Anytime the ascendant Irish star CMAT performs on TV, that's appointment viewing. She's a hugely engaging performer with a gigantic bazooka voice, and she makes the absolute most of every big performance. Fortunately, we've been getting a lot of those CMAT performances in the time since she released her album Euro-Country last year. Just a few weeks ago, CMAT was the musical guest on SNL UK, and she took part in a sketch. On Wednesday night, CMAT appeared on Comedy Central to give a completely non-comedic performance.
Where many of CMAT's TV performances are mini-Broadway setpieces, she went no-frills on last night's Daily Show, taking center stage to belt out her Euro-Country title track. She really sang that shit, and she told the show's audience about the song's roots in Ireland's 2008 economic crash. On top of the performance, she gave a really great interview with last night's Daily Show host, who, like our own Scott Lapatine, met CMAT at the Newport Folk Festival. She had a lot to say.
In her conversation with Klepper, CMAT discussed things like the California location known as Pioneertown, her experiences with American audiences ("Americans never let me down, except for Los Angeles sometimes"), and the reasons that Irish people love country music ("I think, ehhhh, depression.") She also got into the subject of cowardly worm Ed Sheeran, who, in her mind, put himself in the crosshairs when he "started identifying as Irish recently" and surrounded himself with people who "would make it an issue," unlike other superstars of his stature. She feels bad for the guy! That's big of her. She did, however, make quite a face when she said the man's name. Here's CMAT's complete statement on the Sheeran Shituation:
I'm in a very different position to Ed Sheeran. My hot take is that I actually feel bad for the guy because I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into. I think he could've absolutely said, "No, cancel the tour then if you're going to cancel the tour. I want Macklemore to stay on as my support act." And I don't think anything would've happened, right?
I think you can be a very, very famous person and a very, very rich person and a very, very, very celebrated musician, and actually I don't think you have to bow to those structures. But I think that famous people are often surrounded by a massive team of people who are making endless amounts of money off them that are putting loads of pressure on them to do the thing that upholds the capital value of their artistic product. So I think he was given really bad advice...
I also think that maybe his problem was that he started identifying as Irish recently, right? And this is the point I wanna make. I don't wanna rag on him because I think everyone has been going for him, and I don't think it's super-fair. And the reason I say that is this: This is a man who surrounded himself by Irish people. You know, his band was Irish. All his support acts were Irish. Macklemore is even Irish, apparently. [Crowd laughs.] He is! He's from — I don't know where he's from. He has a song called "Irish Song" or something...
Anyway. Dunno where he's from. But I think that if [Sheeran] wanted to identify as being Irish, if he wanted to really connect to his Irish heritage and he wanted that to be a part of his personal brand and part of his music — he hired all these amazing Irish musicians, was supporting Irish musicians, was really in there on the ground level in the Irish music scene, which was amazing. The problem then was that if something like this issue — something like the issue of what I would refer to as a genocide — happens, then Irish people are going to hold you to account for that.What I think the actual issue is is that there are so many other musicians playing in massive stadiums that are not surrounding themselves with people that will hold them accountable, so it doesn't get shown up. And I actually think that this is the problem. He's the guy that maybe got a bit unlucky by his choices. I actually think there's a lot of people that are doing much worse than him, and that's why I think maybe a lot of the criticism is a bit unfair. I think there's a lot of people who are not saying anything or doing anything to help the Palestinian people right now that are just not getting it in the neck because they refuse to be surrounded by people who would make it an issue for them.
Jordan Klepper's response: "So you're saying the major problem here is he's hiring Irish people, so don't do that." Watch the performance and the interview below.
Euro-Country is out now on AWAL.
