A Hero's Journey: the rise and rise of All Together Now headliners Fontaines D.C.
It was October 2017, and Mike The Pies, a popular pub and live music venue in Listowel Co Kerry, was hosting The Hot Sprockets, an indie soul band known for their jaunty, folksy sound.
But first, there was the support act — a new group from Dublin who went as The Fontaines and were led by an intense frontman with a chaotic haircut, named Grian Chatten.
'They played a session on the Paul McLoone Show [on Today FM], and I was blown away by it. I contacted the band straight away and invited them down to do support,' recalls Mike the Pies owner, Aiden O'Connor.
'I remember the soundcheck being raw. I couldn't get my eyes off it. I was standing with another customer — the first song Grian was staring at us. I went... 'Is it me or you he's staring at?' He wasn't staring at us. It was his level of concentration, getting in the zone — or whatever way you describe it. He was constantly focusing on a point.'
Seven years later, the Hot Sprockets are just another Irish band who never quite made it.
Mike the Pies, for its part, recently welcomed the Frank and Walters for a date marking its tenth anniversary as a live venue. The Fontaines have meanwhile become Fontaines D.C. and are one of the biggest young bands in the world.
They are among the most critically acclaimed, too. Last year's Romance album was rapturously received, earning wall-to-wall five-star reviews.
Rolling Stone praised it as 'the sound… of a band triumphantly gunning for the big leagues', while the NME feted it as their 'most considered and intricately crafted release yet'.
It isn't just critics. When Fontaines D.C. launched Romance with a show at the Camden Electric Ballroom in London last year, the audience included Harry Styles and Florence Welch.
Elton John has likewise added his voice to the chorus of cheerleaders. 'You've just grown every album,' Elton told Fontaines' Chatten in a conversation on the rocketman's Apple Music show.
'You seem to have found your feet with this album in such a big way… it's a brilliant record.' Those views were echoed by Olivia Rodrigo, who covered their track I Love You at Dublin's Marlay Park in July.
(L - R) Tom Coll, Conor Deegan III, Grian Chatten and Carlos O'Connell of Fontaines D.C. are seen at the Gucci show during Milan Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2023/24 on January 13, 2023 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Jacopo M. Raule/Getty Images for Gucci)
Fontaines D.C. haven't just exploded in popularity. Since Mike the Pies in 2017, their audience has become considerably younger.
Early on, they often played to indie fans of a certain age raised on iconic late 1970s/early 1980s bands such as Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen.
But when they went on the road touring Romance, Gen Z was out in force — as made clear to anyone attending their two sold-out shows at 3Arena Dublin last December.
'That first night [at Mike the Pies] the average age was probably in the 40s,' says O'Connor.
'That has changed completely. I was in 3Arena and in Manchester two nights — it was a way younger crowd.'
Fontaines D.C. are mould breakers — both musically and in terms of their career.
Irish rock has a long history of doing well at home but failing to create any sort of impression abroad.
Irish success stories tend to be more commercial and calculated in their sound — whether that's U2's flag-waving or The Corrs' polished folk-pop.
Sounds from the punkier end of the spectrum generally don't travel, with the arguable exceptions of My Bloody Valentine and The Cranberries (which had plenty of major label backing).
Consider Dublin's Whipping Boy — a 1990s predecessor to Fontaines D.C. whose forte was stark indie rock and who were led by a frontman who sang in his native Dublin accent.
Fontaines D.C.
They were well-regarded in Ireland but were unable to break through abroad. So, what makes Fontaines DC different? In the UK, the feeling is simply that — whether it's the onslaught of Boys In A Better Land or the propulsive pop of My Favourite — they write great tunes.
'The enduring pull of Fontaines D.C.'s music derives from Chatten's ability to just write good songs,' said Far Out magazine.
'There's nothing hugely inventive about their sound — it sits quite firmly in the post-punk realm, only ever deviating from classic guitars and drums with the occasional tambourine. They don't play with genre or instrumentation, there's no sampling or strange synths, they rely entirely on melodies and meaning, and they've mastered both.'
Others draw a connection between Fontaines and The Smiths, whose members were drawn from the Manchester-Irish community.
'Fontaines D.C. seem to be resonating in the UK like The Smiths did 40 years ago. It's ostensibly 'outsider' music, but it's commercially successful too,' says London-based music journalist James Hall.
'The Smiths' four studio albums reached numbers 2, 1, 2 and 2 in the album charts in the mid-1980s; Fontaines' four to date have charted at 9, 2, 1 and 2. Go figure. The music is both vigorous and deeply romantic, and it appeals across the generations. People in their 50s love it (self-included), and my friends' children love it too.
'The 17-year-old daughter of a mate who lives in Devon went to see Fontaines in Plymouth in November, and she and her friends painted Irish tricolours on their faces despite — as far as I know — never having been to Ireland. On this, Fontaines are a phenomenal live act. They've played it really smart too by recently using uber producer James Ford [Arctic Monkeys, Jesse Ware, Pet Shop Boys, Last Dinner Party].
'He has a brilliant ear for song dynamics and melody but he also lets the music do the talking. The band's new music might be a bit poppier and lighter — It's Amazing to be Young, Favourite etc — but there's nothing wrong with that. Just listen to Grian Chatten's fantastic solo album Chaos For The Fly from 2023, it's very poppy. He's like Morrissey was in the 1980s/ 90s.'
Grian Chatten of Fontaines D.C. performing on the Other Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset. Picture date: Sunday June 26, 2022.
Alongside talent, the band has a huge work ethic. Their Romance tour has clocked up at 50 dates and counting, and they recently headlined 45,000-capacity Finsbury Park in London. That sort of hard work comes at a price and they've channelled their experiences of burn-out and exhaustion into music, particularly with 2020's A Hero's Death.
'A whole year of touring … affected our headspace writing the album. There was a lot of longing for home and finding ways to deal with constantly being displaced,' bassist Conor Deegan told the Examiner that March.
'It's so dualistic. In one sense, you are being recognised every day — on stage, by people in the audience. They're all going, 'you're great'. You step outside the door and you're a stranger. You can't speak the language. You realise what these things are actually worth and what they're not worth. They're kind of superficial in a sense.'
The band's willingness to acknowledge their vulnerable side is also surely a factor in their rise and it is no coincidence that their success comes at the same time as that of Tyneside singer Sam Fender, whose music has a similar streak of sensitivity.
In the case of Fontaines, that emotional honesty extends to a willingness to talk about their mental health — as made evident by last year's single, Starbuster, which is about Chatten's history of panic attacks ('How I feel? How I feel? I wanna keel').
Though it all, they've never forgotten where they come from, says Mike The Pies' Aiden O'Connor, who caught up with the band when they played arena shows in Dublin and Manchester last year.
'I met them after the gig in 3Arena. Deego [aka bassist Deegan] came up to me and said Aiden, how are our girls? Nothing about selling out 3Arena. I have a conversation with Carlos [O'Connell, guitarist], we were talking about his daughter and my daughter. As massive as they have become, their feet are firmly on the ground.'
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