a period which turned out to be quite tumultuous despite the seeming glamour of America’s infamous city. The band, in fact, came close to breaking up just before the recording. Was it a surprise? ‘It came out of nowhere. The writing had been going really well, but when things are running so smoothly some elements don’t get addressed and everything bubbles up. And even with everything resolved, there was a shock feeling when going back into the studio because the band’s foundation was shaken apart. It lets you appreciate what you have, but it feels like having your house broken into. The band is such a structured thing in our lives, so for a moment that felt like it could disappear under our feet. We have respect and love for each other, and it allowed us to focus on what’s really important.’
But it wasn’t just the pressure of the hard work they had been putting in. Speaking on LA, Roper says: ‘I can’t deny the environment. In many ways LA is great, but the disparity between the rich and the poor is something I’ve never seen at that level and that normalised. If you go past MacArthur Park, you just see some sights, like I saw a guy with a hole through his leg. And then two streets up, you’re going to a really nice expensive restaurant where everyone walking in is an Instagram influencer. It’s an odd place to be. I missed it after I left, which I never thought I’d feel. John put it really well: it’s a f*cked up place but there’s a certain sense of community among the creatives that go to LA and try to make art.’
“‘Trailing Away’ is a song we’ve always wanted to write. It feels like a song in the most bare bones form of the way ideas come.
The inescapability of our surroundings, even if we don’t see it, is a sentiment that hides behind the one-word title:‘Blindness’. ‘Things that live in the subconscious, the environment seeping in. Apparently with your eyes open, what you’re looking at is one percent of your vision. The rest of it is peripheral and your brain is making sense of as much as it can away from that, but the further you get away, the more blurred and subconscious it is. That’s what we meant by the idea of blindness. This vision of taking everything in; we talk about growing up in a Catholic country, and in a very patriotic country. We talk about the good sides and the bad sides of that.’
To the question of his favourite songs on the album, Roper is quick to reply: ‘Born Into The Fight’ and ‘Trailing Away’. The first ‘feels like a song we were trying to achieve on the second record in terms of its arc, and I like how wild it is, I really do. I love the themes, and it felt like a great creative move for us. ‘Trailing Away’ is a song we’ve always wanted to write. It feels like a song in the most bare bones form of the way ideas come. With the guitar approach we’ve purposefully tried to keep it ramshackle – you could hear us playing it at a campfire or a stage, and the sentiment will come across. That’s a funny song as well, and I love humour in anything we do. And if you can blend humour with a message you really mean, I think the two pair really well together.’
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