Bricknasty’s Fatboy is propped up in an armchair, a one-year-old chihuahua named Peanut pacing the floor hyperactively at his feet. A kickboxing move-gone-wrong the night before has left the enigmatic frontman one leg down, so we’ve come to him – gathering in the sitting room of his home in Ballymun, along with the rest of the band, as he nurses his injury.

Just a few weeks before our interview, Bricknasty – dubbed “the best fucking band in the world” by their FAMM labelmate Maverick Sabre – capped off the summer backing support act Aby Coulibaly during Coldplay’s sold-out four-night run at Croke Park. But it’s an experience that they’re remarkably blasé about now (“It’s a big ol’ spot. Bigger than Workman’s for sure…”).

In fact, the band  – made up of masked vocalist/guitarist Fatboy, producer Cillian McCauley, Dara Abdurahman on bass, Korey Thomas on drums, and Louis Younge on sax and keys –  are much more interested in conversing through highly specific pop culture references, or expressing collective concern about Cavan footballer Paddy Lynch’s ACL.

Whether it’s the Croke Park shows, or the phenomenal response to their lauded debut EP INA CRUELER received last year, Fatboy sees dwelling on success as “harmful” for the band, particularly in the run-up to their new mixtape, XONGZ አስቀያሚ ጡብ.

“Anything that allows you to be an indulgent cunt is going to really severely damage your development as a creative person,” he states. “So we’re not fart-smelling. After INA CRUELER, I had people saying, ‘You’re a genius’, and all. But what genius is living in his ma’s box room, on one leg? Obviously we’re not that fucking smart! You don’t ever need to be hearing, that you’re a genius, or that you’re a fucking savant. And certainly don’t be telling yourself it.”

Aby Coulibaly, with Bricknasty, supporting Coldplay at Croke Park. Thursday 29th of August 2024. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

That said, Fatboy – who first linked up with Cillian through Soundcloud, before meeting the rest of the band following a stint at BIMM Dublin – knows better than anyone that his life “is going to be a real special story to tell young kids in Dublin one day.”

“When I was born, I was living with all my cousins, my ma, my grandad and my nanny in the three-bedroom in Joseph Plunkett Tower,” he says. “There was no path for me to go from there, to playing four nights, sold-out, in the fourth biggest stadium in Europe, for the biggest band in the world. The only thing that made that happen was hard work, and never losing belief in myself. Even through addiction, being overweight, facing homelessness, and being bate to fuck as a child. This time three years ago, I was 19 stone. I had polyps on my tongue. I couldn’t get up the stairs.

“I know I can’t get up the stairs now!” he laughs, gesturing at his bandaged knee. “But that’s a beautiful story. And I’m only at the very start of it.”

After the harrowingly personal INA CRUELER, inspired by Fatboy’s experiences growing up in Ballymun, the frontman didn’t feel like he had “anything left in the tank”, creatively. Although focusing on his sobriety, and getting into shape, proved crucial, it wasn’t an easy journey from there to here.

“I was worse when I was getting sober than when I was on drugs,” he tells me. “I was bad on drugs – but when I got off drugs, I was convinced Cillian was a lizard. I was like, ‘Cillian’s a fucking serpentine draconian lizard, sent here to reduce my quality of life, and ultimately destabilise my entire dream, and ruin me.’

“And Cillian didn’t really do anything to deserve that!” he laughs. “I’ve apologised to the fella, profusely. But when I first met the lads, I was not fucking house-trained one bit. They’re all good mates of mine now, because even though I was a nasty cunt towards them, they knew I wasn’t all that. They believed in me. That takes a lot of perspective and emotional maturity.”

The fact that XONGZ even exists, he says, is testament to “the lads’ will to continue on.”

“The mixtape brought us together again,” Fatboy resumes. “It helped us to relearn how to do stuff – in a way that’s less coke-fueled, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas sort-of-job…”

But alongside these accomplishments, recent years have also seen Bricknasty contending with some major losses and struggles.

The XONGZ track ‘joyrider’ features recordings from the funeral of Irish photographer and filmmaker Ross McDonnell, who was a major influence on Bricknasty’s vision – largely as a result of his Ballymun-centred photography book, from which the song takes its name.

Having struggled with feelings of guilt over “operating in the morally grey area” before, and incorporating voice recordings from his personal life in his music, did Fatboy have any concerns this time?

“No, not this time, because I knew Ross wouldn’t have thought twice about it,” he says. “He was just a word-class artist – severely talented. I reached out and showed his missus, and I thought she was going to say no to it, but she was delighted.

