This cover story originates from the newest Penny print issue, Penny 3.4. View the full issue HERE (and embedded below) and see past Penny print issues HERE.
Interview and Feature by Erin Christie
“My childhood was small, but I’m gonna be big,” frontman Grian Chatten professed on one of Dublin-born post-punk sweethearts Fontaines D.C.’s earliest cuts (aptly named “Big”, off their 2019 debut album Dogrel). This sentiment, delivered against propulsive cymbal hits and and crashing guitars, is as prophetic and foreshadowing as it is ironic, as it was delivered by a group who, five years later, are easily more celebrated yet disinterested in fame than most. What has led to the band’s current notoriety (as especially noted this year) wasn’t random nor encouraged by a little face-to-face time with the Blarney Stone — it was determined by way of something more grounded and tangible: their undeniable range and unwavering dedication to honing their craft in daring ways, evident to the umpteenth degree on their long-awaited fourth effort and first release with their new home XL, Romance (out August 23). To properly introduce this new era in context, though, it’s necessary to look at the band’s roots.
Beginning with their debut’s ferocious and memorable love letter to their homeland, Fontaines D.C’s Irishness (both in name and attitude) sits as a huge part of their external representation, with A Hero’s Death (ironically released in the isolation of the first COVID lockdown) touching on the displacement they experienced amid their changing career trajectory, and Skinty Fia dialing in on their continually mutating Celtic identity, interpreted from different parts of the world. With current times seeing the band physically separated more than ever (between the States, France, Spain, and England), conceptualizing what later became Romance was a matter of updating their narrative and figuring out what else connected them aside from their lineage. As bassist Conor Deegan notes, “I think [Chatten] will always have Ireland in his mind and his heart; we all do” — in this everlasting truth lies Romance’s jumping-off point.
As the record’s title track and thesis statement suggests against slinky, sauntering basslines and explosive feedback: “Maybe Romance is the place / for me / and you;” both a theory and a promise. From this intro, Romance’s tracklisting delves into the idea that while surface-level statistics and superlatives affect our perceptions of self and our interpretations of reality, ‘romance’ enters the picture when we realize that, regardless of these factors and regardless of how fucked up the world is, people universally endure with the hope of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. In remembering the romanticism found in the way our lives intertwine based on our overarching desire to survive and experience beauty whenever we can, life doesn’t feel so isolating and barren: “You become disillusioned when you recognize just how unromantic so many mundane normalized parts of life are,” Deegan notes.
This idea hit home especially hard for the foursome, as they each interpret life both as private people entering their 30s amid their own globally diverse experiences, and as a group of publicly-perceived musicians with the ability to indirectly influence their listeners via their output. “I think there's a lot of truth between the idea of being in a band whose music is listened to in lots of different parts of the world; that idea of that philosophy that we exist in multiple places at the same time,” Deegan explained. “This sense of how we wrote the album, existing in multiple places at the same time, is quite a nice way to kind of introduce that to people to kind of consider that idea for themselves.”
Apart from broadening their perspectives on the world from a philosophical place and re-examining their collective identity with new context, writing Romance was also an opportunity to reinvent Fontaines D.C. as a musical entity, as a means to present their new ideas about connection in a totally new fashion. This undertaking was no easy feat given the comfortability found in their pre-established guitar-bass-drums dynamic, and the celebration that dynamic has received. Scratching the surface, the band has received numerous accolades, including a nomination for ‘Best Rock Album’ at the 2021 Grammys and being awarded ‘Group of the Year’ at the 2023 BRITs. On a live front, they’ve found massive success, with older cuts such as “Boys In the Better Land” and “Televised Mind” continuing to decorate their setlist with a smattering of frenzied guitars and speak-sung interludes, splintered off pistol-whipping poetic lyricism. In the process, they’ve become titans of the late ‘10s ‘post-punk revival’ conversation, but in truth, they’ve been ready to expand their horizons for quite some time.
“Short of inventing new guitar pedals, there’s only so many sounds we could do,” Deegan laughed, recalling how he and the rest of the band been very regimented in the past, employing tried-and-true creative structures as a rule of thumb, but also as a safety net. “There’s a huge history of guitar music with certain sounds being utilized, and we really had to rehash things. I think we’ve gotten to that stage where we have to push ourselves, or we’re treading water.”
The writing sessions behind Romance then became a matter of trust-falling into uncharted territory, learning whilst simultaneously unlearning and letting go of previous inhibitions and limitations, which Deegan admitted he momentarily felt anxious about. After initiating Chilli Jesson (of Palma Violets) into the fold, enlisting English producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Depeche Mode), and updating their approach instrumentally (with Deegan now playing piano, and guitarist Carlos O’Connell on synths), that fear subsided and creativity eventually took hold in a big way. The studio became less of a physical place but an instrument in itself, allowing Romance to become a collection of the band’s most daring and explorative tracks to date, combining their historical post-punk edge with shocking yet brilliant forays into genres such as brit pop and trip hop.
