{"id":657592,"date":"2026-10-17T13:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T13:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/657592\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T13:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T13:54:12","slug":"kate-nash-it-was-fine-until-ed-sheeran-dropped-macklemore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/657592\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate Nash: ‘It was fine until Ed Sheeran dropped Macklemore’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate Nash has spent the better part of the past eleven years trying to bypass her stint as a popstar and arrive at a higher calling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not different people,\u201d she says of the artist she is now versus the artist that created Made of Bricks, the 2007 chart success that shot her from a relative unknown to a bonafide chronicler of the modern age.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that was just me at 16, which is when I wrote most of those songs. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m so grateful to that 16-year-old for taking such good care of me. But now,\u201d she says from the corner of the foyer in a Dublin City Centre hotel, \u201cI want to tell the world that I have something to say as a woman. And you need to listen to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now 39, Nash has been making music for more than half of her life, largely as a way to serve urges both insular and environmental. Foundations, the kitchen-sink realist anthem that gained her comrades of the likes of Lily Allen and Jamie T, boasted a visceral pull that permitted whole demographics to feel seen, while also providing melodies so hummable that most could do so dumbly on the treadmill, in the shower, or on the bus.<\/p>\n

Her music, now \u2013 Nash has been steadily releasing music since the late aughts; Cail\u00edn, her seventh studio album, is scheduled for January \u2013 still exists along the same parameters, but the method to get there feels utterly different.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt costs money to make records,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re in a cost-of-living crisis, and as someone who has a commercially successful record in my catalogue, if I just sat on that and lived off of it, I could earn more than spending like I do on my living.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the point? One might ask, in vain. \u201cBecause we have to keep trying.\u201d Nash, in a seaweed-green cardigan and hair in loose plaits, looks softer now compared to her noughties aesthetic. Gone are the belted A-line dresses and primary-hued tights [don\u2019t blame her, blame Topshop] and in is her bare face and whimsical R\u00edon Hannora designs. Nash\u2019s recent run of intimate Irish shows \u2013 members of her team waft in and out of the conversation in merch from Ballintemple\u2019s Coughlan\u2019s to Levis\u2019 in Ballydehob \u2013 is speaking to her inner child, the one that spent evenings and weekends in North London playing the tin whistle, Irish-dancing and attending Mass with her Irish mother.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing in Ireland makes me cry,\u201d she smiles, wiping a sliding tear. \u201cThe venues we\u2019ve been to, they are just amazing. And they\u2019re actually reminding me why I\u2019m doing what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Nash is doing is attempting to dismantle the entire arts ecosystem as we know it. An undeniably tall order \u2013 most notably in the wake of the Ed Sheeran, Robert Kraft saga \u2013 but one that doesn\u2019t begin to scare a redheaded, middle-child who survived late-aughts tabloid media. \u201cThe grassroots culture is in crisis, and I am so bored of \u20ac700 exclusive merch bundles, and how it\u2019s become normalised to pay a grand to go and see your favourite artist,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cShows like these are for the people who attend these venues week in, week out. They are the places where you first receive culture, and we need to look after them and value them in the rise of AI and robots on fashion week catwalks.\u201d She pauses to take a sip of her flat white. \u201cI don\u2019t know if any of these people have ever watched a horror or sci-fi film\u2026 but they should know, it doesn\u2019t end well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KateKate Nash performing on the BBC Introducing Stage during the Glastonbury Festival in June 2025.<\/p>\n

There is a bite to Nash\u2019s voice as she navigates this era, one that demands as much as it offers. In 2024, she announced the launch of a campaign on OnlyFans [an online subscription platform for content creators, that due to its preponderance of adult creators, has become shorthand for adult content] called Butts for Tour Buses. \u201cI\u2019m selling pictures of my arse to pay invoices,\u201d she put it succinctly, on the PoliticsJOE podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just got fucking sick of it,\u201d she says now. \u201cEven after saving all of my festival earnings, I was bleeding money touring. And as artists, we\u2019re told not to talk about it. I have friends who are selling their furniture in order to pay their band, and so I just felt like I needed to talk about it. So I did; in the [UK] Parliament twice, in Leinster House and in Stormont.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pivot to adult content also didn\u2019t take much from her, really.<\/p>\n

\n My arse is already out in all of the pictures people take of me non-consensually on stage, so I thought, why not? Now it\u2019s given me a marketing budget for this tour.\n <\/p>\n

She pauses. \u201cIt\u2019s also got a lot of great puns, which has definitely helped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Breaking barriers is core to Nash\u2019s current epoch, one which sees her lean into her Irishness in a way we\u2019ve never quite seen from her before. In recent interviews, she has made use of the pronoun \u201cwe\u201d when discussing Irish history, a move that doesn\u2019t always succeed when displayed with a vocalised North London timbre.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was actually fine until Ed Sheeran dropped Macklemore,\u201d she laughs. \u201cThat has caused some people to say I\u2019m being disrespectful or whatever, which I actually don\u2019t mind, because I think it\u2019s given me the opportunity to explain myself \u2013 and we all need to be able to discuss these things and not feel we have to force our opinions on each other to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

This perceived disrespect permeated from Nash\u2019s cover of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor\u2019s Famine, and its subsequent video which featured a duvet with the embroidery work of artist and activist Tia O\u2019Donnell stating \u201cThe English Don\u2019t Know Their History\u201d. Nash was first recommended to record the track by an American producer and friend, a suggestion she thought was \u201ctoo audacious\u201d to even consider. But after re-examining the traditional folk nature of sharing tunes, and with the blessing of O\u2019Connor\u2019s estate and family, she decided to lean in.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, the more people who cover that song, the better,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause you\u2019re spreading that message to different audiences. If there is ever going to be healing, there has to be remembering and grieving. I\u2019ll always come back to that, with everything I do.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"KateKate Nash wears, and was styled by, R\u00edon Hannora for her music video ‘Millions of Heartbeats’<\/p>\n

Nash challenges this history personally, too. \u201cPart of this journey has been me acknowledging my Englishness, too,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a rise in nationalism in the UK [ Famine\u2019s cover art features a Saint George\u2019s Cross hanging from the window of a first floor home] and acknowledging that, I feel, brings me closer to an England that acknowledges its colonial past. Because at the end of the day, it doesn\u2019t. There\u2019s still a monarchy, the curriculum doesn\u2019t change and I learned nothing about the Famine in school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a young boy at my gig in Derry the other night,\u201d she smiles, welling up again.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn his own, which is firstly such a fucking cool thing to do. Secondly, when Foundations came on, he knew every single word.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pauses. \u201cWe\u2019re all being preyed on in some way at the moment. Boys by the manosphere, and girls by beauty brands that are forcing their insecurities back on themselves. Did you hear that social media platforms apparently have a way to track when teenage girls are feeling vulnerable, like when they delete selfies, and that\u2019s when they serve them beauty advertisements? That is evil, and it\u2019s worth fighting against.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly why we need to be in small venues, because we need to feel connected again. We need to turn off our phones, sing along with strangers and fight what\u2019s worth fighting for. Because if we don\u2019t\u2026 life is only going to get much, much harder from here.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kate Nash plays Cyprus Avenue, Dolans, R\u00f3is\u00edn Dubh, The Button Factory and Mandela Hall between February 8 – 14, 2027. Her sixth studio album, Cail\u00edn, is out in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kate Nash has spent the better part of the past eleven years trying to bypass her stint as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,1693,60,278],"class_list":["post-657592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-insight","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}