Kneecap's DJ Provaí: "We don’t really have that many differences with the DUP, except we seem to like the craic and they don’t"

If it’s tumultuous years you’re after, look no further than the one Kneecap have enjoyed – and on occasions not enjoyed – since their last Electric Picnic appearance twelve months ago.

Whether cleaning up at the BAFTAs with their biopic; appearing at Westminster Magistrates Court on alleged terrorism charges; having their Glastonbury appearance forensically examined by Avon & Somerset Constabulary; getting the UK government to cough up the £14,250 arts grant they’d tried to rescind on blatantly political grounds; being deemed a “national security threat” and banned from entering Hungry for three years; or having gigs pulled left, right and centre for their robust stance on Palestine, Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Provaí have rarely been out of the headlines these past twelve months.

Despite these ongoing travails, the latter is all smiles – we know this because he’s not wearing his balaclava – when Hot Press catches up with him backstage at Sweden’s Way Out West festival.

“Who wants a boring life, eh?” the Turntablist Also Known As JJ Ó Dochartaigh laughs.

True, but has there been a moment when he’s thought, “Whoa, this is getting out of fucking control?”

“Realising that this big Israeli government lobby was out to fucking destroy us was overwhelming at first,” JJ admits. “But then we got support from the likes of Paul Weller and Massive Attack, who’ve always been on the right side of history. They never try to hide their beliefs and are proper artists of the people.

“They didn’t tell us they were coming, but Paul Weller and his family showed up at the court case. They were standing there supporting us. Paul came over and we had a night out with him in Derry. He’s such a genuine fella.”

Dj Provaí

Earlier this year, the Modfather and Noel Gallagher blagged their way into Kneecaps’s Brixton Academy gig. Noel has since repaid the compliment.

“We saw Oasis a couple of days ago in Wembley; it was fucking brilliant,” JJ beams. “It was electric from the very first minute they walked on stage. We said ‘hello’ to Noel and were chatting away with other members of the family. Our manager Dan’s done the Bohs Oasis shirt with them, so there’s a lot of mutual respect. We’ve got a gig that night in Coventry, but the Croke Park shows are going to be epic!”

Despite their best/worst attempts to find fault with Kneecap’s Glastonbury set, the aforementioned Avon & Somerset Constabulary issued a statement afterwards saying: “Detectives sought advice from the Crown Prosecution Service during their enquiries and after that advice, we have made the decision to take no further action on the grounds there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for any offence.”

While Kneecap fought the law and on that occasion won, there’s still a possibility that Mo Chara could do jail time for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at another gig last year in London, with his next Westminster Magistrates Court appearance taking place on August 20.

“It’s trumped up terrorist charges,” JJ insists. “There’s no basis to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they threw it out before it comes to the crunch because I don’t think any judge worth his or her salt is going to look at it seriously and take it any further. I don’t think the government wants to be embarrassed. Having all those people out on the streets and on the news like last time… let’s see what happens.”

Despite the BBC declining to show it – “They told us we can’t be trusted… which to be honest was hurtful,” JJ deadpans – two million people were able to watch Kneecap’s Glastonbury set courtesy of Helen Wilson, a Swansea-based yoga teacher who livestreamed it on her TikTok.

“We’re very grateful to Helen,” JJ resumes. “She’s a hero and has free Kneecap tickets for life. There were more people watching the stream than we’d have gotten on the BBC, so it backfired on them, didn’t it?”

It most certainly did. The Beeb pulled the plug on Kneecap but not Bob Vylan who made sure that Daily Mail readers still had reasons to be outraged. Do the two bands know each other?

“Yeah, we’ve met them on the festival circuit and called over to Bobby’s before,” JJ reveals. “We were almost working on a few tracks together but they never came to fruition. But we’d be friendly with the lads. They’re good people.”

Kneecap were ringside as the “Death, death, death to the I.D.F.” drama unfolded.