“We had to find our ethos first, and we spent years trying lots of different hats and sounds,” Deegan continued. “I feel like there’s bands who lose themselves to the freedom of the studio and create this music that’s absolutely absurd or obtuse. But I think after years and years of keeping it simple, we managed to utilize new elements in such a way that they didn’t have to stretch too far.”
Romance lead single “Starburster” sits at an extreme of the band’s newfound exploration, refusing to gently ease listeners into the band’s new era by instead serving as a stark, cold open. With the release of this industrial and adventurous catalog curveball leading the charge, this summer has seen Fontaines D.C. become practically inescapable, on both a numerical level across DSPs and radio (which is a first for them), and across socials. It expertly initiated their intended shift and even saw this summer’s prevailing ‘brat summer’ “Apple”-pocalypse rivaled by the darkhorse earworm of Chatten’s rhythmic inhales and spit-sung, hardballing lyrical delivery.
The band further continues this successful slap-in-the-face approach across a majority of the record, with many subsequent tracks delivering something entirely new in lucid twists and turns, often proposing a new sonic sensibility to aid in a new emotive theme. “Death Kink” incorporates ‘stink face’-inducing guitar solos whilst speaking on pain-manipulation; “Motorcycle Boy” plays out in sprawling looped distortion, swirling down the drain with the disheartened frustration of two people’s misaligned realities; and “Sundowner” translates O’Connell’s personal experience with loss into a cinematic, wistful, and melancholic tribute to his friend he can only reach in sleep: “It’s faster if I call ye / In my dreams.” “Bug” is one example that does not follow this pattern, however — contrasting it’s feel-good guitar-led instrumentality, it’s a more morbid entry, a death knell for a marriage gone awry: “They threw me out like / I was a wedding bouquet / Now I can’t quite remember what I had to say.”
On the opposite side of the coin, one of the record’s biggest successes other than sonic unpredictability lies in its masterful incorporation of lush, cinematic symphonies, carved out in sequences of fluttering strings and glittering synths. Recalling Chatten’s 2023 solo effort, Chaos For The Fly — where inclusions such as “Last Time Every Time Forever” added swelling strings to his arsenal for the first time — this layer of widesweeping gradiosity is what makes the album stick out in their discography most, not like a sore thumb but like one of Midas’.
Final single “In the Modern World” is a particular triumph in this vein: the tracklisting’s arguably most romantic entry is fleshed out with a choir of crashing cymbals and slow-dancing violins, procuring a twisted emotional response in its crushing partnership between the author’s heartfelt verses addressed to their lover and their personal realizations that their turmoiled existence is muting their ability to channel these feelings — “If it matters / you complete me [...] In the modern world, I don’t feel anything.” Deegan, whose backing vocals decorate the track’s lower register, notes that he’s particularly proud of this inclusion, describing that in his mind’s eye, it sonically recalls American author Raymond Carver’s portrayals of contemporary life — husbands and wives, alcoholism, loneliness, and repressed emotion.
On both a performance and lyrical level, “Horseness in the Whatness” wraps Romance up in a bow as its most blatant track in direct discussion with the record’s concept. In an undulating instrumentality that mimics an anxious heartbeat, Chatten delivers a stream-of-consciousness dialog on ‘love,’ contemplating if such a thing can exist, and if it can be truly understood: “Will someone / find out what the word is / that makes the world go round / cause I thought it was love.” As the record closes, this question remains, but it’s sure that the band did their damnedest attempting to get to the bottom of it.
Over the course of Romance’s 40-minute tracklisting, Fontaines D.C. ultimately re-introduce themselves in advanced form, building upon the world they’ve established over the last half-decade but with a brand new artillery of tricks up their sleeves. In turn, the record is a masterful but unexpected pivot that pays off massively, even if it’s not a standard FDC fan’s cup of tea from the gate.
And aside from their recordings, Fontaines D.C.’s greatest strength is bestowed upon their unmatched live performance, which makes their forthcoming Romance world tour also incredibly intriguing.
The very first and most recent times I saw Fontaines D.C. live were two of the more chaotic nights of my life. Whether at a nearly 300-cap dive bar in Boston circa 2019 to what was considered an ‘intimate’ packed-to-the-gills 1K-cap underplay in Brooklyn earlier this spring, the magnitude of body mass sloshing about the room at an FDC show amalgamates in beer-soaked boots and sweat-dripping brows, rang in by a cacophonous cry of “oi, oi, oi!.” The shared practice of swatting away ricocheting bodies amidst a churning crowd commanded by Chatten is like none other, and it’s particularly special to experience such in what is becoming a rare ‘smaller’ gig for the former newcomers. Even when decked out in updated Romance-era garb at this spring’s gig, Chatten still gripped his microphone stand as if he was about to faint, his three-leaf clover wrist tattoo firmly in view as a permanent reminder of his roots and their immovable influence.
In live settings and across digital terrains, Fontaines D.C.’s ability to draw listeners together is entirely remarkable, and in sharing a record all about the communal strength found in shared experiences, this is only emphasized in the most romantic of ways. Therein lies Romance’s most obvious excellence.
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