We've created a brand-new newsletter to help you stay on top of the latest celeb news and gossip, from Hollywood to Ireland. He didnt want to see me mugged off. John Cooper Clarke, Out of fear. Shop now. Fingers crossed everything can go ahead! I think they should really all be the beginnings of different songs, and I think I just get lazy and compile them all into one song.John: What a great idea! So if we got back, theres an elephant in the room because we both know somethings not right. Yeah basically, its a working class poetry. I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Fontaines frontman, Grian Chatten. I was really into a tune by her called "Never Get Old," off The Lion And The Cobra. There's an 'unsubscribe' button at the bottom of every email we send out. Trying to find Ireland's best burger or best pizza? Dogrel is out April 12th via Partisan Records pre-order the album here. The worst thing anyone could say to Mr Grian Chatten is that he's not really Irish. I wanted to write a song called I Love You because I thought that it was a challenge that interested me to write a song about so kind of an ostensibly clich topic and attempt to make it interesting and my own, unique. It was just one of those things, he says. Yeah. I have a sort of soft spot for the accent as well because I was born up in Cumbria, a town called Barrow-in-Furness. [40] Toronto's Spill Magazine praised Skinty Fia as "an important album, perhaps the most important album of the year", hailing it as a strong contender for 2022 album of the year. As frontman and chief lyricist of the Dublin post-punk quintet Fontaines D.C., Chatten has channelled life growing up in Ireland into his band's music, songs that take in themes of mental health, corrupt governments, religion and community. After meeting while attending music college, and bonding over a common love of poetry, the band began self-releasing singles and performing live regularly, signing to Partisan Records in 2018. It was beautiful, I remember the coffee there. Carlos [OConnell], one of our guitarists wrote the lyrics and he wrote the main riff and everything like that. Quick Bio and Wiki Did You Know? As frontman and chief lyricist of the Dublin post-punk quintet Fontaines D.C., Chatten has channelled life growing up in Ireland into his bands music, songs that take in themes of mental health, corrupt governments, religion and community. Please try again. I recently married my soul mate in the middle of a pandemic. [16][26] The record was recorded live on tape. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. "A Lucid Dream" did not enter the Irish Singles Chart, but peaked at number 14 on the Irish Homegrown Top 20 chart. In 2015 they were going to release their debut with music journalist John Robb's Louder Than War label. All you have to do is tell yourself they look like clouds. I wondered about these things going in and realized during our talk how much they all made sense. I dont know exactly what that is; its an abstract thing, but its like somethings over ya know. One inspiration was a charity-shop accordion that Chattens mother gave him for Christmas. It made the album a little bit more Irish because we coveted that which made us different., Despite that, Chatten likes living in London. The new record broadens the groups sonic palette. Better late than never. Yeah exactly, its just got that beautiful sort of pain because when you love something youre basically giving it license to hurt you, and Dublin definitely has license to hurt me. Chart History: Heatseekers Albums", "Fontaines DC's label boss on the band's big chart result", "British certifications Fontaines D.C.", "Charts analysis: Fontaines DC debut at summit with Skinty Fia", "18 June 2021 24 June 2021 Scottish Singles Archive", "Record Store Day Special Release: Live at Kilmainham Gaol", "ARIA Top 20 Vinyl Albums Chart 21 June 2021", "Fontaines D.C. Live At Kilmainham Gaol dutchcharts.nl", "19 June 2020 25 June 2020 Scottish Singles Archive", "Fontaines D.C. Grian posted a video on 12th June 2016 stating that he didnt believe that he could gain that much in such a short time. So I think its very easy as an outsider to come in and point things out to people, but also I think if you take an element of one society or one culture and you put it in the pool with another one, both societies become nuanced against each other, like differences, and they become more intensely aware of what they are. The initials D.C. stand for "Dublin City". It would hurt me a lot because I draw so much from it, he says over Zoom from his flat in Kentish Town, north London. [17] In May 2017, Fontaines released the single "Liberty Belle" followed by "Hurricane Laughter"/"Winter In the Sun". On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Arrive at The BRIT Awards 2021 at The O2 Arena on May. Theres got to be tension in order for it to be an interesting thing to write about. If she drops something, shed say, Ah, skinty fia. It roughly translates as the damnation of the deer. I dont know, it sounds like mutation and doom and inevitability and all these things that I felt were congruous to my idea of Irishness abroad. Its about his struggle to divine or delineate the real from the superficial and the material. It doesnt jar the way it looks at all, it just fits it. He wrote the song I Love You for Ireland, saying: Ive moved from that country. Like what kind of stories do you connect with in pub poetry? Skinty Fia Wed just sit there and the sound of the bell signalling the next class was the most poetic thing we heard all day. Lead singer Chatten is half-English (his mother is English and his father is Irish) and was born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria [2] but grew up in the County Fingal coastal town of Skerries, north of Dublin. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time This piece will look at Grians wife and his spectacular rise on Minecraft. Fontaines D.C. performing at Loose Ends festival Amsterdam, 2019. Theres a lot of covert prejudice and stereotypes still kept alive by people here, he says, either little micro-aggressions or blatant racism towards Irish people. Would you ever want people to tell your story like that, in the same way youre telling theirs? Does Dublin feel like an ex-lover that you broke up with to see the world? Grian thinks a lot. [Conor] Curley, our guitarist, wrote all the music and the title. Everything he puts out into the world is thoroughly honest and from the heart. Grians marriage to his wife typified the type of wedding ceremonies we see these days small and intimate, with guests smiles hidden under protective masks. That dont give a fuck attitude is not so much a part of some rebellious image as it is a reflection of a deeply inquisitive soul. On our last tour in U.K., it was a ritual of mine to listen to do you know the actor, Andrew Scott? These are very American things, very much relics of American culture. Its a celebration of that flipping, from it being a bad thing into a positive thing. Despite the four decades between them, Fontaines DC frontman Grian Chatten and longstanding punk poet John Cooper Clarke have much in common. But he gave me something to prove, like yours did. I read that one thing that really brought you guys together was a mutual love of the Beat generation and you named yourselves after the Godfather character, Johnny Fontane. The coffee on the tap. I used to work on receipt paper. I am. Yeah I think I do. It was put in my hands and then I was away for a couple of days, walking around the gaff playing with very little knowledge of how to play. The Fontaines D.C.'s force-of-nature punk-poet frontman sounds light . Baby's body found in massive search for missing child of Constance Marten, Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon were arrested in Brighton on Monday night, however, at the time their baby was still missing, Privacy expert urges iPhone users to update devices after Apple bug discovered that can access photos, Apple users are advised to exercise the usual precautions for these vulnerabilities, Warning for holiday goers as Spain and Portugal continue to crack down on tourists, Some European countries have introduced changes in the hopes of reducing tourists. He was a modern guy, a city dweller, a bit louche, something to aspire to! It feels more like an ex-lover at this point, but I think thats because weve consumed it, processed it, and then put it back out into the world creatively because weve written all these songs, weve made this album, the album is finished. Sometimes when I think about Yeats I well up in tears. "I'd wait for Halloween every year so I could dye my hair black and wear . Im kind of saying that this is the last time Im going to sort of trace the steps of [James] Joyce and Flann OBrien and Patrick Kavanagh and walk these streets and be in love with the rain and in love with the pubs and the stone buildings and the ghosts of the past. It makes it feel like everything good is still in the future.John: Very well put!Grian: Both of those things made me develop my own style If I could call it that.John: Youve got the style alright, kid! You want reminders of the fact that youre part of this group of people that are still sort of mocked and told to go home. "A Hero's Death" did not enter the UK Singles Chart, but peaked at number 23 on the. Spiritually, there are two parts to it. I feel like the first time I fell in love was with a girl from a different country. Im very paranoid about staying the same. Want to be the first to know what's going on in the world of Showbiz? "Skinty Fia" did not enter the Irish Singles Chart, but peaked at number three on the Irish Homegrown Top 20 chart. Grian's real name is Charles. Changed your mind? In the past, Grian, youve spoken about how prolifically you were writing when working service industry jobs, and in Johns book you were constantly working by day and performing by night. The song itself is just about a doomed, paranoid relationship with influences of alcohol, drugs, and paranoia. None of the published poems were translated into songs, but the track "Television Screens" on their debut Dogrel started out as a poem and was turned into a song. [9], Lead singer Chatten is half-English (his mother is English and his father is Irish) and was born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria[2] but grew up in the County Fingal coastal town of Skerries, north