Fontaines D.C. have been touring around Australia throughout February and March in support of last year’s Romance. In between shows, they stopped by triple j’s Like A Version studio to cover Bring Me the Horizon’s “Can You Feel My Heart.”
Cutting away the guitars and strings, Fontaines D.C. rebuilt the song in their own image, turning the Sempiternal track into a synthy daydream. Then they made another pivot. Toward the end of the song, vocalist Grian Chatten sang some of the lyrics from Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box,” melding two disparate eras into an alluring, and somewhat accidental, combination.
Read more: 10 most criminally underrated Bring Me The Horizon songs
“It was Grian’s idea initially, and I think the sound of that song — the electronic elements and just the general vibe of it — reflects stuff that we were touching on on our last album Romance,” guitarist Conor Curley says of the BMTH cover. “So it seemed like a good place to start, and it’s a moody, beautiful song.
“‘Heart-Shaped Box’ is an absolute classic,” he continues. “Grian just started singing it when we were getting the sounds, and it was almost like, ‘Do we switch it to that and use the instrumentation?’ So, it kind of just made sense.”
See Fontaines D.C.’s cover of “Can You Feel My Heart” and the full interview below.