Dermot Kennedy: ‘I don’t want to be the guy with an album full of love songs’

The number one troubadour is next in the line of singer-songwriters like Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi but, he tells Roisin O'Connor, there’s more to his music than ‘false sincerity’

Dermot Kennedy: ‘Songs to me are so sacred. When you think of Leonard Cohen, it’s like, woah, that guy lives in a story’ (Leonardo Veloce)

Dermot Kennedy isn’t the guy writing schmaltzy songs with his acoustic guitar. “I think there’s been enough in my life, enough turmoil and loss, to bring darkness into my music,” he says. His music is concerned with more complex subjects than your average crooner. It was the death of someone close to his family, just when he had met and begun a romance with his long-term girlfriend, that gave him a unique insight into how fleeting and serendipitous everything can be. “The worst thing that ever happened to me took place at the same time as the best thing,” he says. “It taught me about the fragility of life, but also how to love somebody.”

Poignant as those themes are, it took something as unromantic as an algorithm to give the Irish singer-songwriter his first taste of success. The 28-year-old was busking on the Dublin streets when his song “All My Friends”, a dramatic ballad that draws as much on neo-classical piano as much as it does Ed Sheeran, was swept into Spotify’s crucial “Discover Weekly” playlist. From there, his career has gone A-list, from being given a shoutout by none other than Taylor Swift to being subject to one of those mythical major label bidding wars (won by Island in the UK; Interscope in the US).

On the advice of management, he held out on signing for as long as possible. “Why would you sign over all your music for a relatively small amount of money, just so they can own it for a long time?” he says.

The wait paid off. Kennedy’s debut album, 2019’s Without Fear, charted at No 1 in the UK and made the top 20 in the US. Now he’s backstage at Radio City Music Hall in New York, where he’s about to play a sold-out show to 6,000 fans. We’re sat in his dressing room, ahead of what will turn out to be one of the last live concerts before lockdown comes into effect. “It was what I’d been waiting for, for 10 years,” Kennedy says. “I didn’t have to play on the street anymore.”

Kennedy is an intriguing addition to Ireland’s rich lineage of singer-songwriters. He’s been lumped in with the Ed Sheerans and Lewis Capaldis of the world, but his music has a much deeper grounding in folklore and storytelling. His vocals, which maintain a gravelly burr in each song, have a touch more grit; his instrumentation incorporates lusher textures and broader influences than those of his peers. Kennedy grew up reading JRR Tolkien’s fantasy books, which perhaps explains the poetic, evocative imagery of a song such as “Power Over Me”, where he sings: “Remember the lake in the moonlight?/ Remember you shivered and shone?”

By contrast, he has a rugby player’s build and the sort of rugged good looks you find in tough-guy actors like Tom Hardy. His frequently furrowed brow could lead many to mistake his demeanour for surliness. Yet once he’s warmed up, he’s happy to crack jokes about pretty much anything – perhaps apart from music.

“I think that side of me will always exist,” Kennedy says rather seriously, of his love for spinning a yarn. “I spend so much of my energy trying to be as honest as possible and put my own life in these songs. But that constant examination of yourself and your most potent feelings can be exhausting.” It helps that he has his girlfriend, a yoga instructor and physiotherapist, on tour with him. He’s often joined by his family, too – they’re here tonight. His mum is apparently known as “the honey badger” among Kennedy’s crew: “She’s tiny, but vicious as well. It means there’s no room for bulls**t in my life.”

‘I spend so much of my energy trying to be as honest as possible’ (Leonardo Veloce)

He’s certainly clear on what he doesn’t want to do. “I don’t want to be the guy with an album full of love songs,” he asserts at one point, nor does he want to foist his political views on his fans. In a conversation with his team about his growing success, he was apparently encouraged to be more forthcoming on current social issues, perhaps looking to the success of North Shields’ Sam Fender. “I get real cynical when artists do that,” he shrugs. “Obviously people feel that strongly about things. But other times it’s like they’re jumping on the bandwagon.” He cites Stormzy as an artist who manages to be a powerful voice without coming off as preachy, but doubts whether it works as well in his own genre. “I think that false sincerity runs riot in the singer-songwriter scene.” He recalls an encounter in Dublin with Bono – “He told me that kind of thing is ‘emotional porn’” – before apologising for name-dropping.

Instead, he looks to the authenticity of his idols and fellow Irishmen, Glen Hansard and Luke Kelly, an authenticity he clearly craves. “Songs to me are so sacred,” he says. “When you think of Leonard Cohen, it’s like, woah, that guy lives in a story. He’s a poet.” He considers Lewis Capaldi and his self-deprecating humour: “I think it’s beautiful that he can align the person he is, this funny character that everyone loves, with beautiful songs. But I don’t know if those two things can [coexist] in a venue where there’s reverence for the music.” For Kennedy, atmosphere is everything. He’s a stoic performer who doesn’t waste time gushing about how grateful he is to be here. His focus is on the acoustic guitar in his hands and the simple, unadorned power of his voice.

Dermot Kennedy’s performance at Radio City Music Hall, New York, March 2020 (Lucy Foster)

The rapidity with which an artist’s career can come and go scares him, but he’s got a number of projects to keep the momentum, most recently Lost In The Soft Light, his just-released EP of live and reworked tracks from his debut album. When he heard Maggie Rogers’s song, “Light On”, he thought it sounded timeless and those are the heights he’s aiming for. Not that he’s totally convinced he’ll be able to. “But it seems as though [the music industry] is set up in such a way that this can’t happen,” he says. “So much these days just peaks then dies. But I’m determined. I want this to last.”

Dermot Kennedy’s EP Lost In The Soft Light is out now