When Dermot Kennedy was 16, he would travel from his rural hometown to Dublin to busk on Grafton Street, the storied busking hotspot where Damien Rice and Glen Hansard sang to shoppers more than a decade before him. It was an experience that would prepare the singer-songwriter, now 25, for years on the road, playing sold-out shows to thousands of people across Europe and America. “You develop a thick skin busking in terms of not caring and just playing regardless,” says Kennedy, whose biggest inspirations include Rice, Hansard and David Gray. “I remember once there was this big bunch of lads who walked past as I was playing and one of them threw a little milk carton at me. It landed in my guitar case and milk got everywhere.”
While humiliating at times, busking proved worthwhile at others. He recalls at instance where someone threw a $100 bill into that same case. Another where, after figuring out that there were no solo performers at the top end of the street, he played the covers he knew would pull in a crowd for 40 minutes and raked in €850. Later, after music college and a stint in a band, when Kennedy decided to really make a go of his solo career, he returned to busking to fund recording.
This is a singer with a rich, reverbant voice, epically emotive songwriting skills (think Ed Sheeran, but darker, more melancholy) and above all a serious knack for making money. Whether it’s luck, savvy or a combination of both is hard to know – he’ll have you believe it’s luck – but Kennedy has defied the struggling young artist stereotype from the very start. Soon after distributing his first songs to Spotify, one got picked up by Discover Weekly – the playlist of songs that automatically appears on every users account each Monday – and soon it was doing so well that the heads of Spotify were notified.
Within months, Kennedy’s music, which now has more than 300 million streams combined, was generating enough views for him to live off the royalties and fund gigs across the pond. “I emailed the CEO recently and told him how grateful I am,” he says. “I know people complain about Spotify and what they pay, but when you go from playing in the street to making enough money to be able to live off music, it seems like a lot.”
Streaming success stories might be increasingly commonplace, but it’s not often artists build a global following solely off the platform, before getting signed or even having management. Put into perspective, Kennedy is still more popular across America than he is in his native Ireland. He is, of course, now signed to management (which, by the way, he shares with Dua Lipa and Lana Del Rey) and he also has a label. But as with so many shrewd young artists these days, he waited until exactly the right time to sign. Sign too early and musicians are at the mercy of overbearing execs who at best can push their own vision for the music and at worst can shelve them completely. But build a brand first and artists like Kennedy get to call the shots in their careers. “The leverage you can have if you are already growing and proving it is massive. The shows we did in LA and New York sold out. No one else [unsigned] was doing that,” he says.
Now he has the best of both worlds, with a devoted core fanbase and big business backing that opens the kind of doors a boy from the tiny village of Rathcoole, with a population of fewer than 4,500, could only have dreamed of. Kennedy, who is best described as a folksy, alternative artist with a taste for heavy hip hop beats – check out “Moments Passed” – recently worked with Mike Dean, the American super-producer who’s notched up credits with everyone from Jay-Z to Kanye West. “Seeing that Mike and the other younger, serious hip hop guys in the studio were into my songs was really exciting,” he says. “Travis Scott was there on Facetime and he was listening to it as well.”
With A-list endorsement, a current single “Power Over Me” already on 1.5m plays, a headline show at Brixton Academy – the holy grail of venues for young artists – just announced and an album due next year, you could assume Kennedy would be getting just a little bit cocky. And he well might, if it wasn’t for his friends, the same ones he played sports with at school. “They are huge for me in terms of keeping my head screwed on,” he says. “I could win a Grammy and they would take the piss out of what I was wearing. They will slag you off about anything, no matter what happens.”
"Power Over Me" is out now.
*Head to GQ's Vero channel to see extra exclusive from Dermot Kennedy, including video interviews where he talks about playing with Lana Del Rey, crazy fans and more, as well as his place, film, book and music recommendations and videos. Follow GQ on Vero for exclusive music content and commentary, all the latest music lifestyle news and insider access into the GQ world, from behind-the-scenes insight to recommendations from our Editors and high-profile talent. *
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