Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten announces debut solo album ‘Chaos For The Fly’ and shares single ‘Fairlies’

Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten has announced his debut solo album ‘Chaos For The Fly’ and shared new single ‘Fairlies’.

• READ MORE: The NME Big Read – Fontaines D.C.: “People are looking to me for answers. What the fuck do I know?”

‘Chaos For The Fly’ is due out on June 30, 2023 via Partisan Records, with the announcement following the release of the Irish artist’s debut solo release ‘The Score’ last week. You can pre-order/ pre-save the album here.

Speaking of the contemplative new track in a press statement, Chatten said: “I wrote ‘Fairlies’ in intense heat. Partly in Jerez, Spain, partly in LA a couple of days before a Fontaines D.C. tour kicked off. It was a quick write, and I believe I celebrated each line with a beer.”

The album is co-produced by Dan Carey, who has helmed all three of Fontaines D.C.’s albums to date.

Listen to ‘Fairlies’ and watch the video animated by Callum Scott-Dyson below.

Reflecting on his decision to pursue a solo project, Chatten said: “I was walking along Stoney Beach at night and it came to me on the waves. I just stood there and looked at them and I heard the whole fucking thing. Every part of it, from the chord progressions to the string arrangements.”

He added: “I just thought: I want to do this myself. I know where we as a band are going next and that’s not where I want to go with this. I’ve got a couple of exaggerated aspects of my soul that I wanted to express.

“The rest of the band are all creative and songwriters in their own right, too. I didn’t want to go to them and be like, ‘No, every single thing has to be like this.’ I didn’t want to compromise with these songs in that way.”

As for the writing process, Chatten said “a lot of the album was written with just me and a guitar and I really like the idea of it being boiled down to those elements”.

“That feeling of having the song in the palm of your hand, that control of having it with just you and a guitar. There’s an intensity as a result of that,” he continued.

Find the album artwork and tracklisting below.

‘Chaos For The Fly’

1. ‘The Score’
2. ‘Last Time Every Time Forever’
3. ‘Fairlies’
4. ‘Bob’s Casino’
5. ‘All Of The People’
6. ‘East Coast Bed’
7. ‘Salt Throwers Off A Truck’
8. ‘I Am So Far’
9. ‘Season For Pain’

Speaking about ‘The Score’ in a statement last week, Chatten explained: “‘The Score’ is a heavyweight bated breath of lust. I wrote it in Madrid between an electric fan and a dying plant and I intend to keep it there. It was inspired by sugar and sunset.”

This summer, Fontaines D.C. will head out on the road to support Arctic Monkeys on their 2023 North American tour.

Speaking to NME at the BRIT Awards 2023 (where Fontaines won the Best International Group statue), guitarist Carlos O’Connell said that the band would “go back into the mindset of writing” after the Arctic Monkeys gigs.

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