‘The Irish landscape has always been important to me. It’s a big part of how I’m inspired,’ says singer Dermot Kennedy
FOR Dermot Kennedy’s third album, he wanted to explore both the beauty and burden of a successful music career.
The award-winning Irish singer might headline huge arenas but he has always had his feet firmly on the ground, valuing a normal life, privacy and simple things such as walking in his local woods — the theme of his new record.
He says: “I feel I’m at a sweet spot, because I can play The O2 in London but I can walk around all day and no one really knows who I am.
“Having a career in music is a blessing. It’s the most amazing thing, but at the same time, there are certain challenges that come with it. It tests relationships and tests your own resolve, it’s a pressure. And I wanted to write about that.”
The pull of nature as a place to reset became more powerful to the singer as he found success — both his previous collections, Without Fear (2019) and Sonder (2022), topped the album chart.
“With a career in music, you’re not anonymous, you’re constantly moving from city to city,” he explains.
“Being somewhere where you can only see trees in every direction has become more and more important to me, and more powerful. Where I live is quite remote, and that’s the way I want to be.”
This recurring woodland imagery reflects a sense of calm and nostalgia to Kennedy, and the cover of his new album, The Weight Of The Woods, features the singer in a woodland setting.
As we chat in his central London record label offices, he’s signing a huge pile of his new CDs.
“It’s a great album cover,” he says smiling. “Even signing these all morning, I’m not sick of looking at it yet.”
A standout on Kennedy’s new record is the track Sycamore, a gorgeous introspective ode to home and identity.
“The Irish landscape has always been important to me,” he says. “Where we took the picture for the album still resonates. It’s a big part of how I’m inspired.”
Working with producer Gabe Simon — who produced Noah Kahan’s 2022 breakthrough album, Stick Season — Kennedy made The Weight Of The Woods in Ireland, Nashville and Norway.
He says: “Sycamore is lush and smooth, which felt different for me. It was the first song we made when Gabe came over — there’s a sycamore tree right in front of my house that’s become a kind of talisman in my life. It felt like a lovely way to start.
“A lot of these songs carry a vulnerability I haven’t shown before, and that felt important, because you can’t pretend you’re 100 per cent all the time. It’s just not true.”
This shift shows a new confidence, one that allows him to do things his own way.
“Generally, I’m a quiet person, so on previous albums I wasn’t the loudest in the room whereas with this one, I have the confidence to shout for it and take my time.
“It’s taken this long to get to a point where I know what I want — what I need and what’s authentic.”
The Weight Of The Woods reflects a stage in his life where Kennedy feels more secure, more at home and more fully himself. Now married with a baby daughter, his perspective has shifted in ways he struggles to fully articulate.
“How has fatherhood changed me?” he ponders. “It’s hard to sum up, I can’t explain it in a couple of minutes.
“It just means the world to me and gives you a completely new perspective on life.
“It makes you realise there are more important things than chasing goals in music.
“The best thing I can do now is make music that moves me and try to live in a way that feels like the purest version of who I am. It becomes the centre of everything.
“Fatherhood has given me more confidence, but also a different kind of fragility, making me more emotionally open.
“A lot of these songs carry a vulnerability that I haven’t shown in my music before, and that’s important.”
Musically, Kennedy feels the album has a strong Irishness, though it was not a deliberate concept.
Honest is a track that feels especially personal, as it directly references where he is from in Ireland.
He says: The first lyric is about Kilteel [near Rathcoole, Co Dublin] which is an important part of where I’m from. It’s a more personal record so I needed to tell the story of where I’m from.”
He reflects on the pull of home: “Sometimes when you’re trying to have a career in music, people assume they need to move away and live somewhere else.
“But in Ireland we have one of the richest musical landscapes in the world, you know? So, it’s nice to be a part of that.
“And it’s the most Irish-sounding track. I played the bodhran [a traditional Irish frame drum] on it, the drum you hear at the beginning, and there’s also a tin whistle. It all came together very naturally so these songs feel dynamic to me and they’re really going to work live.”
Wasted is a favourite of Kennedy’s on the record. Inspired by US singer and producer Dijon, he says: “It felt like it had that excited, upbeat energy without being pop. It felt real in the room and exciting.”
Then there’s The Only Time I Prayed, which explores the singer’s relationship with faith.
“I’ve got songs like Glory, and lyrics about the devil, but I’d consider myself definitely agnostic. I believe in otherworldly things but I’m not a practising Catholic.