of Dublin. During the argument, the man would just come out onto the balcony and he would look left and right, and just take a deep gulp of air. I think the lyrics are about almost like a perverse take on its compromise in a relationship sort of rendered as civility. He loves the sprawling nature of the city and a part of him enjoys the sense of being an outsider. "Televised Mind" did not enter the Irish Singles Chart, but peaked at number seven on the Irish Homegrown Top 20 chart. Thats a new thing. Hed be able to explain it a lot better, but what it means to me is I think of Carlos as someone who battles sort of gloriously with his ego, which is being stroked and mutated over the last few years because were in a relatively sort of successful band. Hes someone who never had any diminishing returns for me. Im trying to kind of convince my girlfriend to come out and enjoy this its like adventure, you know what I mean? Theyd be roaring their heads off. But it depends on how much culture well see on the road because if we dont see too much culture then we just come back often frustrated and overworked. That really excites me. My moms British and I was born in England and I moved over [to Ireland] when I was like two months old, and my dads Irish so its like Im made up of two halves. Of course the only American city any rock band can test their skills in has to be New York and the only venue they can really make a splash in has to be Union Pool. Youre huddled together a bit more.. Please, A fresh breath: Chatten says the bands second album is like the exhalation after Dogrels inhalation. Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF. What do you think Ireland should be focusing on? There used to be a guy called Moondog, a street singer with a long white beard, he did a book called 100 First Lines. Met Eireann has pinpointed a two-week period where 'weather warnings or impactful weather are possible'. All we know, Who is Justin Roilands wife? [7][14] Deegan is regularly seen wearing Mayo GAA clothing during live performances. Its what makes this songwriting dynamo tick. Recently I was in a pub with my da in my hometown and a fella came up to us outside the bar, outside the jacks (Irish slang for toilet) and he just turned around to us and he said Hey fellas do you need any advice? Chatten, who now resides in London with his fiancee, and has English relatives on his mother's side, says he was shocked to read about the family's story, following Mrs Keane's death in 2018, aged 73. [38] Three further singles were released from the album: "I Don't Belong", "Televised Mind" and "A Lucid Dream". I used to listen to his readings of Dubliners. You tell all these stories about eccentric Irish characters and people you meet in pubs. Chatten described the single as "a list of rules for the self". He was born on August 9, 1993, in England. Because I happen to know fucking everything and then he looks at us as he says and I might not remember it in the morning. Thats exactly it. She died, and when she died her family wanted to commemorate her Irish heritage by including the words "in r gCrothe go deo" on her. Thats kind of what I was interested in. I was basically too bollocksed all the time and the idea of a bed started to scare me more and more, he says. Not that it cant survive fine without me, but I feel like Ive taken all this crap from it creatively, and then Ive just left. That song is me saying I love Ireland and I always will. Amid all the seething political ire and raw emoting on the record, however, the overriding feeling is one of hope. What about American culture stands out to you? The coffee that comes out of a big keg, like black beer. Im saying this is the last time I will trace the steps of James Joyce and Flann OBrien and Patrick Kavanagh and walk these streets and be in love with the rain. But at the same time when Joyce chooses to reveal his heart its such a profoundly powerful, impactful experience. A lot of the lyrics are about stories I identify with but arent necessarily personal. Grian: I didnt like poetry at school, we didnt have a member of the education system to make it feel like it could be ours, we just had a woman whose voice was so dull that she rendered all the poems blank pages. How could I resist, as a songwriter, the physical metaphor of looking across at a potential reflection of myself and my girlfriend in a few years to come and also vice versa, to see us as a reflection of them? In May 2020, he helped raise money for a food drive in South Africa. Theres no hope without tragedy and all that. We read this when we went back to Ireland for the start of the pandemic. Theres a great sadness to that.. To consider Irishness as inherently sort of linked to the IRA or terrorism, or anything like that, its just deeply upsetting to hear, he told music magazine Rolling Stone. I used to laugh about it because I didnt feel it was important with all the movements in the world going on, but these things build up. He recounts how recently, Fontaines D.C.s drummer was in a London pub and overheard someone say, Theres a lot of fucking Irish people out there today. The result is a record that merges accordion and doomy electronica, Nineties alt-rock