“I’ve done the things that most people could only dream of doing,” says Irish singer-songwriter Cian Ducrot, reflecting on his rise to stardom.
From humble beginnings busking on the streets of Cork to selling out arenas across Europe, scoring a number-one album, and picking up a Grammy for his work with R&B icon SZA, Ducrot is living beyond his wildest dreams.
With momentum carrying him like a freight train, the Irish superstar shows no signs of slowing down. His second album, Little Dreaming, is a vibrant expression of self-discovery, influenced by musical greats such as Elton John, Michael Jackson and Queen.
It blends a retro 1970s and 1980s sound with honest, emotionally rich songwriting. To quote the man himself of the album: “It is about being yourself and doing what you want and letting go but also being honest, true and vulnerable in all those different things.”
To support the album, Ducrot embarks on his biggest tour yet – spanning Ireland, the UK and Europe – with a major headline show at London’s O2 Academy Brixton on 17 September. Enjoy our interview with a brilliant artist whose best days lie ahead.
Shop the look: Suit: Pence 1979; vest: Wax London; sunglasses: Paloceras; brooches: stylist’s own; silver large chain necklace: Annabel B; bracelet, rings, and heart necklace: The Great Frog.
Square mile: Your latest album is so different from your debut Victory. Was this in your mind when making Little Dreaming – was it that you wanted to do something completely different?
Cian Ducrot: It wasn’t that I wanted something different, it’s more that I was still searching for what I wanted. In that journey of searching, I wrote things without limitations and ended up being more creative, writing things that were very upbeat. It was a freeing experience – to have a bit of fun and put other sides of my personality into the music.
SM: The album is inspired by 1970s and 1980s music… What put you in that space?
CD: I was just listening to a lot of 1970s and 1980s music; I always am. It inspires me at different times. If you’re in a phase of listening to certain artists or certain styles, then it will come through organically in your music – and I guess that’s what did. I’m always looking to refine and elaborate and deepen my musical taste and around this time I was listening to a lot of different styles – from 1960s up to the 1990s – and it’s always changing. Even now, I feel like I’m listening to different music, and that’s now influencing the music that I’m currently writing. I love the excitement of always changing and growing.
We move so fast in music that it doesn’t really matter so much. People are sometimes putting out two albums a year. I’d be more than excited to put out Little Dreaming and have this album that’s a certain sound, and then put out another album that’s a different sound, and then another. As long as the music is good, I think the fans will connect.
It’s like having all these different and exciting worlds and sounds for the music just based on what I like and what I am inspired by in that moment. It excites me and makes me feel like there’s always room to grow and explore.
SM: Talking about your 1970s and 1980s inspirations… How has Elton John inspired you musically and creatively?
CD: Elton is a legendary artist who made such amazing music. I love him as a fashion icon and as a stage performer and everything about him as an artist is really inspiring. He’s an amazing musician and an amazing person. In his career, he has made something like 70 albums and that’s a crazy amount. A lot of these great artists made so much more music back then, I feel like that’s coming back around now.
There are just so many different styles when you listen to Elton. We base his style mainly on what we know as popular but if you look at something like ‘Your Song’ and then compare that to ‘Rocket Man’, it’s probably even more different than if you look at ‘Little Dreaming’ to ‘I’ll Be Waiting’.
There’s just so many different sides to his music and his songs. That’s something that I have always felt I have had. It can sometimes be difficult because people are like, “What’s the sound and style? What’s the cohesiveness?” The cohesiveness is that maybe it’s not cohesive, and it’s just a crazy explosion of creativity and different things. I don’t think you have to stick to one thing – and Elton did that really well. A lot of great artists that I love have a big plethora of styles and sounds.
SM: It’s refreshing that you’re exploring different genres because when artists achieve success from a certain sound they might get trapped by expectations…
CD: It’s freeing because it then allows you to have way more scope to do whatever you want, and do different things at any time. I could do a full singer-songwriter album, and nobody would question it – or I could do a folk album or a 1970s Disco album. I could do whatever and no one would be like, “That doesn’t really make sense,” because I’m doing bits of it all along the way. That’s important for me to do that because that’s what I like to do.
