Fontaines D.C. Get a Jools Holland Special, and an AI Lesson

Fontaines D.C. staged a full 45-minute set for a special episode of Later… With Jools Holland, recorded at Alexandra Palace Theatre and available now to UK viewers on BBC iPlayer.

The British TV institution devoted the entire episode to the Irish band, who performed songs from their new album Dopamine Chamber. The broadcast included four tracks: "Mimesis," "Tongue," "You Miss Me," and "Favourite," their 2024 radio hit.

What went wrong with the 'Marianne' video?

The performance lands mid-promotion for Dopamine Chamber, and amid an awkward controversy. AI studios were credited in the making of the band's "Marianne" video, and frontman Grian Chatten says the band found out only after release.

"All those main scenes and main effects and stuff were VFX and prosthetics, like the cheeks and everything," Chatten told The Los Angeles Times' Julius Miller. "Over 110 people worked on the thing. It was a real huge human effort. But then somewhere in the process, someone from the VFX team I guess used some kind of AI in the workflow. And none of us were told about it. Apparently, not even our label or our management were told about it and it was a real shock."

Chatten said the band will now write an AI ban into its contracts.

How does Chatten feel about AI?

Strongly, it turns out. The episode complicated his plans to speak out on his own terms.

"I was hoping to talk about how I felt about AI in interviews at some point anyway, and then this kind of pulled the rug from under that conversation a little bit," he said.

He described AI in general as "f— terrifying" — the LA Times' punctuation, not ours — and reached for cinema to make his case.

"I was watching a Robin Williams scene from Dead Poets Society when he talks about poetry, literature. These are the things that we stay alive for, and well, that's exactly what AI threatens to rob from the human race," Chatten said. "I've seen those articles about those guys who are leaving AI companies because they said that the human race is going to be dead within 10 years. AI is literally rendering our souls obsolete and I think that is true death."

That's a grand claim for a man promoting an album. It's also a fairly standard sentiment in 2025's music industry, where AI disclosure disputes now arrive roughly as often as release dates.

Where can you see them next?

Next year, Fontaines D.C. head out on a massive headlining tour spanning North America, Europe, Australia, and a few dates in Japan. With an AI clause now presumably stapled to the rider, the band's argument with the machines will travel almost as far as its setlist.