Fontaines D.C. Take On Bring Me The Horizon & Nirvana For 'Like A Version'

Fontaines D.C. have shared a somewhat surprising cover for their Like A Version debut, performing Bring Me The Horizon’s Can You Feel My Heart—with a touch of Nirvana.

Putting a fresh spin on the heavy, synth-laden original, Fontaines D.C. stripped the song back, focusing on the atmosphere and Grian Chatten’s vocals. After the first chorus, he started singing the Nirvana classic, Heart Shaped Box, the Irish rockers making two popular songs their own.

In addition to their Bring Me The Horizon cover, the band brought the Romance hit single, Starburster, to the Like A Version studio.

As Billboard notes, the performances were recorded while Fontaines D.C. were in Australia earlier this month. This week, the band were forced to cancel shows in Mexico and Latin America after Chatten suffered a herniated disc and required urgent care.

In a post-performance interview, Fontaines D.C. guitarist Conor Curley detailed the band’s decision to cover Can You Feel My Heart and pay tribute to Nirvana.

“I think the sound of that song, the electronic elements, and just the general vibe of it kind of reflects stuff that we were touching on our last album, Romance,” Curley said of the 2013 Bring Me The Horizon track.

“It kind of seemed like a good place to start, and it’s a moody, beautiful song. I always get a little a bit nostalgic about that band just because it reminds me of reading and crying as a teenager and stuff like that, so I’ve always kind of kept tabs on them.”

Touching on the band’s callback to Nirvana, he added, “Heart-Shaped Box is an absolute classic. Grian just started singing it when we were getting the sounds, and it was almost kind of like, ‘Do we switch it to that and use the instrumentation?’ So, it kind of just made sense.”

You can check out the performance below.

Between their Australian tour dates, Fontaines D.C. found time to drop the nostalgic new single, It’s Amazing To Be Young. A song that was born after the birth of guitarist Carlos O’Connell’s child, bassist Conor Deegan III said:

It’s Amazing To Be Young is a song that was written in the presence of a newborn child – Carlos’ child. It sounded more like a lullaby or a music box then, but with the same lyric – “it’s amazing to be young”:

The feeling of hope a child can give is profound and moving, especially for young men like us. That sense of wanting to create a world for them to grow up in happily. It’s a feeling that fights against the cynicism that can often overtake us in the modern world. So we wanted to declare which side we were on – it really is amazing to be young. We are still free, and want to make that feeling spread. We want to protect it for the others around us, and maybe in doing that, can also help protect it for ourselves.

Meanwhile, Bring Me The Horizon toured Australia last year with special guests Sleep Token, Aussie metalcore outfit Make Them Suffer, and alternative star daine.