Hello everyone, it’s your host Faithfulness, and today I have with me Garrett Anthony Rice from Greystones, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Garrett Anthony Rice is here to share more light on his musical journey, while diving into his upcoming original single, “The Coastal Walls (the shame of everyone),” released on 18th May 2026. The record is described by Rice as a deeply unflinching confrontation with the brutal reality of the American slave trade from 1619 to the present day. Recorded across the United Kingdom and Ireland, the track uses blues based instrumentation that evokes the emotional weight of the Deep South, with a deliberately nightmarish outro designed to sonically express the horror and lasting trauma of slavery’s legacy. The timing of this release, arriving ahead of America’s 250 year anniversary celebrations in July, raises powerful questions about remembrance, responsibility, and what it means to confront history through music.
Welcome, Garrett Anthony Rice. Before we begin, here is what you need to know about this fearless Irish artist. Hailing from Greystones, Co. Wicklow, Rice has built a reputation for creating music that engages directly with history, identity, and cultural truth. His earlier work under the alias CONSULT, including the project “Reflections Part II, the very best of……,” reached listeners in over ninety countries and drew attention from respected industry figures such as producer Chris Potter. Across his creative journey, Rice’s work has been influenced by figures such as Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr., Sidney Poitier, and Marlon Brando, shaping a voice rooted in resistance, reflection, and artistic confrontation.
Released on 18th May 2026, “The Coastal Walls (the shame of everyone)” is presented as a powerful and uncompromising original single that confronts the history and continuing legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. Rice frames the work not as distant reflection but as living history, urging listeners to recognize the systems built on exploitation that continue to shape the present. The recording spans the UK and Ireland, using blues based instrumentation to echo the emotional language of American history, while the production deliberately builds toward a nightmare inspired outro meant to embody suffering and memory in sonic form. The release arrives at a symbolic moment, ahead of America’s 250 year anniversary celebrations, with Rice calling for reparations, formal apologies from nations involved in the slave trade, and a broader reckoning with inherited wealth and historical injustice. Through its message and sound, the single stands as both a historical document and a demand for accountability.
Having this brief Introduction, I’m sure new and current fans must be excited about our Interview today.
INTERVIEW
Faithfulness: Growing up in Dublin and now living in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, how has your environment shaped the kind of artist you’ve become today?
Garrett Anthony Rice: I come from a working class area in Dublin, Limekiln Farm, Greenhills and as a young teenager in 1980’s Ireland there was huge national debt and poverty and really the only two things to do were sport or to follow music. My Dad had an eclectic taste in music from The Beatles, Bowie to Steely Dan/Roxy Music and music was constantly on in my house so it was inevitable there would be some rub off on me as an artist. My family are very lucky to Live in Greystones and I try to teach my kids that not all young people have as good a chance or start in life as they have so I would be old school in my perspective on life and my art.
Faithfulness: Before releasing music under your own name, you worked under the alias (i) CONSULT. What did that earlier chapter teach you about your identity as a songwriter?
Garrett Anthony Rice: I chose an alias because firstly I was a “complete unknown” (as Bob Dylan sang) and there is also a famous Irish singer songwriter Damien Rice and I did not want there to be any confusion. The initial experience of writing and recording the record was amazing and I surprised myself with the quality of the songs I produced but it gave me the confidence to write further and to seek out Chris Potter producer for my present album of 18 songs “EQUINOX” and from a practical level, I did not even have an Instagram account in 2023 so the learning curve of loading your music to Spotify, posting etc was a total new skill for me.
Faithfulness: Your influences span figures like Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King, Sidney Poitier, and Marlon Brando. How do those voices translate into your creative mindset?
Garrett Anthony Rice: These people (and they were ordinary people before they became giants of culture, politics and the arts) were not afraid to stand up and say what was wrong in the world and by extension America, no matter what the consequences were for their careers (and in some cases their very lives). I will not go through my heroes individually here but I would like to think as an Irishman we have hundreds of years experience of being an oppressed people and no matter were in the world wrong and oppression is happening and has happened I am not afraid to highlight it were I can and educate people through my music on how these issues came to pass in the first place.
