26 | Rolling Stone | March 2020
Dublin Rock City
T
HE FONTAINES D.C. began five years ago when bassist Conor
Deegan III texted his classmates at British and Irish Modern
Music Institute in Dublin a big idea: “Do you want to start a
band that sounds like punk Beatles?” Soon, they got to work
developing a sound that indeed fused the “Please Please Me”-era charm
of the Fab Four with the frenetic energy of the Clash — which they fully
realized on their 2019 debut, Dogrel, one of the most acclaimed rock al-
bums of the year. Songs like “Big” and “Dublin City Sky” are packed with
references to their boundless ambition (“My childhood was small/But I’m
gonna be big”), their hometown, and the destructive forces of gentrifica-
tion ripping it apart (“Money is the sandpit of the soul”). The group’s suc-
cess has catapulted it from pubs to giant U.S. festivals, and even a slot on
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. In December, the band — which
is named after Johnny Fontane, the crooner in The Godfather — played a
back-to-basics tour of pubs around Ireland, and photographer Kevin Con-
don joined them to capture the madness that ensued. “A pub tour like that
will probably never happen again,” he says. ANDY GREENE
How Fontaines D.C. went from packing hometown pubs to ruling major festivals
PUB ROCK
Frontman Grian
Chatten at the group’s
favorite bar, Mike the
Pies, in County Kerry.
“Playing there doesn’t
feel like work,” says
guitarist Conor Curley.TRAIN IN VAIN
The band members are
huge Simpsons fans.
They especially love
the famous monorail
episode, which is why
drummer Tom Coll
(right) and the others
were psyched to ride
one in Kerry.ON THE ROADThe Mix