As The Boomtown Rats mark their 50th anniversary, Bob Geldof has offered up striking praise for KNEECAP and Fontaines D.C. in a wide-ranging cover story in the current issue of Hot Press.
Geldof, who first rose to international fame as the lead singer of The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and later became an activist (notably via Live Aid), remains a prominent voice in music and politics. He has never shied away from stirring debate — and in his Hot Press interview, he reflects on the role of music as a force for disruption and challenge.
Asked whether he considers Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí (members of KNEECAP) as his spiritual heirs, he offered a nuanced answer. He conceded he does not align with all their politics, particularly when it comes to nationalism, but argued that should not limit their artistic expression. “Everything else about them — the music, the way they’ve normalised the use of Irish, the attitude — I love,” he said. “I don’t agree with all of their politics — the divergence for me is nationalism — but that’s not to say they shouldn’t be able to express themselves however they want.”
Geldof positioned KNEECAP within a tradition of artists who deploy popular music to expose “deep, deep, deep societal, economic and moral corruption.” He contrasted his own generation’s recourse to rock ‘n’ roll as its language of dissent with the rise of social media provocateurs, observing: “The only available language our generation had to articulate … corruption in Ireland was rock ‘n’ roll. I thought influencers and interrupters on social media had usurped that role but thankfully not.”
What excites him most about KNEECAP, he says, is that they still provoke pushback. “What thrills is that people are still getting upset by a bunch of herberts larging it and carrying on.” He placed them alongside the great disruptors of musical history: “That’s exactly what rock ‘n’ roll is there to do: Elvis, Little Richard, the Sex Pistols… KNEECAP. Music is meant to shake things up.”
The Hot Press interview also touches on Fontaines D.C., placing them in a lineage of Irish rock evolution. Geldof traces a thread from Van Morrison’s hybrid of blues, soul and Celtic imagery, through his own attempts to emulate that blend on early Boomtown Rats records, then onward via U2, Shane MacGowan, Sinéad O’Connor. “In the linear scheme of things, you have Van’s fusing of blues and soul with a Celtic lyricism using a Yeats-ian language,” he says. “That really did effect rock ‘n’ roll. ‘Joey’s On The Street Again’ from the first Rats album was me literally copying and trying to understand what Van was doing.” He adds that later artists—Philo, The Rats, U2, Shane, Sinéad—each took turns in building the tradition. For him, Fontaines D.C. are part of that continuum: “To me, Fontaines D.C. are a continuation of that.”
Geldof also reflects on the early formative days of The Boomtown Rats: how rock ‘n’ roll shaped his worldview, his long and complex friendship with Sinéad O’Connor, and even the time he considered a run for the Irish presidency. The wide scope of the interview includes his views on political figures such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Charlie Kirk, tying his musical and social convictions together.
In comparing KNEECAP to Elvis, Little Richard and the Sex Pistols, Geldof casts them not as mere imitators, but as instigators in their own right — artists who carry forward rock’s disruptive impulse into Ireland’s contemporary cultural and political conversation. With The Boomtown Rats commemorating five decades of music, his endorsement lends weight to a belief he’s long held: that good music unsettles, challenges, even angers — and in doing so, it changes things.
