Fontaines DC want the music industry to provide more mental health support for artists

Nearly a month on from the release of A Hero’s Death - Fontaines DC's second full-length - lead singer Grian Chatten has spoken to Music Week about their relentless touring schedule, and how the music industry should provide more support for young artists and their mental health.

Discussing his personal experience with how touring impacted his mental health, Chatten said, "It’s dangerous, you know, even without the drugs. The big killer for us was a lack of sleep. We’d have a flight in between gigs as our allocated sleep time. So that was rough and made us very bitter about the whole thing, and we started to see each other and everyone we worked with as the devil."

He added, "Then we started to realise that we were bringing it all upon ourselves, and we started asking ourselves again, ‘What exactly do we want out of it'?"

Chatten revealed that they tried to create the most logical route on tour so the band could actually get days off here and there, "A huge thing for us was just being clever about routing on tours and ensuring that you can get some time off, or that you’re not doing too many drives after gigs. These things add up and they can destroy [a band]."

He also spoke about how other musicians have supported them throughout their careers so far, "Kate Tempest has been really good and Nadine Shah. And Joe Talbot from IDLES, particularly around that [US] tour, he just really looked after me. When we toured with IDLES in America, I think they had just come out of their growing pains, whereas we were just about to go into that. So it was good to have a band like them around. I loved touring America; it was hard but I loved it."