Fontaines DC at Glastonbury 2024 about “romance” and her love for KoRn

Fontaines DC met NME backstage at Glastonbury 2024, where we talked about what to expect from new album ‘Romance’, their Glasto scheduling clash with IDLES and how proud they are of their love for nu-metal KoRn.

On Friday night, the Irish post-punks played a stunning set as headliners on the Park Stage and received a brilliant five-star review from NMEHowever, some fans were dismayed that the Glasto schedule forced them to choose between watching the concerts or seeing IDLES’ outstanding set on the Other Stage.

“We call it ‘Clash Of The Shitans’,” said IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen NME about the clash. “When you get to this point, it’s inevitable that you’re going to clash with your buddies. We’re just devastated that we can’t see them. And they can’t see us because they could learn a few things. You know? Ooooooh!”

Talbot added: “It’s happening! It’s like f***ing Blur vs. Oasis! The comments section is going to go crazy. Fuck you guys already. No, we were with them literally 45 minutes ago. It sucks, right? It sucks. So it’s a weird thing that happens. But you know what, there’s going to be others.”

And what did Fontaines make of it?

“They’re shitting their pants,” laughed guitarist Carlos O’Connell, before bassist Conor Deegan III added: “They actually asked us to swap backgrounds with them so that we would have ‘IDLES’ behind us and people would think we were them.”

This is your third time at Glastonbury and this time you’re headlining the Park Stage. How are you feeling?

Conor Deegan III: “It feels pretty cool, but we’re just happy to be here and do it.”

We’ve heard two singles from the new album “Romance”, with “Starburster” showing us two very different sides of the record. What do they tell us about “Romance”?

Deegan: “They tell us who we want to be, but also where we come from. With ‘Starburster’ we try to push things forward, and with ‘Favourite’ we try to take the people we were with us.”

It feels very much like you’re creating your own world in terms of the graphics and the new look and aesthetic. What can you tell us about that world?

O’Connell: “For the first time, it’s an album that looks at our present with an eye on the future, you know? I think in the past we either tried to live in the past or we missed the past. Now we’re trying to understand the world we’re living in right now and not think about something that’s past, but about what’s to come.”

I heard there is some KoRn influence?

O’Connell: “People love it! We listen to KoRn, yeah! In these interviews everyone is badmouthing KoRn. Deftones are great too.”

Now that you’ve knocked down all the doors, do you feel like you could go anywhere now? Could you make a metal album?

Deegan: “I don’t know where we could go, and I think that’s pretty special to be able to say that when you’re already working on your fourth album. Could we do our metal album? I don’t know. I think we always try to make an album that has different ideas for songs. We’ve never done a specific kind of album, but maybe I’m getting too close to that. Maybe it’s exactly the same song? I mean, it’s the same chord progression every time, but we don’t talk about that.”

Fontaines DC will release “Romance” on August 23rd ahead of a full tour of the UK and Ireland.

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