Dropkick Murphys have established a 30-year career as a band celebrating and defending the working class – speaking up for labor unions while speaking out against those who exploit them. The latest release from the Boston staple, For the People, continues this theme as they embark on the “For The People… In The Pit” St. Patrick’s Day Tour with a stop in Denver on March 1 at the Mission Ball.

The album comes at a politically corrosive time period in American politics, especially after a video of frontman Ken Casey went viral in 2025 when he stopped a show to challenge a concert-goer who was wearing a MAGA t-shirt. Casey bet the man $100 and to trade shirts that the shirt wasn’t made in the United States, despite President Donald Trump’s claims to want to bring jobs back to the U.S. The shirt was made in Nicaragua, while Dropkick Murphys  merchandise is made in the U.S. to support American workers and businesses.

Recently the band received unexpected notoriety in the form of former D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone wearing a Dropkick Murphys “Fighting Nazis Since 1996” t-shirt to a House Judiciary Committee hearing on January 22, 2026. Fanone, who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, was spotted in the gallery and confronted a far-right activist during the proceedings. The band supported Fanone on social media, noting he has been a fan since their first D.C. show in 1996.

We caught up with Casey to talk about the band’s roots from their first release to now, punk rock showing up in United States politics in the form of a Dropkick’s t-shirt and what it means to be a punk rock band speaking out against injustice in 2026.

[Rooster]: What was the core idea or feeling you wanted listeners to take away from this new record, and how did that evolve during writing and recording?

[Ken Casey] I don’t know that we ever really go into it with a preconceived notion of what we’re going to do or how it’s going to come out. I do know that we’ve always had that solid fan base. It feels like we carry a banner for working class people. Obviously we feel like there are a lot of injustices going on in the country at the hands of the powerful politicians and the wealthy billionaires, and we just felt like we need to be a voice for the voiceless.

Your music has always had political undercurrents, but For the People comes out at a particularly tense moment in American politics. How do you see the role of music—and Dropkick Murphys specifically—right now?

If you’re a band that’s never dealt with politics, maybe you can sit on the sidelines. But our very first lyrics, on our very first record in the 1990s, were “The once steel-tough fabric of the union man. Was sold and bartered away. Fed to money wolves in the Reagan years.” —destroying labor protections and letting big money flood into politics.

So if your very first thing you do as a band is singing about how the Reagan era broke the back of the working class, by destroying some of the core of labor protections, bringing money into politics, leading to the start of this massive wealth divide that we have in America. If you start out like that and you’re not ready to speak up now, then what the hell they’ve been up to for the last 30 years?  Not standing up and speaking up now would’ve just made everything we’ve done for the last 30 years a mockery.


After three decades as a band, how do you feel your sound and message have matured on this record compared to This Machine Still Kills Fascists?

Well, we were coming off two acoustic albums in a row, so I think we had that yearning to, like, get really loud again. So, and also the album before that was made  during the pandemic. We just felt like everyone was suffering enough, and we wanted more focus on bringing happiness to people. Turn up that Dial was really focusing on the music that inspired us. So we wanted to keep it, a little a little bit lighter. We just had this real desire to be loud and a little bit more angry than normal, just because we hadn’t been able to in a while. In a musical sense, not just lyrical.

This month, Michael Fanone wore a Dropkick Murphys shirt reading “Fighting Nazis Since 1996” to a House Judiciary Committee hearing. What went through your mind when you saw that image?

Well, Michael’s an old friend. He was at our very first ever show in Washington, DC in 1996 so he’s been around. If you’ve been in the punk scene, in the underground anyway, especially if you’ve been an outspoken, anti racist. Our shows back in the old days used to be kind of a touching off point for a lot of fighting between racist skinheads and anti racist skinheads and us getting caught up in it as well. So it’s something we’ve always been involved with, unfortunately, and been standing up against. 

This all started back in the late 70s when the National Front, the far right political party in the UK, looked at young, young skinheads who previously hadn’t been racist and looked at them as this is an angry youth movement that they could convince to be their foot soldiers. So that led to that split in the skinhead movement with racist and non racist skinheads. I was there. I always used to be this kind of infiltration of them trying to come at the punk scene. But I always say now they don’t really come out of the punk scene anymore, because now they’re in the White House, they’re on college campuses. The punk scene would be a backwards step for them now, because far right politics and White Nationalism is no longer underground. Now, it’s people openly speaking it online and even in churches. So we feel like that’s another reason why we need to speak up -– We’ve got a lot, lot more experience with being on the front lines of that than some other bands.

I recently spoke with Norwood Fisher from Fishbone about why punk and rock ‘n’ roll don’t seem marketed toward youth anymore. Why do you think that is?

Yeah, I think it’s less about politics and more about dollars and cents, and, like you said, the Tiktok movement. Viral moments are just not as equatable to rock music. If you look at licensing and music, TV and movies, it’s like rock music is just archaic in the eyes of the youth, which is sad. But I also believe that things come and go, hopefully. As AI becomes more prevalent, it’s going to lead people on this search for sincerity, and for stuff that’s made by men and women, and made from the heart. Not just buy a sample of a beat or whatever – no disrespect to people in those other forms of music, but it is sad to see rock music be kind of a lost, lost thing in the youth mind.

