’I think the real reason why people listen to bands like us is that they have no idea what’s going on in the world’

underdog my whole life.”

Figureheads or not, Fontaines DC are now among a number of young Irish bands who are making guitar music interesting again.

Alongside bands like Murder Capital and Idles, the quintet are members of an anxious, angry new movement in Irish music.

“Think guitar music is a doorman waiting for the right spirit to come around and inhabit it for a few years.

“I think the real reason why people listen to bands like us is that they have no idea what’s going on in the world. Everyone’s depressed and anxious, rents are sky high and so is homelessness.

“People are looking for a release and a way out.

“I think people are fed up with the falsehood of life on social media, I think it depersonalises people and drives anxiety up.

“People don’t know who they are anymore, it makes a bit of a tv show out of things.

“No wonder people are looking for a bit of humanity again.

“We’re all proverbially on my grandparents’ couch.”

It’s a movement that started with acclaimed noise rock outfit Girl Band who were in many ways the torchbearers, paving a way for alternative acts to follow.

“I think Girl Band were a bitter pill to swallow for Ireland,” Grian said.

“As a country we have paved such a path for ourselves and built up such an idea of what being Irish looks and sounds like over the years, so when a band like Girl Band comes along who are abrasively ignorant of what we’re supposed to sound like people were always going to react.

“What they’ve done is reconceptualise what it means to be Irish and have handed the culture back to the youth.

“I owe them a lot personally, they’re the bravest band to come out of Ireland in a long time.”

Sense of place is very important to the band who have featured Irish folk characters like Bang Bang on the

“Iris

“cha city the

“fun the

“legs for

“salv it.”