Fontaines DC pipped to British number one album spot
By Tom Gillespie
FONTAINES DC, the punk-rock band featuring two Mayo musicians, have just been pipped to the number one spot in the official British Album Charts Top 100 by Taylor Swift, the American singer-songwriter who has sold over 50 million albums and 150 million singles worldwide.
Her latest release, ‘Folklore’, was brought forward and prevented Fontaines DC's ‘A Hero’s Death’ achieving their first number one in the charts on Friday last.
Fontaines DC drummer Tom Coll, from Crimlin, outside Castlebar, and Conor Deegan (bass guitar) from Castlebar are part of the five-member group whose debut album, ‘Dogrel’, released in April of last year on Partisan Records, was voted one of the best albums of 2019.
The other members of the group are Grian Chatten (lead singer), whose mother is English and his father Irish and who was born in Barrow-in-Furness, England, but grew up in Skerries, and Conor Curley (guitar) from Emyvale in Co. Monaghan and Carlos O’Connell (guitar), who grew up in Madrid.
The band got their name from a character in the movie ‘The Godfather’ called Johnny Fontane, a singer and movie star portrayed by Al Martino. Fontane was godson of Vito Corleone.
They added the initials DC when a band in Los Angeles had the same name. The initials DC stand for Dublin City.
The five met in Dublin while attending music college at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute (BIMM).
They bonded over a common love of poetry and collectively released two collections of poetry, one called Vroom, inspired by the Beat poets (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg) and another called Winding, inspired by Irish poets (Patrick Kavanagh, James Joyce and W.B. Yeats).
Tom Coll is son of Shelia and the late John Coll, a director of services with Mayo County Council, while Conor Deegan is son of Mark and Elizabeth Deegan.
Tom Coll grew up in a really musical household surrounded by a lot of trad music and his dad, John, was involved in the world of pipe bands.
He got a drum kit when he was 12 and spent his teenage years in his room trying his best to play along to Thin Lizzy and Led Zeppelin tunes.
Tom’s dad was involved in pipe bands and he set up the Samba band, Batafada, in Crimlin school and that developed in to a pipe band. That was where Tom, then 12, originally started drumming.
Tom and Conor did not know each other well before they went to Dublin. They would have both been at St. Gerald’s College but were in different years.
Conor always had an interest in music from a very young age. He took up the guitar about aged 12. He was aways into music like Metallica.
* Pictured, Fontaines DC, from left: Conor Deegan, Grian Chatten, Conor Curley, Carlos O’Connell and Tom Coll.