Former Palma Violets frontman Chilli Jesson and Fontaines D.C. guitarist Carlos O’Connell have spoken to NME about working together on Dead Dads Club’s self-titled debut album and the feeling of entering parenthood after losing a father: “I haven’t really thought much about his death until… becoming a dad, it’s been really therapeutic and cathartic for me, to be honest.”
Released today (Friday January 23) via Fiction Records, ‘Dead Dads Club’ arrives 13 years after Jesson first released a debut album ‘180’ with his former band Palma Violets. After his short-lived second project Crewel Intentions and a third under his own name, Jesson has gone on to tour with Fontaines D.C. as a live multi-instrumentalist since 2023, an “inspiring” experience which prompted him to return to that solo project and rebrand as Dead Dads Club.
After being “blown away” by some of Jesson’s initial demos, O’Connell produced the entire album, which was recorded in under five days at La Frette Studios in Paris – where the likes of Nick Cave, IDLES, Arctic Monkeys and Marianne Faitfull have all worked. Across 11 tracks of vivid, visceral indie-rock – spearheaded by the blinding ‘Don’t Blame The Son For The Sins Of The Father’ – Jesson contends with grief, loss and unwraps the multitude of emotions that have prevailed since losing his father to drug addiction at the age of 14.
“This record can be interpreted, lyrically, as a very specific time for me, or it can be loss in general,” Jesson told NME. “This was an album that I’d wanted to write since I was 15, but I didn’t have the capability to get it out. I never used to really speak about it – at all. I used to be a fucking closed book with this subject.
“My sister [Georgie Jesson] came out with a book of poetry recently about the same theme, funnily enough, and I think that really inspired me,” he continued. “She had been working on her work for a long while, so the fact that we’ve both got pieces of art coming out about the same subject is quite fascinating.”
When asked about the balance between conveying over a decade of pent-up feelings within the concision of an album, Jesson explained that the process remains ongoing. “It’s never about drawing a line [under it]. I think the reason the band is now called Dead Dads Club is because I would like this theme to run through the next records, as well.”
Check out our full interview with Jesson and O’Connell below, where the duo discussed working with one another, the “train of adventure” they went on at La Frette and what could be in store for Fontaines D.C. in 2026.
NME: Hello Chilli and Carlos. Congratulations on the recent birth of your son, Chilli. Did Carlos have any tips for you on being a parent?
Carlos O’Connell: “I don’t know what I’m doing…”
Chilli Jesson: “I feel like I’m in the same boat there! But it’s been amazing. The first couple of weeks are fucking insane, and then it sort of smooths itself out. It’s been incredible.”
How have you found the idea – and reality – of becoming a father existing alongside releasing an album that contends with the death of your own father? Has there been a dichotomy to navigate there?
Jesson: “There’s been a massive one, and it really came to light when my other half’s family found out what the new band name was and thought that was fucking mental. I haven’t really thought much about his death until… becoming a dad, it’s been really therapeutic and cathartic for me, to be honest.”
What prompted you to rename the project from Chilli Jesson to Dead Dads Club?
Jesson: “The project had changed so much, and it felt like a completely new thing to me. I couldn’t have the two things overlap at all. This felt like a totally fresh start again. I think it’s a great fucking band name as well, to be honest. It’s a ‘band’, as well – there are five people playing on this record. I would have felt really embarrassed if it was just my name on the CD.”
Carlos, what struck you about the music when Chilli first showed you the demos?
O’Connell: “I was blown away. I was going to the pub just to listen to it, you know, and I was texting him, so excited. The sound was amazing. Everything is just so special, so new, so fresh. I’m so happy he let me [produce] it.”
Jesson: “It was really organic. Carlos, on one of the tours we were on together, was working on a Film Noir album, and he was always mixing it and playing around with sounds. He’d just come out of the studio at La Frette and to see that process – with the production – I was like, ‘Holy shit.’ I’d been in a world where it was all on the computer, and then suddenly he’s talking about a fucking bass drum that’s two metres long.
“The most important thing for me is, naturally, he’s found a sound for us. I feel like that’s the identity of the band. Especially writing new stuff in the last month or so, it has its own DNA now that I’ve never really had.”
How did the time in La Frette Studios add to the magic of this record?
O’Connell: “It feels like a home. There’s nothing about it that feels corporate or constrained by time. My mind goes into this creative mode in which I can hear things in a certain way, and it doesn’t stop until I leave the building. And you don’t really have to leave the building – you can spend a week there and not really get cabin fever, because it’s so open. I would spend most of the time listening from the garden through the [control room] door.
“With Chilli, I think it was four and a half days. You need to make a lot of decisions in that amount of time, and you can do it there, because you’re buzzing with everything that’s coming through the speakers. I find it very easy to get character out of the sound. At some point, I was trying to figure out [how] I could do at least one album per year there. I was gonna do another one in November, but then I had another baby myself, so that went out the window!”
Your kids are pretty much the same age! Surely they’re going to be best mates?
O’Connell: “They have to be!”
Jesson: “We’ve got to put them in La Frette, man, together! But I felt very honoured for [Carlos] to open that space and world to me, because a lot of my favourite records were made there.”
