Fontaines D.C. on the band’s growth: “We don’t need to raise our voices all the time”

Fontaines D.C. have spoken about the band’s growth and development ahead of their third album, ‘Skinty Fia’.

The upcoming record was announced last week (January 11) alongside the track ‘Jackie Down The Line’ and will arrive on April 22.

In a new interview with the Sunday Times, the band discussed their evolution over the course of their albums. One song on ‘Skinty Fia’ is called ‘In ár gcroíthe go Deo’ (‘In Our Hearts Forever’ in Gaelic) and was inspired by the Church of England decreeing that a translation of the phrase must be included on a gravestone in Coventry so it wouldn’t be mistaken for a political slogan.

“That was really upsetting for all of us as Irish people,” frontman Grian Chatten said. “To be reading that in this day and age? That the Irish language was still perceived as too provocative to put on a gravestone? But none of us reacted with loud, punky fists.”

He continued to explain how the track points to the band’s growth, saying: “We responded with melancholy. We don’t want to remain a band who walk on stage and claim, ‘This song is about this!’ We want to make something more impressionistic. We don’t need to raise our voices all the time.”

Guitarist Carlos O’Connell added: “There’s something valuable in the fire of youth. But your emotions become more considered.”

‘Skinty Fia’ will also include the track ‘I Love You’, which Fontaines D.C. gave its live debut during their headline gig at London’s Alexandra Palace in October.

Meanwhile, the band have also announced a European and North American tour, alongside a series of festival dates for this spring and summer. The dates will kick off in Madrid in March, with the North American leg beginning in Washington D.C. in April.

Speaking to NME last year, Fontaines D.C. said their third album was “really good”. “We all thought the songs were quite poppy,” bassist Conor Deegan III said. |We thought we’d got this sound that was finally the sound that we wanted to get across the songs, which we thought was quite poppy.

“We showed them to our manager, and he said, ‘Lads, this is the darkest shit you’ve ever written!’ And we were like, ‘What? What are you talking about? This bass melody is catchy, this vocal melody is catchy’. He was just like, ‘No, this is extremely dark’. So there you go!”