Long Read - Cathal Roper // The Murder Capital
After one of the most exciting times in the band's history, The Murder Capital’s Cathal Roper takes us through Gigi’s Recovery, touring life, and their state of mind as they begin to work on their next record.
Having just finished their summer tour with a set at End of The Road in Wiltshire, Roper speaks in high praise of the increasingly popular festival: “It was great! I really enjoyed that gig, and we’d done Paris the weekend before which was just incredible”.
Roper recalls a few other memorable moments this year including finishing a U.S tour for the first time as well as another exceptional European tour where he highlights a night in Gothenburg, meeting former singer of Black Flag Keith Morris and playing in front of an incredibly enthusiastic crowd: “I felt like we really gained an audience that night, I can’t wait to get back and play Stockholm later this year”.
After their debut album When I Have Fears was released in 2019, The Murder Capital have seen a meteoric rise in the post-punk scene which saw them chart at number 2 in Ireland. Most recently they have gone one step further and charted at number 1 this January, with their sophomore record Gigi’s Recovery proving incredibly popular.
Roper looks back at when things first started taking off four years ago: “It all seemed like it had happened super quick to the point where that record was going to get done during that timeframe no matter what”.
“That’s what added to it as well, there was so much going on. There were all these things that we would have stopped but for some reason it just wasn’t even on the cards. We just never thought too much about it. That was just something exciting and we knew we needed to be doing that so When I Have Fears is born from that kind of immediacy.”
That same immediacy reflected in the songwriting, as he admits many of the songs on the first record were slowly transformed as they played them live.
“I think it’s because we didn’t even have our fingers in the songs yet. We felt that as soon as the record was recorded and mixed some of us were like ‘I don’t know if I like these songs now.’ You know, you have all those doubts as a creative.”
Speaking about Gigi’s Recovery, the acclaimed guitarist describes a vastly different writing process on the album, claiming it was the exact opposite of their previous: “We just decided we want to spend as much time on these songs as we can. We wanted to make those songs perfect before we go anywhere near the recording studio."
Despite the album’s success, he admits that this precise approach is not one they want to repeat in the future, recalling a more balanced recording process on the song “The Lie Becomes The Self”: “It grew a lot and it was really exciting to work on, and you get this real gratification from finishing a song in the studio with the small pieces that we did come in with”.
Even though the band are going through one of their busiest years to date, the group have found the time to begin writing their next record: “We’ve been writing this summer and it’s been some of the best months of my life creatively just in terms of how fun it is and seeing what comes, and we’re being so supportive of each other. It’s a different environment to what we’ve had before.”
“In terms of this next record, I couldn’t tell you what it’s about. That’s going to come later. That’s what happened with Gigi’s. We didn’t realise what we were writing about until we were halfway through it and it was all very apparent, because it’s all right there in front of you. Whereas so far, we have a lot of tunes that are exciting and I just can’t wait to work on them.”
On a closing note, speaking about music that is standing out recently, Roper speaks in high praise of the likes of Death Grips, 100gecs, Aphex Twin, Turnstile, Xiu Xiu, and Wunderhorse, whose performance at Glastonbury this year “took him aback”.
One thing that really reflected during this entire conversation was Roper’s incessant enthusiasm for the art of music. Even though the band has never been busier in terms of touring, writing and recording, without fail they bring a profound and animated energy like no other, both on stage and on record.
Words by Jay Cohen