“We were standing on the side of the stage watching Bob Vylan and Bobby brought his daughter out, which was a lovely moment. They were dancing around the stage and then all that happened. So there was already a bit of tension in the air before we came out. A message came through a couple of hours beforehand saying, ‘The whole site has been closed off ‘cause too many people are trying to get in and see the gig’. So we knew it was going to be rowdy. With all that build up, we had to give one of the best performances we could – and I think we did.”

Kneecap aren’t the only Northern Irish hip hoppers who’ve been causing an international stir with East Belfast’s Jordan Adetunji getting a Grammy nod for ‘Kehlani’.

In a recent Hot Press interview, he recalled playing a tented gig with the chaps in Donegal.

“Yeah, the Big Top,” JJ nods. “We’ve crossed paths with Jordan – who’s amazing – a few times. When we got our first studio in Belfast, we were chatting to him about making tracks but, why I can’t remember, it didn’t happen. He’s fucking flying at the moment, hanging out on yachts in Miami and all of that.”

Are they still up for a Kneecap x Jordan Adetunji colab?

“Yeah, bring it on!”

Their West Belfast actor friend Anthony Boyle has let it be known that he’ll be rocking up to Kneecap’s Vancouver gig in October with the cast and crew from his latest film The Altruists in tow.

“We were on the drink with Anthony at the IFTAs and the BAFTAs,” JJ recalls. “The Say Nothing series he’s in is a fucking masterpiece. Fair play to Anthony and everybody else involved, because they did a great job of telling a very sensitive story. He had to be careful for a few reasons playing that role…”

If I were fourteen I’d be Tipp-Ex-ing Kneecap’s name onto my satchel and scratching it onto my geometry set with a compass - or whatever the modern equivalent is. Who was the first artist to tickle JJ’s teenage fancy?

“Eminem was a big one,” he shoots back. “There was a place in Derry called the Indoor Markets where they sold bootlegs under the table for a fiver. I got his debut album, Infinite, that way and it absolutely blew my fucking mind. The Irish rebel bands were a big deal too because they were talking about politics and things happening in the places we’re from.”

Kneecap have a somewhat unlikely ally in the cassock-wearing shape of William Crean, the Bishop of Cloyne, who says of them: “Whether you agree or disapprove, we find it difficult to ignore the questions they are asking about language, tradition and identity. Such youthful, intelligent, insightful exuberance is a lesson we in church communities can learn from; whereby we can be confident that the richness of tradition remains the well of inspiration for our exploration of new patterns of gathering in prayer.”

Which could be their place in heaven booked.

“If the church thinks that they can learn a bit from Kneecap, who am I to say otherwise?” JJ resumes. “Fair play. I think he was chatting about people bringing things back to their roots, which is important. Whenever you’re chatting about culture, people think it’s just Irish music or the Irish language, but it goes deeper than that. The connecting through mythology, that’s been lost a bit. Especially with the Christian church trying to whitewash a lot of that stuff. It’s nice that the Bishop believes that, because there’s space for everybody’s beliefs and everybody’s culture.”

Note to the people calling Kneecap sectarian – they’re not.

By the time they get to Stradbally, Kneecap will have played three massive outdoor London, Manchester and Belfast shows with their pals Fontaines D.C. The DUP did their best to torpedo the last on the list but, alas, no longer have enough Belfast City Councillors to pursue their no fun agenda.

“The DUP have been our biggest fans from the very start, so we’ll extend an invitation for them to come along to the Boucher Playing Fields gig,” JJ says. “We’ll give them backstage passes and sit down and have a chat. And I mean that genuinely. One of the biggest obstacles when there’s conflict is fucking getting people together in a room – or park – and having dialogue. We don’t really have that many differences with the DUP, except we seem to like the craic and they don’t.”

The thought of Sammy Wilson busting out his best dance moves to ‘Your Sniffer Dogs Are Shite’ gives me a warm glow.

Going back to those Fontaines D.C. shows, JJ would like to apologise for an unfortunate incident that occurred in London’s Finsbury Park.

“It was our first time having one of those big runways,” he winces. “For the last song, ‘The Recap’, I sprinted down to stagedive, not realising there was a massive gap between the end of the runway and the crowd. It was either pick up speed and jump as high as I could or fall into the pit and break every bone in my body. So, I jumped and fucking flattened about twenty people in the front-rows. Apologies to anyone who got my big sweaty arse in the face but it was all in the name of a bit of craic.”