and Irish angst. Ill tell you when a poems dead: when its in a book. They put those words on her gravestone, but the church of England ruled it was at risk of being perceived as a political slogan, so they refused to allow it. This means that we may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. Paul Duggan gave the album an unprecedented 10 bananas out of 10. Like everyone, Covid has forced Chatten to spend an inordinate amount of time at home over the past 21 months. Fontaines DC frontman Grian Chatten has blasted England as "a country that doesn't really welcome people who are Irish" and one where "you're mocked and told to go home." Its partly because of figures like John, Grian says, that he thought he could make a career out of writing and performing in the first place. Hed say, Name one famous poet thats ever made a living out of it!. He had dreams of being an actor, but he shelved those aspirations after making it big on YouTube. Grian's first episode was on October 1, 2017. The award-winning Fontaines have gained international success with their music, with appearances on the Jimmy Fallon show in America, sold-out concerts across the US and the UK, and two hit albums, Dogrel and A Heros Death. I feel like I abandoned Ireland., On Roman Holiday, he is trying to embrace London as an Irish person, where youre sort of still mocked and told to go home. I think he actually cries at the end of the story A Painful Case. You can hear him actually cry. But rather than feel deprived of a victory lap, haunted by the ghosts of tours that never were, Chatten was offered a vital period of respite by Covid. On 12th October 2020, he posted a photo of the ceremony alongside the caption: I like to keep my private life as private as possible, but sometimes you have to make a point of sharing your best moments. He did it out of kindness really. Terms and conditions apply. She used to say that as kind of like a colloquialism. I think he just felt kind of consumed by the spirit of [Nabokovs] writing and wanted to relay that musically. Im sure I want to prove something to my mom and my da. Chatten thinks one of the reasons their songs have chimed so acutely is because there is nothing disingenuous about the way he writes. Were all experiencing the same flux. I just wanted to kind of put myself in that position, in that song, to express how it feels to no longer have absolute independence and autonomy over your life, when you decide that you are in love and you want to share your life with someone. For both of them, language is a living thing that constantly evolves, something to be heard, not read. That said I was still thinking, I shouldnt be living like this! The only other time the Dublin outfit had been here was for a KEXP live session in Seattle, but last month they played to an American crowd for the very first time in their young, but burgeoning musical career. Grian and his wife had planned to travel a lot before getting married, but the coronavirus pandemic forced them to postpone those plans. I wanted to make some good music and when its done, still have that enjoyment of playing guitar and listening to music every day, make sure I had that and not be embittered, he says. What kind of narratives do the Irish working class talk about? These are the Thursday horoscopes. Youre checking in to a hotel at 4.00am in between two cities and you have to wake up at seven or eight to do the rest of the drive. To coincide with the album's announcement, the band shared its lead single "Jackie Down the Line" with an accompanying music video. The reason I use the word embrace, trying to talk about this, is because in a sense, especially when you surround yourselves or almost insulate yourself with people who are from the same area as you in a new country most of my friends here are from Dublin as well the effect is that you begin to look for it or love it. That sounds like it was just the rewards system, but it was also the fact that I felt like I was part of the poem. Tags: Conor Curley, Carlos O'Connell, Grian Chatten, Conor Deegan III and Tom Coll of Fontaines D.C. Shop now, Free standard delivery to United States. I feel guilty for having left. All rights reserved. Its funny you should mention your dad, Grian, because my dad discouraged this course of action at every opportunity. Instead, I'm talking to the disembodied voice of Grian Chatten, down the phone line from London. Grian started playing Minecraft after his best friend introduced him to the game. They were the musical guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on 1 May 2019, performing "Boys in the Better Land". Fontane was godson of Vito Corleone. It just made sense. There are two sources of his feelings of alienation: Chatten getting engaged to his longtime girlfriend in August 2019, and the success of Fontaines D.C.'s debut album, Dogrels.He explained to Stereogram: "I was stepping into a really serious relationship for the first time in my life, and there was that fear . Arrive at the BRIT Awards 2021 at the top of the story a Painful.! 12Th via Partisan Records pre-order the album an unprecedented 10 bananas out of 10 poet thats ever made a thing... 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