Flogging Molly's Dave King Suffered Brain Hemorrhage, Spent Two Weeks in Coma
In a post shared on Flogging Molly's social media pages, Regan offered new details about her husband's recent health crisis, which forced the band to put their performance plans on hold indefinitely. At the time, Flogging Molly said only that King was 'battling a very serious health condition' and that they would share details when they could.
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In her new note, Regan said King suffered a brain hemorrhage on Jan. 24 and 'underwent two subsequent surgeries to save his life.' He then spent two weeks in a coma, she added, 'followed by varying stages of treatment and recovery.'
Most recently, on Feb. 28, King 'underwent yet another surgery,' with Regan saying she now felt 'confident we are on the other side of this.' She continued: 'He is now entering into the next phase of his recovery and wants nothing more than to play music again. The road ahead is uncertain but we, as ever, will roll with the punches and hope to see you all in the near future.'
Regan went on to thank King's neurosurgeon and all the medical professionals who've looked after him over the past few months. 'Your extraordinary level of care was also integral to him being where he is today,' she said.
Ending her note, Regan said: 'To friends and family whose support was unwavering throughout this ordeal, a heartfelt thank you. And a special thanks to everyone who sent well wishes and messages of support. Please look after each other and tell your people you love them. Life can change in an instant.'
King's hemorrhage forced Flogging Molly to miss their four-day Salty Dog Cruise festival, which set sail last month (the 2026 iteration is already on the books for next October). The band's headlining tour, which was set to begin on Feb. 24 in St. Petersburg, Florida, was also canceled.
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And so when you start looking at ideas like super-intelligent AI or going to space, these ideas carry a lot of cultural power. The point is, it's very easy for them to believe these things, because it goes along with this picture of the future that they already had, and it offers to make them a lot of money and give them a lot of power and control. It gives them the possibility of ignoring inconvenient problems, problems that often they themselves are contributing to through their work. And it also gives them a sense of moral absolution and meaning by providing this grand vision and project that they're working toward. They want to save humanity. [Elon] Musk talks about this all the time. [Jeff] Bezos talks about this. Altman talks about this. They all talk about this. And I think that's a pretty powerful drug. Then throw in, for the billionaires, the fact that when you're a billionaire, you get insulated from the world and from criticism because you're surrounded by sycophants who want your money, and it becomes very hard to change your mind about anything. Your reality testing gets pretty messed up. Yeah, exactly. Also, a lot of these ideas just sound ridiculous, and so there hasn't been as much trenchant criticism as there should have been for the past decades. And now, suddenly, these guys have lots of money, and they're saying what the future is, and people are just believing that. So what you're telling me is that I'm not gonna get to live on Mars. Yeah, that's right. You're not going to. But you shouldn't be disappointed because Mars sucks. Mars fucking sucks. Just to name a few of the problems: gravity is too low, the radiation is too high, there's no air, and the dirt is made of poison. Sounds fun. Also you're going to freeze even if you solve all of those problems. 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This is a real danger that we are seeing and experiencing right now. Musk thinks that his mission to go to Mars and beyond is the salvation of humanity — he has said as much in as many words — and he believes that, therefore, nothing should be allowed to stand in his way, not even law. So, therefore, he supported a lawless candidate for President of the United States, a literal felon, and said that it was important for the future of humanity that that felon win. This is a billionaire interfering with the democratic process and trying to erode the democratic fabric of this country — and succeeding — in order to pursue his own personal vision of utopia that will never happen. That's a fucking problem. And that makes it everybody's business. I suppose it's also a question of who gets to decide which problems are humanity's biggest. Which is what a lot of this comes down to, right? Part of the problem with trying to solve issues in the world through billionaire philanthropy is that it's fundamentally undemocratic who gets to make the decision: The billionaire gets to make the decision. Who elected the billionaire? Nobody. And so billionaire philanthropy is an exercise of power and deserves skepticism rather than gratitude. But I think a lot of these billionaires see wealth as proof of someone's value and intelligence, and since they're the wealthiest people who have ever lived, that makes them the smartest people who have ever lived and so they are the ones who should be leading us into this new utopia. And if the rest of us can't see it or think that it doesn't work, well, that's because we're not as smart as they are. And if experts tell them that it can't work, well, then the experts are wrong, because, you know, if they are smart, why are they so poor? It's like [these technocrats] are constantly high on a drug called billions of dollars, and the human brain was not built to deal with that. It insulates them from criticism and makes it harder for them to think critically. What can we do about all this? Are we all just basically fucked? Well, look, the billionaires have an enormous amount of power and money, but there's a lot more of us than there are of them. Also, we can think critically, and so I think there's a few different things that we can do. In the short term we need to organize. One of the things that these guys are completely terrified by — and it's one of the reasons they love AI — is the idea of labor organization. They don't want workers rising up. They don't want to have to deal with workers at all, and so I think labor organizing is really important. I think political organizing is really important. 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