Kneecap joins Nicole Alvarez backstage at Coachella.
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00:00hi i'm nicole alvarez and we're live at coachella with kneecap
00:03i want you guys to know i have a notebook because i don't want to forget anything
00:09but typically on weekends like this my brain doesn't retain a lot of information i've interviewed
00:15rock stars but never movie stars so this is a this is a first and you're much more handsome
00:20than brad pitt thank you very much yeah spicy this fella that's why he's got the mask um i'm
00:26going to start off by saying something stupid and i want to tell the internet that i am owning that
00:29this is a stupid thing i'm going to say um but i want to be i want to be honest i did not know
00:34i can't believe i'm going to say this i did not know that irish was an actual language
00:39i thought it was just like the way that you spoke no but then i asked a bunch of people and a bunch
00:46of people were like we didn't know either we didn't know either so is that a common thing or am i just
00:51a stupid idiot i think that's no you're just american you're just american that's something
00:58we talked about all the time like a lot of people have just especially because america has this
01:01idealized version of ireland because all the films just make like fucking irish wish wish or whatever
01:06you call it and all these shitty films irish lisp i like all these like we just think ireland is
01:13still like in the fucking 1600s yeah and like all like shamrocks and laprechauns and stuff but that's
01:19obviously not the real ireland so they're all gone it's not your fault actually to be fair
01:23yeah thank you not mine personally i was raised this way yeah but like a lot of people do think
01:28that irish is just like a dialect or you're like top of the morning to you like i've never ever heard
01:32an irish person say top of the morning to you ever and that's like a big one he wakes up at night
01:36time is the irish language i read somewhere that the irish language might go extinct is that true
01:42not anymore like not because not thanks to you guys um in part i mean at what like like i mean at
01:49one point obviously british yeah the british basically driven it drove it to almost extinction
01:57like it was all pushed to the west of ireland um connemara and guidor and stuff and these are like
02:04places that obviously like kept the language alive they refused to break the chain you know and start
02:09and start speaking english so they've spoke irish there for two thousand long over two thousand
02:13years so i mean it's a miracle that the language has lasted against the british empire like you
02:17know i mean these are just endless um you know bottomless pits the brits said it again but bottomless
02:22pits of money like they could just like fade for forever like you know i mean so we're very lucky
02:26that we still have it let's talk about and another thing that a lot of people don't put together is
02:31irish hip-hop that's not really a thing but i did a little digging and it's actually been around since
02:35the early 90s right and from what i read it was influenced from like 1970s hip-hop in new york
02:41when did you guys get into hip-hop because you're known as an irish hip-hop group although i think
02:45you're also very punk rock very good crack punk rock i think you're very punk rock but like when did
02:51you get into the hip-hop scene what how did you figure out that that was the way that you were going
02:56to convey your message um i mean i was in the 90s there was there was uh hip-hop groups who like
03:03re-ra is it in uh scary era who were class and then kind of hip-hop in ireland kind of fell off and
03:09everybody was doing like american accents and talking about like gangs and stuff with doing
03:14gangs and drive-bys not mcdonald's but again after like 2000 i think it was 2008 band called the rubber
03:22bandits have you heard the rubber bandits no but i will i'll do a deep dive after this okay so they
03:27kind of came about and they were doing tunes about like irish things and irish culture and they have one
03:34song about how a horse is superior to having a car okay you know so like it was the first they were the
03:42first band to come like from ireland that weren't like you know this whole braggadocious like american
03:46style but they were actually thoughtful exactly so americans are very like that's uh bling bling
03:52braggadocious right over the top and like that's how what hip-hop music was always been so people in
03:56ireland emulated that and they're good though yeah irish people can't be braggadocious no we're way we're
04:02way too shy for that so what the artist you're telling me about was more thought-provoking yeah i think it's
04:06just like yeah more like a lot more i mean satire maybe and more fun and also kind of we're very
04:14good what's the word self self self-aware no self self-deprecation okay so self-deprecation taking
04:21the piss out of ourselves and that's something that kind of inspired us to do what we're doing
04:26and i think because the iris language as you were saying it has a lot of challenges after 800 years of