Still living at home in the North, JJ has been horrified by the wanton acts of racism in Ballymena, where foreign residents have been burned out of their homes.

“These idiots thinking they’re some kind of patriot,” he sighs. “Most of those people are coming from war-torn countries and seeking refuge. It was the British who colonised Ireland, so it’s a complete double standard. And for those Irish people complaining as well – how many fucking millions of us have gone and settled abroad? Patriots my arse.”

Kneecap have laughed it off, but how did their friends and families react to effigies of them being burned atop many a July 12 bonfire?

“It doesn’t get to me, no, but it probably does get to family members who start thinking the worst,” he admits before adding with a chuckle: “I was actually upset that we weren’t on them last year. I mean, what does a band have to do?”

With Derry girl Dana showing no signs of running again, who would JJ like to see taking up residence in the Áras later this year?

“Mickey D. Higgins has very small shoes to fill, but in the best way possible. He’s been brilliant. Somebody like him who’s not afraid to speak their mind, who’ll challenge politicians would be great. Not some eejit who’s doing it because they’re a celebrity.”

One of the UK’s more odious newspaper columnists – we’re not going to add to their clicks by naming ‘em – recently described Kneecap as opportunistic Johnny come lately-s to the Palestinian cause. Which proves that they know fuck all about the Nationalist community in the Six Counties and where their allegiances lie.

“There were always Palestinian flags and murals around the walls of Derry,” JJ says. “People would be chatting about it and, as kids, we’d be shouting ‘Free Palestine!’ before we really knew what it was. We’ve always had that solidarity because people in Ireland have lived through the same kind of discrimination. They feel affiliation with those suffering under the same imperialism and colonisation.

“Irish people have always been going over to Palestine and helping out. I know Móglaí’s brother built a gym in a refugee camp. We had a big fundraiser for that down in Cork. It’s a just cause that people can’t deny anymore. People who were denying it at the start – politicians, world leaders. musicians – are coming out now and recognising Palestine and saying that it’s wrong. But they should be ashamed and embarrassed that it’s taken them so long. Why couldn’t they see what we were seeing?”

Elsewhere in this issue, festival supremo Melvin Benn says that Kneecap being added to the Electric Picnic bill is “a total expression of solidarity with them and their position on Palestine.”

“Electric Picnic is fucking amazing!”

JJ proclaims. “It was our first time playing to a big festival crowd, so it’ll always have a special place in our hearts. No one’s in your ear telling you, ‘You can’t say fucking this, you can’t say fucking that!’ The crowd’s going to be giving you everything they have, so we can’t wait to get there again this year.”

Kneecap. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

Amidst all the controversies it’s easy to forget that Kneecap’s primary purpose is to make music. Have they had the bandwidth to start thinking about the follow up to Fine Art?

“We were in the studio and had fucking piles of tracks ready to go,” JJ says. “We took a break, listened to ‘em again and they just weren’t sounding like Kneecap. It wasn’t what we’d imagined, so it was back to the drawing-board. We’re in the studio at the minute with Dan Carey, who did the first two Fontaines D.C. albums and really enjoying ourselves.”

Along with aforementioned Mozey-assisted banger ‘The Recap’ which went down a storm recently in Fairview Park, Kneecap will have another new song in their Picnic set.

“Aye, we’ve a track coming out soon called ‘Sayonara’ which is with Paul Hartnoll from Orbital,” JJ concludes. “We were looking to do a nostalgic ‘90s-style dance thing and had got a really good response to Orbital being on the Kneecap movie soundtrack, so it was a no brainer really. When they played in Belfast, myself and Peadar, who’s one of our team, went and had a chat with Paul over coffee and scones. We gave him an idea, which he fucking nailed and people at the shows have been dancing their arses off to it.”

If you’re packing for the Picnic, don’t forget your moshing shorts!

• Kneecap play the Main Stage at Electric Picnic.