Dermot Kennedy: ‘Now is not the time for a work-life balance’

When he was an unknown busker, singing his heart out for tourists and shoppers, Dermot Kennedy received a tap on the shoulder from Simon Cowell. “I don’t know what age I was: 17, 18. I got asked to audition for Britain’s Got Talent. So I went to my dad and I was like, “I don’t want to do this”. But I also had absolutely nothing else going on.”

His father’s advice was that Kennedy should attend the audition, just to see what happened. So he left his home in the Dublin commuter village of Rathcoole and flew to London. There, Cowell was represented by a panel of underlings. They sat silently as Kennedy trooped in, awkwardly clutching an acoustic guitar to play a Frank Ocean cover. Not for the first time, a question popped into the young Irishman’s head: what the hell was he doing there?

To his surprise, it went well, and he got a call asking him to go on Britain’s Got Talent. But Kennedy declined. “I couldn’t,” he says. “It wasn’t something I wanted to be a part of.”

More than a decade later, the 30-year-old Dubliner’s resolve to chart his own course in pop has paid off. Kennedy, whose music blends acoustic rock, confessional lyrics and streetwise beats, is about to share with the world a gripping and heartfelt second record, Sonder – a word from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows to describe the experience of realising every stranger has their own internal life.

Eagerly anticipating the heavily delayed release (the label has blamed the postal strike) is a fanbase that includes Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa and Roy Keane (all bases covered then). Kennedy has also announced his first UK arena tour, including a headline date at London’s O2 Arena in April. It is quite a journey from busking on Grafton Street in Dublin and auditioning for an Ant and Dec talent show.

Talking from San Francisco, where he is due to play at a festival, Kennedy is taking it all in his stride. The songs on Sonder came to him relatively easily, which was a surprise given the weight of expectation on the project – his label has identified him as a potential super-star for several years now – and the fact he’s had issues previously with writer’s block.

This was leading up to his first album, 2019’s Without Fear – a mega-hit back in Ireland where he is fast-approaching Bono levels of celebrity. The realisation he had a growing audience had caused a door in his brain to slam. He wondered if it would ever open again.

Sonder was a breeze by contrast. He was buoyed immensely by the success of lead single Better Days – a pandemic pick-me-up that, with choral backing from LA-based singer Chappell Roan, sounds like Enya collaborating with Chris Martin.

Kennedy isn’t the first Irish troubadour to conquer the world with big-hearted ballads. This is a well-worn path, from Hozier via Damien Rice and even arguably going back to U2 at their soppiest. Kennedy’s breakthrough came when his early track, An Evening I Will Not Forget, was picked up by Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist, which has 350 million listeners. He was so chuffed he sent a thank you email to Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek. That gratitude ran against the grain of the conversation around streaming, with artists complaining about Spotify’s paltry royalties. Today, however, Kennedy is reluctant to be seen as a champion for the company.

“I went from doing nothing to doing something because of Spotify,” he says. “However, I also don’t want to be the artist who is out there whooping and hollering about a platform that doesn’t pay artists a lot of money. They hold the keys in a way. And that’s not fair: artists should be paid more. There’s a conversation to be had for sure: to be getting billions of [streams] and collecting essentially nothing… It’s pretty wild.”

In July 2020, Kennedy performed at the Natural History Museum in London. The concert included a duet of his hit Giants with Paul Mescal, who portrayed brooding heartbreaker Connell in the BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People (and is a decent warbler to boot).

A case can be made that Kennedy has a lot in common with Rooney’s Connell: at school he was a bit of a jock, excelling at football yet with a creative side he kept hidden. He’s understandably reluctant to be tagged as the living manifestation of a Sally Rooney heartthrob. Nonetheless, he agrees young men often have that dual aspect. They are one of the lads in public, more thoughtful when away from their mates.

“Within Ireland, so many people have this massive amount of vulnerability,” he says. “Certainly among guys…There are so many young guys in Ireland who [want to] be open and be vulnerable. There’s not necessarily a network there for them to talk to people or get things off their chest. My mam, one of her favourite things to do is to look at the groups of guys at shows that I do in Ireland. And how they sing their hearts out and they will have their arms around each other. It’s this huge outpouring of emotion. It is huge for me. It is a real honour to make that environment for them. I’m very proud of that.”

Ahead of Sonder’s release, Kennedy is facing a daunting schedule of arena dates. He is mindful that more and more musicians are cutting back on touring to safeguard their mental health. Arlo Parks, Sam Fender and Fontaines DC are among the artists who have postponed gigs in recent years out of concern for their psychological well-being.

“I definitely think about it a lot,” says Kennedy of the Great Burnout sweeping the industry. “It [cancelling shows] is not something I’ve needed to do. It’s certainly on my mind. People doing that because they need to –  it definitely makes me assess how I feel. You never know. These things can creep up on you and surprise you. It’s not necessarily something where I’m ‘oh I’m feeling pretty tired…’ I’m sure it creeps up on you.”

He recalls an early tour where he had pushed his voice too far. Out of the blue Hozier got in touch to caution Kennedy to take care.

“It was something I had posted [on social media]: we did America to London to Paris in the space of two days. He texted me to say, ‘I’ve seen that schedule. I’m very aware of how hectic that can be. Just keep an eye on yourself’. I had severe trouble with my voice. I basically didn’t know how to sing properly. My technique was all over the place. I got injured. He was looking out for me.”

That said, Kennedy believes that with the new album he has an unmissable opportunity. And so he’s determined to keep pushing for as long as he is able. He’ll sleep when he’s brought Sonder as far as it can go.

“People talk about a work-life balance,” he says. “At this point there is no balance. I’m constantly thinking about the fact that I’m so lucky to do what I want to do. Now is not the time for me to try and find a work-life balance. I’ll compromise my music, I’ll compromise my career. Then, I’ll have regrets for the rest of my life. I’ll have a balance but I’ll be miserable: I could have taken it so much further. The way I see it – you work your ass off now, you can be whoever you want to be.”

Sonder is released on November 18. Dermot Kennedy tours through March and April 2023