Faithfulness: At what point did you realise your music would go beyond sound and become a form of historical and social commentary?
Garrett Anthony Rice: I think it is the responsibility of anyone with a wide social platform and especially as a songwriter to use that platform to educate and inform the next generation about how this hellhole of a planet became this way. My song “I Found Myself Today” from “EQUINOX” is an anti war song in the stream of conciousness style of James Joyce Novelists (a fellow Irishmans) stellar work “Ullysses”. If something upsets me terribly, I try to turn a negative into a positive and write something with relevance and impact.
Faithfulness: How do you balance being an Irish artist while addressing themes that are deeply rooted in global and American history?
Garrett Anthony Rice: I referred previously to the Irish people being a historically oppressed people and that we view the world through those eyes and whether it’s the genocide in Gaza, the plight of the indigenous Native Indians in America or the plight of enslaved people (not just in America) but as practiced by the historical colonial powers, The British, The French, The Spanish, The Portugeuse, The Dutch etc throughout history and their war mongering, the fact remains that our world today with its economic and social inequality and for instance, the status and plight of African Amdricans is as a direct result of wrongdoing by a few over many.
Faithfulness: “The Coastal Walls (the shame of everyone)” confronts one of the darkest chapters in history. What was the initial spark that made you decide this was the story you had to tell?
Garrett Anthony Rice: In July this year there is a “celebration” in America of 250 years of thievery, slaughter and suffering inflicted on the indigenous Indian tribes who were on that land for hundreds of thousands of years before any Europeans arrived and they were starved out and slaughtered and then from 1619 in Jamestown Virginia the first Angolan slaves were shackled into America starting a disgraceful economy resulting in millions of enslaved Africans (3 million people did not even make it off the slave ships) and almost all of the “founding fathers” were cruel slave masters including George Washington (owned 600 slaves) and these criminals are celebrated? The British abolished slavery in the 1800’s but not before they “compensated” the slave owners through the Caribbean and the West Indies to the tune of £10 billion pounds for the loss of their “property”. A monetary debt is owed to the ancestors of these people and a formal apology.
Faithfulness: You chose blues-based instrumentation to evoke the Deep South. How did that sonic direction shape the emotional weight of the record?
Garrett Anthony Rice: Ever since I was a young child I have had an affinity with Southern Delta blues musicians (Son House, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Little Walter etc). I have had the privilege of being able to absorb that culururally important music into my own compositions , for instance, “EDEN”, “In The Night Time We Shone” on “EQUINOX” and the suffering those people went through and the horror which can only be imagined was somewhat alleviated for them by the power of this music which came from their home continent of Africa and is the purest form of musical expression there has ever been because it derived from pain and suffering.
Faithfulness: The track was recorded across the UK and Ireland. How did moving between those spaces influence the final sound of the single?
Garrett Anthony Rice: Not much if I am being honest because the world class musicians and my producer Chris Potter are so in tune with my vision, they knew straight away how the track should be presented.
Faithfulness: The outro has been described as deliberately nightmarish. What were you trying to make listeners feel in that final section?
Garrett Anthony Rice: I want you to feel how an African mother felt when her children were brought with her to a plinth in a marketplace in Virginia after being lying in their own urine and faeces on a slave ship for 6 months and then to have your children inspected, naked and bid for and sold right in front of your eyes, never to be seen again.
Faithfulness: The release arrives ahead of America’s 250-year anniversary celebrations. How important was timing in the message behind this song?
Garrett Anthony Rice: I could have released this song last year when the roll out of the singles from “EQUINOX” started in February 2025 or I could have released it this July for major impact but to be perfectly frank it won’t change a goddam thing in America either way. As long as the African American population accept their lot and pander to achieve the trinkets of material wealth offered by the white biased economic system then they prop up that system which enslaved then in the first place. I have been told the song will be Grammy nominated and if I win, I will refuse to accept it, like Brando did with the Oscar for The Godfather to highlight the native Indians suffering.
