Interview: Fontaines D.C.'s decadent, dystopian 'Dopamine Chamber'

Oct 12, 2026

Guest

Conor Deegan

Guest

Grian Chatten

Grian Chatten, Fontaines D.C.’s poetic frontman, and Conor Deegan, the band’s bassist and sonic experimenter, explore the making of Dopamine Chamber. They discuss distraction, displacement, mortality, digital identity and decadent escape. Chatten shares how cinema and impermanence shape his lyrics, while Deegan reveals the band’s leap from punk urgency into synths, dub textures and futuristic studio experimentation.

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INSIGHT

Building A Future From Old Europe And Cyberspace

Grian Chatten treats Dopamine Chamber as an imagined future place where old-world humanity collides with industrial technology.
Mina represents warmth and longevity, while Depeche Mode, New Order, and The Cure supply its darker dystopian edge.

INSIGHT

Human Sensuality Makes Dystopia Matter

Dystopian art needs physical sensuality and emotional depth to make technology feel threatening rather than abstract.
Chatten connects this tension to Björk’s voice cutting through industrial music and lovers remaining human in distant sci-fi worlds.

ADVICE

Let Ideas Disappear Before You Commit

Treat ideas as disposable before committing them to permanent work, rather than worshiping one supposedly perfect breakthrough.
Chatten writes on toilet paper because its inevitable disappearance strengthens his confidence in himself as the idea generator.

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At almost exactly the midpoint of our conversation about the fifth album made by his band, Fontaines D.C., Grian Chatten told me, “It's an interesting time to be a self.” We'd been talking about the themes on 'Dopamine Chamber,' which comes out on Oct. 16, and could serve as a soundtrack to the era we live in now, what Chatten calls our “glorious age of distraction.”

It's also an interesting time to be a rock band in the mainstream, and that’s where Fontaines D.C., which formed in 2014, definitely lives these days. The Irish quintet’s next tour has them in stadiums and arenas, and the one guest on 'Dopamine Chamber' is pop's universal “it” girl, the Spanish singer Rosalía. The 2024 album Romance took Fontaines to another level, earning them two Grammy nominations and their best sales ever, with hits like the sweet and earnest “Favourite.” Following it up, Fontaines didn't take the easy way. Instead, they explored new sounds to create a captivating sonic travelogue that somehow connects the decadent beauty of old Europe with the narcotic ethereality of cyberspace.

Things really gel for Fontaines on 'Dopamine Chamber.' Using vintage synthesizers and studio effects, the band builds on the hypnotic energy that's always been its calling card to make something huge and seductive and haunting. I was lucky to speak with Chatten about his evolution as a storyteller and his place within a band that's always growing, but which remains utterly true to itself.

When they were making 'Dopamine Chamber,' Chatten’s bandmates recorded the instrumental parts of the songs first, and then Chatten went off on his own to write and record lyrics. This interview worked the same way — I talked with Chatten on his own, and with bassist Conor Deegan (who goes by “Deego”) about how guys who have been playing together since college have taken their bashing punk sound all the way to the stratosphere. - Ann Powers

Credits:
Host: Ann Powers
Audio Producer: Noah Caldwell
Editor: Jacob Ganz
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Executive Director: Sonali Mehta

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