All hail Fontaines D.C., main contenders for the title of “best rock band of our usually great-rock-band-deprived historic second.” On this month’s print version of GQ, Olivia Ovenden meets up with the Dublin-bred quintet in France and finds them celebrating the then-impending launch of their fourth album Romance—a set of turbulent, hot-blooded, and achingly cool songs about anxiousness assaults and end-times three-ways—in true great-rock-band trend: by studying Rimbaud within the park, having a couple of beers, and insisting that the critics (who’ve lengthy slotted the Fontaines within the nebulous class of “post-punk”) don’t know shite. Key knowledge level indicating that the fivesome are, in a rock-and-roll sense, really About That Life: “There is no such thing as a second,” Ovenden reviews, “the place somebody just isn’t both rolling or smoking a cigarette.”
You’ll be able to learn Ovenden’s function proper right here. Romance dropped shortly after GQ‘s cling with the band, to rapturous opinions (lots of which used the phrase “post-punk”—the wrestle continues.) However rock critics aren’t the one individuals presently gripped by Fontainesmania.
“They only form of get into your mind and by no means go away,” actor, fellow Irishman and GQ cowl star Paul Mescal mentioned in an interview for Ovenden’s piece. Mescal describes singer Grian Chatten as “a poet, and likewise, like, an entire rock-and-roll god,” whereas noting that he writes “with a really Irish voice.” One instance of Chatten’s proudly distinct Irishness, per Mescal: The references, within the 2022 track “I Love You,” to Fianna Fáil and Tremendous Gael, Eire’s two main political events.
“It’s simply one thing you’ll hear rising up,” Mescal says. “Like, ‘My dad’s Tremendous Gael and my mum’s Fianna Fáil.’ once you hear a track, and it’s simply language that you simply’ve heard in passing, and abruptly it’s on this track and you’ve got hundreds of individuals screaming it? I all the time discover it ironic, you can be at a present in London and you’ve got these crowds of younger individuals screaming these lyrics and so they haven’t actually obtained a clue what it means. I feel that’s the factor about nice artwork, which I feel what [Fontaines] are doing is—basically, it will probably imply various things to completely different individuals.”
Mescal notes that he’s met Chatten briefly, however says would not say “No” to a pint with the entire band. “They’re nice craic on an evening out, I’m positive,” he says.
