Fontaines D.C. drummer Tom Coll sat down with Atwood Magazine to discuss the band’s latest album, ‘Romance,’ touring, and falling in love at the end of the world.

Stream: ‘Romance’ – Fontaines D.C.

What does it feel like to fall in love at the end of the world?

Tom Coll, the drummer for Irish rock and roll band Fontaines D.C., might have found the answer – on the big screen, in novels, and within the band’s latest album, Romance.

Coll has been searching for answers in art since his early days on the rural west coast of Ireland, which he spent enveloped in the familiar embrace of Irish traditional (trad) music. When he was 10, he picked up his first set of drumsticks. The lively notes of trad music soon came second to the warped sounds of rock and post punk, as Coll spent nights and weekends playing in local pubs. Eventually, he met the rest of what is now Fontaines D.C. at Dublin’s BIMM Music Institute, and the rest, you might say, is history.

With the release of their first studio album, Dogrel, in 2019, Fontaines D.C. made a steadfast promise to all who chose to press play on “Big,” the record’s first track. “My childhood was small,” lead singer Grian Chatten shouts, saturating each word with raw ambition, “but I’m gonna be big.”

Fast forward five years, and Fontaines D.C. are undeniably big — like, Elton John naming them as “the best band right now”-level of big. Reviews of Romance focus heavily on the band’s rapid projection into the mainstream. They discuss how the band trades aggressive post punk for cinematic overtures; Irish ideals for sweeping statements on life and love; Dublin for global stardom with the introduction of Arctic Monkeys’ producer James Ford.

“If you’re a rock star, porn star, superstar / Doesn’t matter what you are / Get yourself a good car, get out of here,” Chatten sings in the bridge of Dogrel’s “Boys in the Better Land.” The boys got out of Ireland, but Coll has not forgotten his roots. Traditional music has become a lifeline for him – a grounding element when album promotion and touring becomes too much.

“Over the last few years,” he notes, “I’ve kind of fallen in love with it again, you know?” He’s currently working on a compilation of old school music, as well as an Irish trad festival in London next year.

From Coll’s point of view, Romance is more of an artistic shift than a geographic leap.

“I don’t think a lot of our records were very Irish musically,” Coll shares. “I think with this record, lyrically, it’s moved away from Ireland a little bit. But I think it’s a lot more of an introspective record.”

While working on their most recent album, Coll and his bandmates – like many of us following the Covid-19 pandemic – spent a lot of the down time during their last tour pondering apocalyptic scenarios. They channeled this anxiety into a penchant for dystopian movies and novels, which in turn fueled the fire that eventually became Romance.

If the album were a film, it would probably look something like Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, or Danish director, Nicolas Winding Refn’s, Pusher trilogy – especially in regards to the more ‘90s heavy, grungy elements of the record. James Joyce – who the band has turned to for inspiration on numerous albums – and a “mad, absurd” quote from his controversial Ulysses are to thank for the sweeping track, “Horseness Is The Whatness.”

Coll is reading Dracula at the moment, which we (partially) joked would make for great fodder for the band’s next album.

Immersing themselves in different art forms helps the band keep things fresh, according to Coll.

Penned as a “big literary band,” Fontaines D.C. have a unique knack for telling stories we’ve been hearing for thousands of years – a lover scorned, an epic search for meaning, or a dark romance with a hopeful end – in a new light.

“This is the first album where we’ve really kind of used movies as a sounding board during the writing process,” he tells me. “Previously, we referenced other bands and musical ideas. But this one has been really fun to write with more of a broad feeling than a distinct musical reference… You can only reference certain rock and roll bands so many times before it gets boring.”

“Boring” is the last adjective I’d use to describe Coll and Fontaines D.C. The band’s recent fashion transformation has been turning nearly as many heads as the success of their recent album. The bright colors, bold textures, and bug-like sunglasses are just as much a nod to the 90s as the melancholic tones and distorted guitar work on tracks such as “Favourite” and “Here’s The Thing.”

“I know personally, I really embraced actually giving a bit of a sh*t about what I wear,” Coll laughs.

Once again, the band finds immeasurable value in turning to art outside of their milieu by incorporating the outfits of their childhoods. Coll will be the first one to admit that putting on a costume of sorts adds a layer of confidence.

“We put so much consideration into our music,” he says, “that I feel like, as a band, we should definitely put as much care and thought into what we wear, then.”

Coll and his fellow band members are now making their way across the United States for the highly anticipated Romance tour, neon green pants and funky eyewear in tow.

Resale tickets are selling for well over $100 a pop for both nights of their sold-out show at Brooklyn Paramount Theater in downtown Brooklyn. It’s a testament to the band’s ballooning popularity in areas outside of the U.K. “[Touring] America is always a very long and kind of testing experience,” Coll remarks, but he views it as a litmus test of sorts for an album’s success.

1,000 five-star reviews might mean less than one night of playing for 100 screaming fans.

“It’s been amazing,” Coll practically gushes, “the reception has been – it’s quite overwhelming. I feel like everyone knows the lyrics to all the tunes pretty much straight after the record came out.”

Something has connected for the band, after years of hard work and setting their aims high. But Coll and the rest of Fontaines D.C. are ready – they always knew they would be big.

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:: read more about Fontaines D.C. here! ::

:: stream/purchase Romance here ::

:: connect with Fontaines D.C. here ::

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Watch: “In the Modern World” – Fontaines D.C.

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 © Theo Cottle

Romance

an album by Fontaines D.C.