O’Connell: “There’s the sound in that desk… it allows for everyone to be on this train of excitement. I want to go there a lot more.”
Carlos, you also recently produced ‘Not Ideal’ by Mên An Tol. Is production work for other artists something that you’re actively looking to make time for?
O’Connell: “I do [want to]. Bill [Jefferson, Mên An Tol frontman] has been sending me demos, actually, for their new album, and I’d love to do it. It’s really hard for me to fit things in though, with Fontaines, which is kind of annoying, like…”
Jesson: “I think he’s doing Fontaines to make enough cash to buy the fucking place [La Frette] out, move his family in there, and then he’d be downstairs!”
O’Connell: “I love working with Chilli and the whole band. That was always amazing about it, [because] I didn’t really know them that much. Luuuc, who’s the bass player, is suddenly this magic choir boy, and he’s an insane harmonist, which was such an amazing thing to be able to do in the studio. [It made] the sound so big and interesting, because he could just do all these harmonies. And the drums are just tight – all the time.”
Do you have the time in 2026 for more production work, or are you busy working on new Fontaines D.C. material?
O’Connell: “Sort of. We’ve been writing, it’s been fun. We’re at [Reading & Leeds] and there are a couple of shows before that. I think if the music is there, it could get busy.”
Is the intention to have new music ready to play at Reading & Leeds?
O’Connell: “I’d say so. If there is stuff written, then I would say so, yeah. That’s what we used to do all the time, play the new stuff live – songs that weren’t even finished. It’s a good way to test the songs.”
Visually, what have Fontaines got planned for Reading & Leeds? You’ve said goodbye to the world of ‘Romance’ – but will you be keeping elements from the live show at Finsbury Park?
O’Connell: “I’m in a place right now where I don’t really know what’s going on. I know that management want to know what we want to do with it, but I find it difficult to know what to do. It’s a very strange time. I think ‘Romance’ was so intense in every [way]… the visual, the production, the setlist, blah blah blah. It wasn’t just about the music. ‘Romance’ was about a million more things, I think, and it’s a bit strange to move on from it completely, just because it’s an album.
“It’s almost a bit of the identity of the band now, but I guess that’s the decision to make. Does that become the identity of the band, or actually, it’s just a phase and you reinvent it? I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to dye my hair pink again, have to do that whole thing. I don’t know, but I personally like the idea of revisiting some old stuff at Reading & Leeds, making the setlist maybe a bit more ‘Dogrel’-heavy. I’m excited about that. I’ve been listening to music like that much more. This morning I was listening to Sonic Youth. I want to go [in] that direction, but we’ll see, because anything could happen now – literally anything.”
Chilli, have you been sent any new Fontaines songs to learn for those shows?
Jesson: “Absolutely nothing. But the way these guys roll, it will be there a day before! The way I work, I’m quite methodical, and this has really been great for me… now I’m just the most fucking chilled guy!”
O’Connell: “This guy, you have no idea how many parts he’s had to learn…”
Speaking of learning new parts – how has it been stripping back ‘Dead Dads Club’ for the in-store shows this week?
Jesson: “It’s been good fun. Rough Trade East will be the full band, and there’s a few record shops. To remember [the songs] in acoustic form, it’s been quite interesting. But the band are not buzzed – at all – to strip it back!”
O’Connell: “I miss those in-stores. Can I come with you, man?”
Jesson: “Absolutely, man. Play whatever you want to play.”
O’Connell: “I’ll bring a shaker.”
Chilli, having played such massive shows with Fontaines, how does it feel to be back in record store settings? Does one extreme make you hungrier for the other?
Jesson: “I love it. The whole Fontaines thing, it’s unreal, man. I love them all to bits. To be honest with you, I never thought I would ever play anything near that scale – ever. And there would be no Dead Dads Club without being on the road with the boys, that is the truth. Being on the tour bus with all of them, listening to the records together, that really inspired the whole thing. I was making a completely different kind of music, I lost a lot of love for it, and they reinstated that for me – especially Carlos. I feel extremely fucking privileged, because it’s changed my life in so many ways.”
Are you planning to do more Dead Dads Club material together?
Jesson: “I would hope so.”
O’Connell: “If he’ll fucking have me back, you know…”
Jesson: “For a good price.”
O’Connell: “I’m pro bono, man.”
Jesson: “But honestly, I literally could not imagine doing it with anybody else, because it’s become the sound. To go back to La Frette together – and maybe have eight days – would be amazing.”
‘Dead Dads Club’ is out now via Fiction Records. Check out their full list of tour dates below:
JANUARY
23 – Kingston, Banquet
24 – London, Rough Trade East
25 – Marlborough, Sound Knowledge
27 – Nottingham, Rough Trade
28 – Liverpool, Jacaranda
29 – Leeds, Vinyl Whistle
31 – Southampton, Papillon
MARCH
28 – Bristol, Ritual Union
The post Chilli Jesson and Carlos O’Connell tell us about ‘Dead Dads Club’, fatherhood and losing a parent, and Fontaines D.C.’s 2026 plans appeared first on NME.