The Decemberists are earning their stripes

US indie heroes The Decemberists talk gun laws and Cork roots with Ed Power.

COLIN MELOY isn’t holding back. “Gun culture in this country is appalling and disgusting,” says the singer with The Decemberists. “It seems so entrenched there is so little we can do.”

This is precisely the viewpoint you would expect of Meloy. He is a long-time resident of Portland, Oregon, America’s most liberal city. Meloy is anti-guns, pro-recycling and thinks bicycle lanes God’s gift to urbanites (assuming he believes in God). In the United States this is enough to qualify you as ragingly left-wing.