I’m 41, and I feel like my generation was kind of like the last generation of young kids that Warped Tour was for us. I always felt like punk rock music, regardless of when it was produced, was for the youth.

Yeah, we can use it now, because you’re right. It was definitely a front line for a rebellious message, and I know a lot of what I learned about politics came from bands that I grew up listening to.

When punk slogans—often meant for clubs, basements, warehouses, DIY venues—show up in Congress, what does that mean to you?

We’re proud to be on the back of a guy that stood up for his country and is still standing up for the cause of justice and democracy. That’s something that we can align with. Like in a lot of instances with Dropkick Murphy’s, when we’ve had this success in moments outside of the underground punk scene, it’s coming in these different ways. Obviously being in [The Departed], but it was a mob movie about our hometown. It wasn’t like we’re some radio pop sensation, or our involvement with sports. There are all these moments where we’re in the culture. Politics is part of the culture, especially at the moment, and it’s always been organic. We’re never trying to use one of these moments for the success of the band, because if you start chasing those moments for success, you won’t last. That’s why a lot of those TikTok people don’t go on to have long careers, because they had their moment, they had their one song, but they never really even knew how to build a fan base, a real fan base. It’s a “wow.” The Dropkick fan base has allowed us to live our wildest dreams. I mean, I never left Boston before the bad. My eyes have been so open to the world and have friends around the world. That’s all courtesy of our fan base. I often say, I think I’ve probably shook hands with 75 percent of our audience at some point over the 30 years,

Your lyrics still feel deeply rooted in working-class life. How much does your upbringing continue to inform your writing?

Obviously we do better than we ever expected to in life. My formative years as a youth and as a teen that’s still who I am, and I’ll never change that. And trust me, if I ever tried to change that, I’d have a lot of people I grew up with ready to smack me, but I’m grateful for that, because I always want to be me and the person I was born into this world of my family, not like the guy from Dropkick Murphys. I find sometimes people align themselves so much with their living or what they do. Whether it’s their job or their band, they have a hard time on the way down. So we just feel like we’re just enjoying the ride being who we’ve always been and doing what we always do, nd it’s been working. Celebrating 30 years this year. So something’s working.

Some people say, “Shut up and sing.” How do you respond to that?

Half the time, it’s usually someone who is right wing and they wouldn’t mind if we sang the politics they agreed with.  A lot of times it’s trolls in there mother’s basement. If it is someone who really listens to us and likes our music, you got to keep in mind having a white, working class fan base, we are at the epicenter of the of people who stood side by side with us in our message – Until 2015 when this guy came down the escalator and somehow bullshitted the majority of working class white Americans that a silver spoon billionaire somehow represented their best interest. A lot of our fans would have agreed with us all day, every day, until this division started, and it was started on purpose. At the end of the day, we can always say our message has not changed since we started.

I’ve had the same haircut since then. We don’t chase trends. We don’t chase what’s popular. We’re not afraid to sing the uncomfortable thing, and that’s just how we are. If you’re that far gone MAGA, you’re probably not going to like us. I have some people that will say, “Hey man, you know, I don’t agree with everything you say, but like, I respect you and I like your music.”

How do you think that this changes your responsibility as an artist?

I don’t think it changes it. We’ve always done what we do regardless. My message is if there are any bands out there that are afraid of alienating half their fan base, there’s nothing to be scared of. The people are more than willing and ready to show love and support to the bands who have the courage to speak out. For those that don’t agree with you politically, they’ll still support you — and for those that are so insane that they can want someone to be executed live in front of them on their TV screen, and still find a way to deny that it’s horrible. Speaking for myself, I don’t want them at the show anyway, so maybe you lose some fans, but good riddance to bad rubbish.

How can people support the Claddagh Fund?

The website is claddaghfund.org. We’ve been raising money for over 15 years to support veterans, addiction recovery programs, and children’s causes. Hopefully that work continues long after the music stops.

What would you like to say to your Denver audience?

Man, we have so many good friends in Denver and have a long history there. We played Denver the night of the Columbine shooting. I remember driving into the city and seeing people on the corners with special edition afternoon papers. Talk about how the world’s changed, I mean, how people consume the news? The FBI was at our show that night, because if you recall they didn’t really know 100 percent of all the facts. There was an element of police at the show looking for people. It was surreal, man. There were some kids at the show. When you’re there with a city, when they’re mourning like that, it just always made us feel such a negative thing, but it actually deepened our ties with Denver.

Anything else you’d like to leave us with?

On a happier note, sorry for what the Patriots did last week. We’re back!

There are some sad Broncos fans this week! Ken, Thank you so much for your time. I’m looking forward to seeing you on March 1.

Appreciate it, man. Thank you.