“Half of Ballymun – old-school Ballymun – were in that room with me when I was recording it,” he adds. “Damien Dempsey got up and sang a song and all.”

The mixtape also includes a recording of Fatboy overcome with emotion at the Nasty Sessions at The Sugar Club earlier this year. Featuring special guests like Maverick Sabre, Kojaque, Aby Coulibaly and KhakiKid, the gigs raised funds for Fatboy’s family, who were facing the threat of homelessness following his mother’s health issues.

“I was fucking crying,” he recalls now. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought my ma was going to die. And that was one thing – but I also thought I was going to have to throw out all our stuff, like those curtains, and the sofa, and her dresses, and the things she kept for us from when we were babies.

“It was a big deal,” he says of the gigs. “We wouldn’t have done that if the trouble that was happening wasn’t happening – that wasn’t on the cards at all. But the obstacle is the way…”

Photo by Miguel Ruiz. Animation by Alan Kelleher

While INA CRUELER delved unflinchingly into personal pain and generational trauma, Fatboy describes XONGZ as “the opposite to that: not suffering anything a single bit more than you need to”. It’s an embrace of joyful, and genuinely boundary-pushing, jazz and R&B-informed experimentation, and diverse instrumentation. Even the stunning Amharic lettering in the mixtape’s title – as well as nodding to Dara’s Ethiopian heritage – is part of an overall effort to present a work that resembles “something from the future”.

Although Fatboy ultimately wants to see “a real usurping of England” by Irish acts, he’s disappointed to see a lot of talented artists continuing to fly under the radar here.

“A lot of the stuff we do champion here is like, ‘Wow, Irish export – this is fucking brilliant!’ But most of the time it’s gick,” he argues. “With the exception of maybe Hozier, I’d say. It’s just shit that all of the resources and agency is given to clueless toffs. Saps, who’ve positioned themselves in a way where they can playlist, and stuff like that.”

To Fatboy, the music of Bricknasty is, above all else, “for the disenfranchised people in Ireland.”

“It’s not for the fella who has loads of money in the bank,” he resumes. “He might be listening to it now, because maybe he has a bit more time to be concerning himself with strange, fanciful men making weird art. But we’re making music for the poor man.

“We haven’t really reached him yet," he acknowledges. "Because it is real weird. And everything’s a little bit more homogenised now, so I could see us maybe struggling to break through to some of the younger children here. But we’ve got some outreach plans that we’re going to invest a lot of time in – and we’re going to make them feel part of it.”

As someone with a deep love for his local area, and his city, Fatboy is as concerned as anyone about the divisive narratives that are continuing to creep into communities.

“The media plays a big role in stoking this psychological schism that the country is experiencing,” he reasons. “Obviously I’m well used to this – because I remember being told in school, ‘Don’t put your address down. Don’t let people know where you’re from.’

“They don’t like the 'Poor Paddy Dub' – but they love the performance of it,” he continues. “So we’re watching this culture, that raised me and raised all my family, be ushered out. And now there’s bad faith actors coming in, who are making communication with Arab and Asian people impossible. So how is anyone meant to figure anything out?”

Local teenagers, who feel that they’ve limited options, are especially vulnerable to that kind of rhetoric, he says.

“I spent all my time in youth clubs – and now the youth clubs are closing down,” he remarks. “They’re not catering to young fellas here like they did when I was younger. So it’s really simple to convince those 15 and 16 year olds that the right thing to do is to violently attack Arab people. That’s easy to instigate, but it’s hard to fix.”

But Fatboy’s not hopeless – he just reckons that change will take “an insane amount of compassion and patience.”

“We’re just doing our best to understand each other as fellas,” he says of the members of Bricknasty, and their various backgrounds. “We’re not beating people over the head with it. We’re just trying to get on as young men, coming from wherever we come from. It’s not impossible.”

Musically, Bricknasty are also currently weighing up big questions like identity, and where they go from here. They view the mixtape as an evolution, but not their final form. Or, in Fatboy’s words, it’s a case of “job not finished” – this is “a little yoke” on the way to “the yoke.”

What’s ‘job finished’ then?

“Job finished?” Fatboy smiles. “This gaff gets fucking burnt down to cinders, and we’re living in fucking Howth. And I pretend I was living there the whole time. I’ll have an IV drip of avocado – the good avocado! And an oat milk iced latte in another IV drip. All milk substitutes, and fucking cricket burgers, because there’s more protein in crickets. Living in a pod. Living the American dream...”

XONGZ አስቀያሚ ጡብ is out now. Bricknasty play The Academy on December 19. They also support Nas at 3Olympia Theatre on November 13.