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In the two years since Fontaines D.C. released their third studio album, Skinty Fia, the Grammy-nominated Irish band has stayed steadily busy, supporting Arctic Monkeys on a major North American tour, headlining gigs of their own, and performing for a sea of rowdy concert-goers at Glastonbury. Now, the band’s fourth record, titled Romance, is out this month.
When I meet frontman Grian Chatten and lead guitarist Carlos O Connell at the Arlo Hotel in Williamsburg, they’ve only been in the country for a few days, and are still coming down from playing The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon the night before. Yet their Irish charm is in high supply ahead of another gig, at Warsaw Concerts in Greenpoint, later that evening. “I like Hell’s Kitchen and just off of Times Square, where things are a little bit gnarly and the facade starts to wither away,” Chatten says, reeling off his favorite places in New York. (Moments later, he’s interrupted mid-thought as a hotel guest compliments his jaunty limited-edition Simone Rocha Crocs.)
The concept for Romance slowly emerged while the band was on the road with Arctic Monkeys. Chatten vividly remembers the end of that recent tour: he lost his passport (yet again) during their final gig in Mexico, after which they headed directly into the studio to workshop the new album. In an industry where many artists work with a team of writers, Chatten proudly handles all his lyrics himself. “Writing is the part of the job that feels least like a job to me,” he says. “Writing is the one thing that lets me air everything out into my career. It’s kind of like stretching the legs. I don’t find it difficult; it kind of just happens.” More discomfiting to him is the notion of having to perform someone else’s material. “I like that stuff to be in my head and to write it out into the world. I don’t like it to be out into the world already, ’cause there’s kind of too much pressure to render it faithfully.”
The 11 tracks on Romance were forged from a constellation of ideas exchanged between the bandmates (who also include guitarist Conor Curley, bassist Conor Deegan III, and drummer Tom Coll), mostly backstage at concerts. It reflects the more layered sound that they’ve developed in recent years: Since bounding onto the scene as a punk outfit in the late 2010s, they’ve gradually wound their way toward a mixture of grungy breaks and hip-hop-inspired percussion, with secondary notes rooted in electronica—a sonic world loosely reminiscent of early Deftones.
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Of all the songs on their new record, Chatten’s favorite (not to be confused with the closing track called “Favourite”) is, without a doubt, “In the Modern World.” “I always wanted to write that song but never knew how,” Chatten explains. “I remember the moment that song came to a point; I arranged the strings and stuff on my laptop at home in my flat. After I listened to it and closed the laptop, I was like, Ah, that’s what I’ve been trying to do for five years. I always wanted to write a song that sounded like Lana Del Rey could maybe sing on it, you know?”
Compared to the poetic, charismatic Chatten, the fuschia-headed O’Connell is more mellow and mysterious. “On that tour [with Arctic Monkeys], because it was a support tour, we had much more time to ourselves,” he explains, carefully hand-rolling a cigarette. “We rarely get to be in the same room for a long time, where we all have nothing to do. So, we essentially started short with the instrumentation, which defined where this album went. We had a couple of acoustic guitars and our voices.”
For a group of 20-something guys, their creative process is remarkably analogue: among their most critical producing tools is a big whiteboard. “We take it out from storage, wipe everything from the last album off it, and just start pouring every idea down,” O’Connell says. At one point, they had about 35 songs in consideration, ranging from 22-second phone recordings to finished melodies.
“You don’t really know what the album, at that point, will become. We could have made totally different albums outta that,” he notes. One that didn’t make the cut “had this real ’80s vibe to it, with this offbeat clap. It felt a little bit like Dua Lipa or something,” he adds, singing a bit of the intro to “Levitating” for emphasis. (O’Connell, it should be noted, is a girl dad, though his 18-month-old daughter, Vega, is still a bit young for Future Nostalgia.) “Starburster,” the explosive first single inspired by a panic attack Chatten had in St. Pancras station, and the cinematic and melancholic title track, “Romance,” eventually helped to set the tone for the rest of the album.
When I arrive at the gig later that evening, the venue’s cool Brooklynite-esque crowd feels shot through with a little extra testosterone. There is also a special guest in attendance: Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys.
Chatten and O’Connell vary in their pre-show jitters, anticipating playing “Favourite,” “Starburster,” and “Romance” live for the first time. “[The Tonight Show] was the first time we played ‘Starburster’ live,” O’Connell says. “I honestly was nervous, which I didn’t realize until just before we performed, because playing it live isn’t second nature yet. I don’t get nervous about songs I’ve toured because it’s effortless to get into a state of flow. But with something you haven’t performed in front of people before—I don’t know how to react to a mistake, for example.” Chatten, on the other hand, jokes that he should be fine as long as he buckles his belt on his pants properly.
Suffice it to say that neither one has anything to worry about. As Fontaines D.C.’s set begins, and Chatten steps out in a New York Yankees jersey (wardrobe malfunction-free), the crowd roars.