04:32colonization who's counting who's counting 801 soon but uh i think like the aura around the language
04:39um it's very serious because of like the state it's been in and like people trying to you know
04:46reclaim the language and reclaim the identity so i think we wanted to bring some crack to the language
04:52and also incorporate like the kind of city slang to the language and we have new words for
05:00cocaine in irish what is that snitch snitch yeah cool cool i'm sure a lot of people in los angeles
05:08will pick that one up we had a lot of cocaine in ireland um just before the orchestrated famine but
05:16the british shipped it all out to their colonies bastard so let's now we're going to pivot into the
05:23movie i think the movie they have a biopic right we call it a biopic uh is brilliant because i think
05:29you're early enough in your career that most artists wouldn't have a biopic at this stage
05:34usually dead maybe but a lot of artists don't have as much to say so six years after you started
05:40kneecap somebody approached you about making the movie it wasn't your idea right
05:45yeah we got approached we said we're going to start there yeah yeah we got approached by rich
05:51pepiet he's called he's an english fella uh english director no fault of his own he's english no fault
05:56of the zone and cool english guy yeah there is there is nice we like we like the english people
06:01it's just the government's government's but uh yeah rich came in he had uh we always say no uh
06:08preconceived ideas of what irish history was and he let us kind of tell our story and he asked us about
06:14our stories and we sat down it was a collaborative process where we were able to give our stories
06:19and he he put that in so uh you made a movie out of it i think a big part of it is as you were saying
06:28there is no movies no don't buy bands that aren't having like a heroin overdose or something similar
06:34to that there not like that no so he approached us obviously with the idea of the movie and then we
06:38like basically ignored him for about 14 months rich and uh no we didn't ignore them for a while because
06:44like we just we only started we only started about three years and there was a fella an english fella
06:50saying yeah i want to do a movie uh about about kneecap about your story and we didn't believe him
06:55rightly so but thankfully we he actually got us some three pints of beamish which is like a guinness
07:01in ireland and that's i mean if you buy an irish person a few pints you probably do it you do anything
07:07or a shadow tequila for example which is what i have for you guys um the movie starts off extremely
07:13hedonistic like in this hedonistic fashion and you guys like to have a good time and i think
07:18that's if i'm being honest what drew me to you is like oh these guys have something to say they
07:21also like to have a good time how much of the biopic is actually real i mean we again with something
07:28we say in a lot of interviews is that we want to keep the the lines blurred we don't want it to be
07:32too obvious but like but the fact is like but i feel like a lot of people would be surprised of
07:37because see see see see once you start opening one and saying this is true like it kind of goes
07:42overly and is this true if they're saying that's true so some of the stuff that is sort of more
07:46obscure in the film or a bit more out there is actually the truer stuff so we just don't want to
07:50open that gate to be like this is true and this isn't because it also takes the magic away from it
07:54but like people would be surprised that some of the parts in it are and also there's some of the
07:59the matter stuff is actually either taken from truth or true and also there's a lot of the stuff
08:04there that's like stories from our friends yeah like or people around us that we have worked into
08:08the characters do you know what i mean so there's a lot of truth to it more than people would think
08:11but uh again it'll ruin the magic if i tell everyone what exactly was you know like fargo jimsy fargo
08:17yeah every like this is true but that actually was true that's absolutely there's um there's a line in
08:25the movie that i wrote down that i loved so much and it's um and i'm going to paraphrase because i
08:29don't remember exactly but um one of you says it's a strange thing being seen when you come from a
08:33place that doesn't even want you to exist and i loved that i thought it was so powerful how does
08:39belfast feel about you now how does ireland welcome you now well rich papi wrote that and
08:44uh obviously it's a great line it's a great line it's a great line i'm sorry it's me i narrated
08:48i narrated at that point like that we were doing it and obviously as soon as i read i thought it was a very
08:52good point he's a couple of good lines in that wee monologue actually yeah so far i played him but
08:56uh it's like it's obviously it comes down to the fact that like we we live in belfast which is in
09:01the north of ireland which is still like the united kingdom so it's still under british occupation where
09:05we live like i mean if you drive one hour from my house you pass an invisible border and the currency
