Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten turned down the chance to guest on Loyle Carner’s new album
Loyle Carner said he offered Grian Chatten the chance to sing on his new album – but that the Fontaines D.C. frontman didn’t take him up on the offer.
Carner recently released his fourth studio album ‘Hopefully’, which NME noted saw the London musician “turn his focus to singing instead of rapping”.
Now, Carner has revealed that someone else was originally planned to sing on his new record. On an appearance on Chicken Shop Date, he told host Amelia Dimoldenberg that he had actually had Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten in mind to sing instead.
“There were a few songs that I really wanted someone to sing on,” he told her. “We were talking for ages and then as soon as I talked about him being on one of my tunes, he just stopped replying.”
This meant that Carner had to record himself singing, concluding: “It’s kind of thanks to him that I’m singing on [the album].”
In a four-star review of ‘Hopefully!’, NME wrote that Carner’s “lyrics and instrumentals may be more intricate than before, but they come together more coherently than ever. This isn’t just Loyle Carner at his most refined, it is the start of a new chapter.”
He is set to headline the Other Stage at Glastonbury next weekend on Friday, with with Charli XCX and The Prodigy taking the same slot on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
Meanwhile, Fontaines D.C. are midway through their summer shows, having recently played at Primavera Festival. There, they showed a “free Palestine” message and accused Israel of genocide, urging the crowd to “use your voice”.
They’re soon to play a huge headline show at Finsbury Park on July 5, with Blondshell, Been Stellar, Cardinals, Amyl And The Sniffers and Kneecap supporting the band on the day.
Last year, we caught up with Chatten ahead of the release of Fontaines’ latest album ‘Romance’, where he spoke to us about the visual and creative pivot they had taken.
“To be creatively understood by too many people feels like flies settling all over your clothes and all other your face,” he told us. “Every now and again you have to fucking shake them off, just to see who you are again. That’s what we wanted to do.
“We spoke a lot about visual references, films and stuff like that,” he continued. “I’m not even messing, but we used to speak about: ‘What kind of weather is it in this song?’ We could meet on a plain that didn’t have anything to do with music, arrangements or instruments. It’s more about abstractly getting to the right place. I think it’s more interesting to work in that way because you’re at less danger of sounding contrived or unoriginal.”
In other news, Loyle Carner is set for a CBeebies Bedtime Story ahead of his Glastonbury 2025 Other Stage headline performance.
The post Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten turned down the chance to guest on Loyle Carner’s new album appeared first on NME.
Alex Rigotti
NME
