As a music writer, I can’t really say I’ve ever been to a press conference or junket before. It’s been phone calls or occasional meetings in bars or backstage, but the desire for Fontaines D.C. was so veracious that The Old Clare Hotel became the closest thing I could imagine to an old-fashioned junket. Podcasters, radio station hosts and journalists all posited in different parts of the bar room with different band members, some of whom looked like they might have liked a hair of the dog, desperately maximising their time with one of the most in-demand bands of recent years. For a second I felt something close to embarrassment just turning up in my suit with a notebook and my phone in a pint glass to record, but then I thought, isn’t this more romantic? The definition, essence or even ethos of romance is not hard to find in the music of Fontaines D.C. — having released their fourth album Romance, it has almost become the band’s raison d’etre. We had the pleasure of sitting down with guitarist Carlos O’Connell to discuss what songs need, dreaming and creating melodies from crying.

Having flown in from Japan a few days prior to an “absolutely wild and amazing” DJ set (which opened with Dizzee Rascal’s I Luv U, if you were curious) in Perth, O’Connell joins our conversation with what seems more like a cool strain of serenity rather than tiredness. Perhaps due to being “so deep into Romance now” having done a huge tour last year, O’Connell is at ease. “It’s kind of dialed in and feels quite easy now.” The band’s fourth record, Romance, is certainly sonically different to what might have been labelled literary Post Punk, with elements of industrial grunge contrasting with anthemic calls to arms. O’Connell explains that there was a lot of work involved in replicating the sound of the record with “a lot of live sampling and stuff like that, so everything could have the same sort of live edge to it but still include all of these extra sonics.”

As Fontaines D.C have developed and expanded from small rooms, to arenas, to the Sydney Opera House, their writing process naturally changed, with all members now contributing. The definitive factor that led to their change in sonic direction was that their latest album was “written at a recording studio, rather than rehearsal space. So, we had access to a lot more gear that meant we could sort of pre-produce a lot of this stuff, you know? Develop all the sounds to the point where we wanted them, so that things became part of the expression of the emotion, and of the music.”

It’s no mean feat to have five valued collaborators, especially when frontman, Grian Chatten, has released solo material. You hear stories of battling egos and wounded pride, yet things seem harmonious within Fontaines D.C. Astutely, O’Connell tells me, “You have to navigate it, you just have to prioritise the song over your own ego. Whatever the song needs is what you do. Sometimes the song needs you to just stay quiet and not do anything. I exercise that a lot. In the third record, I felt like I was just not going to do anything unless it was totally necessary. I found that, sometimes, that's the most effective thing to do. You just don't play for three quarters of a song, and then, when it comes in, it means something.” O’Connell explains that writing with the band means that you don’t just “fill the silence that’s around you”. But, the most important thing, and a hard thing to do whilst writing, is to “always be listening.”

“Whatever the song needs is what you do. Sometimes the song needs you to just stay quiet and not do anything. I exercise that a lot.” 

Many fell in love with Fontaines through their lyricism: for the girls who love beauty, sin and James Joyce, Fontaines D.C. are the band for you. Given their musical collaboration, I wondered if the lyrics were equally democratic, but O’Connell explains that Chatten takes the lead – but “with an open door there, to come in and out all the time.” With wit, and perhaps a modicum of remorse, O’Connell quips, “we used to be well read” explaining that the presence of social media and the capacity of our phones make things “too easy.” “I think you just sit back in comfort and end up disengaged. I think that sort of easy access to mind numbing anything, it's going to make you less literary.”

Our dependence on social media for news and as a platform for new art cannot be overlooked as it voraciously overtakes traditional media. As we seek to state our intentions in 15 seconds or less to cater to shorter attention spans, a band's aesthetic is becoming increasingly more significant. As O’Connell realised, “it was just coming to terms with the reality of what we do, the extent of it. That it’s not just music, you know? People are actually going to see something before they hear it. So, we need to take full control over that and not allow for any imagery to influence the listener in the wrong way.” Naturally, there is a danger in removing reader response or personal interpretation when bands get too prescriptive about their intentions, but O’Connell feels that it’s important “for the listener to be subjective. I think you have to make sure they don't misinterpret something. Sometimes, inconsiderate imagery can lead someone to misinterpret what you're trying to do, and I don't want that to happen. I don't want someone to look at a picture of a band and create an idea of what they think that band is, already based on that picture, and then listen to the music based on their idea they just created. What I sort of thought I wanted to do is, I want to give it an image that is going to make it very hard for you to think you know that band. So, I think when you consider the imagery from our side, it's something that, if it's not transmitting the feeling of the record already, at the very least, it's confusing. Then it's up to the person to figure out what the feeling of that record is.”

I’m keen to know what the statement of intent was from O’Connell’s perspective when making Romance. He explains “it's about allowing for a more romantic perspective of the world, you know? Of seeing death where there's only surfaces, of seeing darkness and lightness, trying to see what’s beyond what is presented. It’s like a call for more dreaming and romanticism in the world. The world needs that quite a lot – everything is taken at face value. Everything is either, like, optimism or pessimism, you know?”

O’Connell yearns for two opposing thoughts to be held at the same time in your mind's eye, and for a world where beauty can be waiting in the wings, silently without the need to be seen. As much as Fontaines D.C. aspire toward making current and progressive music, O’Connell acknowledges the heavy role that nostalgia plays within their latest release, allowing for a teenage feeling laced with vulnerability.

“I feel like when you're a teenager you're the most romantic you can be, then life starts fucking you over and you start hardening and losing that tenderness.” This intentional regression into nostalgia, fueled by listening to music they loved as teenagers, is almost an essential part of creating and listening to Romance. “You explore these ideas more and you find yourself. You start getting closer to the person you were when you were younger, rushing into tenderness. I think tenderness and vulnerability are very hard things to retain.”

“It's about allowing for a more romantic perspective of the world, you know? Of seeing death where there's only surfaces, of seeing darkness and lightness, trying to see what’s beyond what is presented. It’s like a call for more dreaming and romanticism in the world.” 

O’Connell believes we need to connect, not coexist, in society and perhaps maintaining a softness as we age helps us to avoid the potential disconnect. As a new father, O’Connell feels that “everything means more” and in a way made him feel younger and look at the world through his daughter’s eyes. O’Connell’s daughter has the youngest contribution to the record, with her heartbeat from the womb being placed with deep reverence on the album – even if she is yet to receive her co-writing credit. O’Connell’s desire to “protect the magic” for his child influenced the song It’s Amazing to Be Young which, although from the Romance world, is technically a stand-alone song, written with Chatten in his living room in London. “She was born in Paris, and then we got back to London after a couple of months, and then Grain came over. At that time, you're just at home all the time, so we were just writing in the living room with her, the baby. She was sitting in her little fancy chair, and we were working on this riff. At some point she was crying and whatever note she was crying we added to the riff – and a melody started developing.”

O’Connell’s anecdote of writing with Chatten and his daughter speaks to the DNA of Fontaines D.C. To make melody from pain, to protect the magic of youth and respect it as one ages, to visit tenderness with nostalgia, and to accept that life’s greatest romance comes from coexisting with light and dark.