09:10changes the phone numbers the start of the phone numbers change like people the people change the
09:15accents change but like uh so for example for me to be speaking iris where i'm from is controversial
09:21yeah the status quo of like the government would find it very controversial for me to be speaking
09:25iris because i'm in britain's jurisdiction uh i have an irish passport i have an irish passport like we
09:32all do but like if you drive again as i say one hour from my house you get to dundalk and yeah dundalk's
09:39the closest place and to speak iris there you're in the south of ireland but you're in the republic
09:44it's not it's not controversial there so that's that was where that lane comes from like we're like
09:49i mean if the government had their way there wouldn't be any irish speakers up north and it
09:54would be a place for loyalists you know like a safe haven for loyalists or whatever that's just
09:58obviously where that line comes from so again and that just ties in the controversy is completely
10:02subjective because i don't think it's controversial but somebody down the street might find it controversial
10:06what we do you know that line packed the punch and like you have to think that ireland was only
10:12separated in 1921 or kind of to the north and the south so this is like people probably wouldn't realize
10:17this over in america but we separated so the north the northern state was like brought into like the
10:22uk as it was and then uh but before that like everybody in the whole island spoke irish so irish
10:28was like only going back three generations of people everybody in the whole island spoke irish and
10:33so they only talk three generations they completely wipe it out english is like when you put it in the
10:37time english is a new concept in ireland i hope my english is i hope everyone yeah you're pretty good
10:42it's pretty good but what one so it's great that we're able to kind of because there's so much shame
10:47attached to the language back in the day it's kind of come full circle now where actually people are
10:51a lot more confident about the language and that that's kind of being brought to fruition now and
10:54people are yeah learning it and going i love that it's a conversation now that the irish language is
10:59a conversation what the hell is that um your band your band and this movie in particular what i love
11:05the most that's made me want to dive further into educating myself there's also another cool line and i'll
11:10say it really fast but when you find you break into the school and you find the role in 808
11:14and you say yeah you see you see and you said he got into the hands of enough people that mattered
11:19and i love that line i love it but before we wrap up i've got like three quick questions
11:24um no two actually who is the voice of reason amongst you that'll be me that'll be me i feel like
11:29it depends on the day i feel like it would be you it depends exactly whoever's the most sober yeah
11:35i feel like i mean like it depends on who's fighting each other well well i mean 20 minutes
11:40ago 20 minutes ago i was trying to be the voice of reason yeah lasted for all of 60 seconds okay and
11:47i had the mushroom gummy in the end okay i had the mushroom gummy in the end folks today is definitely
11:53me okay it's definitely not i can see that yeah you seem like a balance today all right if you had a
11:58an introductory kneecap song to to represent you to show somebody who's never heard kneecap but you
12:03want to lure them into your world what song would you drop sax bomb okay you yeah yeah obviously
12:11come on uh gill jiggalos the responsible one says you're right i'll give out a whack potter
12:15will go shout out potter will go and a mom get your brits out okay and what did you say
12:22okay and then lastly the movie i think it opens with prodigy with smack my bitch up and they're playing
12:27tonight will you be watching them yes that was such a cool way to open the movie it's the first song
12:32that plays if i'm not mistaken i was a little off it's actually our tunes the first one yeah and
12:37then it's prodigy and then it's prodigy but i hope um yeah i hope that you guys have the most
12:43incredible time here it doesn't matter to you what success you have in america just say yeah
12:47uh yes yes yes mr trump please please don't shoot me um thank you guys so much i honestly i haven't been
12:57this excited to interview or to see a band in as long as i can remember and i don't say that to
13:02everybody i don't have that many intellectual conversations in this particular trailer
13:06not like this not like we've just had and i think that you're in the actual
13:10oh fuck me you have these are setting the standards you have a lot do you want a tequila shot yay
13:16finally a bit of sense so here you go this uh i love tequila g4 it's got no additives
13:23it's supposed to not give you a hangover it's very hard to find
13:30is there no lime how do you say cheers and cheers
13:33salt and orange a banana don't throw up on me
13:41right give it a second give it a second he hits it i'm nicole alvarez we are live at coachella
13:47with kneecap very nice