SM: Has the success of your debut album, Victory, and going number one given you the confidence to experiment because you know that what you’re doing resonates with people?
CD: Yeah. It’s a personal thing as well, because I want to enjoy what I’m doing and not have a mindset of pressure or think about how the music will do.
If you focus on the music being successful then you’re not going to make the album that you want to make. It’s better to make something that you really love and connect with as opposed to try and make something that will be successful as then it can be quite generic and might not be what satisfies me as a musician.
The mindset I had, I wanted to have fun and make music that I love and excites me. That’s what I did for that moment of time. That’s what I found fulfilling.
SM: What’s your process when making an album… Do you shut yourself away ?
CD: It’s a difficult thing because you write so many songs, and so many people have opinions. You’ve got a team, friends and family – and everyone has a favourite song. And then there are different ages and genders and nationalities; everyone has a different thing that they’re connecting to. It can be difficult, but sometimes you find common ground.
But, when I’m creating the music, I don’t go on my phone. And if I’m listening to music that I find amazing and inspiring then will be something from a different period, so I’m not copying anything current and I don’t get influenced by current music because I don’t want to accidentally do something that’s the same as something else. I’ll get into a very inspired place, and I’ll just write and create and play. When I’m inspired, I write a lot of music and things just fall out so it’s about cultivating and protecting that space.
SM: What was your state of mind when making Little Dreaming?
CD: Some of the music on this album is still stuff from an earlier version of the album [that I had planned and recorded]. I felt stuck and that I was missing this whole part. I just wanted to do something else but I couldn’t figure it out. Then, I figured it out and I kept some of my favourite things that made sense from the first [version] of the album and things that would still suit it with where it had ended up.
I just followed that inspiration. It was a realisation that I was showing this other half of myself. It’s a representation of my headspace at that time. It is about being yourself and doing what you want and letting go but also being honest, true and vulnerable in all those different things.
SM: I was reading an interview in which you talked about your ADHD… How does it affect you creatively as you’re trying to pinpoint a cohesive concept for the album?
CD: I can ultra-focus on things and when I’m in the studio and writing, I can laser-focus on that. But also, my mind is [all over the place] and you can probably hear that in a lot of the music and the songs change. There are tempo changes and vibe changes, it’s quite crazy. It definitely works in different ways and I don’t think it does only one thing.
SM: In the song ‘Shalala’ you write, ‘I’ve been to LA and I’ve seen the devil close…’. Does this refer to the newfound fame and dealing with the trials and tribulations that come with this new position?
CD: For me, ‘I’ve been to LA and I’ve seen the devil close,’ means a lot of things, and it is to be taken in whichever way people want it to be taken. In my mind, when I was writing it, it was a mixture of things. It was a certain person but also a type of person. It was about the way that LA makes people and how it turns people. It’s about how you can be at a party and someone is talking to you but they’re looking over your shoulder to see who’s the next most important person they can be talking to. It’s this fakeness and this way that people are and the value of your fame or your status or success is who you are.
That’s the devil in those people, acting like that and being influenced into that culture is so not enjoyable and it’s such a fake thing because it’s all about numbers. It’s not an enjoyable way to be and I see why people avoid it and it’s definitely something that I avoid. It’s not good for your soul. It’s weird to be treated differently because of success or fame.
Obviously you do meet real good and nice people but there’s this thing if you’re at an LA party then that’s the vibe. But, also there’s executives at record labels who pretend they care about you but they really don’t care about you and they just care about money. A lot of people dream of Hollywood and they dream of this thing – but it’s not really what you think it is.
Shop the look: Shirt and trousers: The Frankie shop; vest: 33mm; belt: Bloom; shoes: Christian Louboutin; sunglasses: Jimmy Fairly; pearl necklace: 33mm; heart pendant necklace and rings: The Great Frog
SM: No, I agree. I spent two weeks in LA recently, and it’s not nice.
CD: I know, it’s not very nice. I’ve had amazing moments there and I have great friends there and there are beautiful parts. But it’s overcrowded, and it’s been ruined by pop culture and social media. It has lost its charm in a way of how it once was.