“Still, when things get difficult, people pray — regardless of faith. It comes from desperation, and I find that fascinating. Sometimes I even feel envious of people with a strong faith.”
Another highlight on the record is Funeral, a stunning track about letting go of the past to move forward.
“I just wanted that song to be about ditching any difficult stuff I’ve been through,” he says.
“Songwriters spend an awful lot of time wallowing in the past and I wanted it to feel triumphant — moving forward into something more positive.
“It felt good and the vocal carries an energy which is always a fun thing on a song.”
On this third album, Kennedy feels more confident, self-assured and clearer about what is authentic to him.
He says: “It’s less inhibition and less stress — not poring over every decision. So confidence showed up in quite a carefree, exciting way.”
It was important to Kennedy that the album was stripped back and imperfect to add to the studio atmosphere.
“Musically, if you listen closely, there are lots of imperfections, little noises other artists or producers might take out,” he says.
“You can hear someone talking, a chair creaking. It puts me back in that room, and I don’t want to lose that.”
That same approach mirrors a wider creative release: “I feel like I’ve let go massively, which is a good thing.”
That sense of letting go has also reshaped how he defines success.
“Any pressure that came with the second album was internal, applied by myself,” he says. “I don’t think being competitive puts me in the best place to be the best artist I can be. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
“Tracking streams or records isn’t success to me. With this record, it was just lovely to get back to a place where I really enjoyed making the music, the visual world around it, and playing the songs.
“Don’t get me wrong, I still want lots of people to hear it, but I feel like I’ve already succeeded with this project.
“If it reaches a ton of people, that’s fantastic, but I had a beautiful time making it, and that’s everything.
“When you chase numbers and all that stuff, it’s all quite surface level and not very fulfilling in the end.
“I don’t think trying too hard is the move. It’s important to work hard and promote things, but being overly try-hard isn’t appealing.
“It’s better to sit back and let the music do the work. By letting go — stepping back from social media and putting the music first — it feels more likely to set my career up the way I want it.”
Live performance remains central to Kennedy’s identity. He feels he has built his career the “old-fashioned way” by playing rooms and winning audiences over.
He says: “Nowadays, there’s so many ways that someone can forge a career. You can blow up on the internet or go viral. For me, it’s never really been like that.
“It’s been more about getting people into a room. I think I can play in such a way that they might want to come back and see it again next time.”
“For me, when I dreamed about having a career in music, all I thought about was playing in big, beautiful theatres. So playing live is an important part of what I do.”
Even as he now fills large venues, Kennedy is keen to preserve a sense of intimacy within those spaces.
He explains: “We’re going to do it differently. There are lots of ways you can use tech in a live show. You can run tracks for things like horns and production, but then the whole show ends up on track and can feel like elevated karaoke.
“You can come off stage feeling like you haven’t really achieved much. So, with this tour, we’ve got rid of the click track and any backing tracks. It’s about keeping it real and letting the performance have more freedom.
“We’re getting rid of any kind of bells and whistles, and it’s just fun. I could start a song at any tempo, I could be feeling a certain way that ends up being a faster version with more energy, or we could pull it right back.
“You go to a live show for the energy, and I think it’s far easier to tap into that special place if you don’t have that stuff.”
Kennedy is also more careful about looking after his voice when he tours
“I try not to do more than two nights in a row, because it compromises the rest of the tour. It means I can walk on stage excited, instead of just hoping I get through it.”
It’s part of a wider shift in how he approaches performance. “It’s a process as well, working with vocal coaches and stuff. I run a lot more now, because you need that lung capacity. I’m not sure about other people’s experience touring, but it feels like a sport sometimes.”
That mindset has also made him more aware of the level required to sustain a major live career — something he saw first-hand watching Taylor Swift live.
“Well, I saw her at the venue I’m playing this summer, and it was inspiring.” he says. “I saw Travis, her fiancé, talking about her fitness regime and just how she’s operating at a kind of scary level.
“I find that really inspiring, because it makes you realise this is a very high level of what we do — you have to take it seriously. When someone is that on top of their game, it’s just incredibly motivating.”
“The show is, what, three hours long? It was wild to see. And honestly, it was just cool to be in Dublin and see people so excited by those songs.
“What really struck me was that it was just her songs. You realise this is someone who started out just writing songs, and now it’s millions of people all over the world.
“But it doesn’t feel like some manufactured pop machine. It just feels like someone who writes songs, and that’s what makes it so powerful.”
- The album The Weight Of The Woods is out on April 3.