Faithfulness: You’ve spoken about calls for reparations and formal apologies from nations involved in the slave trade. How does that message sit within the artistic structure of the song itself?
Garrett Anthony Rice: I reference Malcolm X (a prophet from God and Muhammad Ali (also a prophet) who preached this relentlessly through their lives. The George Floyd murder and “The Black Lives Matter” movement that erupted afterwards, what has it changed in America today. You even had a black president for two terms, what did he do for you?? Nothing.
Faithfulness: When dealing with such heavy historical subject matter, how do you decide what to show through lyrics versus what to leave implied through sound?
Garrett Anthony Rice: A balance has to be struck between delivery and impact ands just to say I will be recording my new triple album “AMERICANNA Vol.1” at Abbey Road Studios London later this year and I am only getting started in my quest.
Faithfulness: Who were the key contributors in shaping this track, and how did their input help bring the vision of the song to life?
Garrett Anthony Rice: Chris Potter producer is a genius and he let me breathe in the studio to find the right attack for the song. I wrote it originally as a song to depict a sea voyage but as I wrote further the theme emerged and there had to be a southern delta blues edge to the recording which Adam Phillips the lead guitarist handled beautifully.
Faithfulness: What do you hope listeners carry with them after hearing “The Coastal Walls (the shame of everyone)” for the first time?
Garrett Anthony Rice: The History books you force your children to learn are written by the victors and the oppressors. George Washington was no hero and neither was Abraham Lincoln “The Great Emancipator”, the truth is Lincoln wanted to keep the economic might of the South due to its slave industries of cotton, tobacco etc and was willing to let slavery stay in place once the union was maintained. Look up his inaugural speech to congress and you will see the truth. He was a ruthless Native Indian Killer and far from the gentle, god like status he holds, real and truthful history paints a different picture.
Faithfulness: Looking ahead, how does this single connect to your wider body of work, including the upcoming “EQUINOX” project?
Garrett Anthony Rice: The new record “AMERICANNA Vol. 1” will be selected from 50 songs I have written so the themes I wrote about (and not just injustice and oppression)!but real life issues, divorce, mental health, death and grief will continue for me as an artist. I have something to say and I intend to say it.
CHECK OUT THE RELEASE OF ‘The Coastal Walls (the shame of everyone)’
HAVING LISTENED TO ‘The Coastal Walls (the shame of everyone)’, HERE ARE MY HONEST THOUGHTS
Garrett Anthony Rice’s “The Coastal Walls (the shame of everyone)” is a harrowing protest work that confronts the transatlantic slave trade and its modern echoes through unflinching sonic storytelling. Built on slow, blues-drenched instrumentation, the track feels suffocating and ghostlike, with reverb-heavy guitars and distant percussion evoking historical weight. Rice rejects commercial structure, instead embracing a dirge-like pacing that mirrors unresolved trauma. His lyrics deliver brutal, unfiltered imagery of exploitation while extending critique toward contemporary systems of wealth, power, and inequality. Vocally, he shifts between fragile whispers and strained urgency, heightening emotional realism without theatrics or ornamentation. The song’s nightmarish outro dissolves into distorted, collapsing soundscapes, leaving listeners in uneasy reflection rather than comfort or closure. As protest art, it prioritizes memory, accountability, and moral confrontation over accessibility or entertainment, cementing Rice’s work as a deeply challenging, socially conscious statement that lingers long after silence returns
~ Faithfulness (Dulaxi Team)
Finally to our audience, I urge to listen to “The Coastal Walls (the shame of everyone)“, add it to your playlist and be Inspired by it and on behalf of Dulaxi I like to appreciate you all by saying thank you everyone, See you on our next interview.
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