I went to Nashville recently and I loved Nashville because it felt much more about the art and actually music and songs. People cared if you were a good songwriter and you wrote good songs as opposed to the transactional [nature] of Los Angeles.
SM: What was that experience like in Nashville? Was it work or pleasure?
CD: For work, just to continue writing. I went there after the album was finished, and I just kept writing more. Maybe some of those songs will get on the album as well. I’ve never really stopped writing, so it’s been an interesting creative process where I have been writing and then once the album was done and delivered I will just keep writing more and more and more. That’s a great problem to have.
SM: Was that a spur of inspiration after Victory or have you always been consistent with songwriting?
CD: I definitely felt inspired from different things but I’ve always been able to write a lot. It just depends: it ebbs and flows, and I change what inspires me.
SM: You’re in a great position now where you can travel to all these different places to work as the inspiration will be limitless.
CD: It’s great. Changing locations is really powerful because it changes your mind. When you move somewhere, it does something to your brain, it tricks you into feeling more inspired, and to look at things in a different way. I love that about travelling; it keeps the water flowing and the songs coming.
SM: You’ve had an incredible couple of years, including winning a Grammy for ‘Best R&B Song’ as the co-writer of SZA’s ‘Saturn’… How did that come about?
CD: That was absolutely crazy. I think she found these videos, before I was doing choir flashmobs, it was videos of me in my home studio with friends layering vocals for ‘I’ll be Waiting’.
She found that and really liked it. She reached out to me about working with her and I went to LA and we wrote [Saturn] – and more than a year later, it came out. And then however long after that again, it’s nominated for a Grammy, and wins it.
SM: What was that experience like?
CD: It’s absolutely insane to be involved in that. It’s actually pretty surreal. To be honest, it doesn’t feel like a real thing to have a Grammy, it’s very weird. It’s the biggest honour and I’ve learned so much from that experience. I learned so much from SZA, she’s just so talented and such an incredible writer and musician. She sets the bar so high. That was an honour to be part of that song.
SM: What I love about SZA is that she’s always commenting on memes and random videos on Instagram… So it’s great to see that she’s always looking at other artists and giving them opportunities too.
CD: She really has her finger on the pulse and that’s a great way to be – having your eye on what talent is out there and what people are doing; it’s such a great thing. I find that really exciting about the internet, there are so many amazing artists and young singer-songwriters that I’m discovering in Ireland.
I might find something and think, “Wow, they’re so good!” and suddenly find out they’re Irish – and I’m so impressed, and feel so proud and connected.
SM: You were the first ever Irish artist to win in an R&B category at the Grammys… How did the people back home celebrate?
CD: It’s crazy. There are paintings of me in my hometown with the Grammy; it’s surreal. Back home in Ireland, everyone was very proud. It’s cool and it shows people that you can dream big from wherever you’re from, and there are no limits to what you can achieve.
I’m honoured that I can maybe be an inspiration for that in whatever way, and play a small part in inspiring Irish music and other young people in Ireland who have dreams and goals that other people might think are crazy.
SM: How does it feel to see a mural of yourself… must be a bizarre moment?
CD: I haven’t actually been home yet, but it’s painted on the side of Cork Opera House on this box. People have sent me pictures, and I’m hoping that I get home before somebody sprays over it and covers it up. Even just to see that and to have seen that they cared enough to do that is crazy.
It has meant the world to me.
It’s a crazy thing and it’s weird to have a home town and country be proud of you and feel a pride in what you’ve done and what you’ve achieved; it’s really special.
It is about being yourself and doing what you want and letting go but also being honest, true and vulnerable.
SM: There is a raw vulnerability that comes through in your songwriting. Does this come naturally, or is it something you’ve had to work on?
CD: I don’t find it hard to be vulnerable, personal and honest; it’s just the way that I know how to be. It’s my style of writing.
It’s easier to sing and write about your problems, feelings and emotions than it is to talk about them. I like to channel those things that are on my mind into songs.
SM: What can fans expect from your upcoming tour?
CD: I want to make something incredible. I want to make a magical experience and something really fun. It’s going to be a big proper musical, fun, interactive and personal show – and it’s going to be really special.
I want each night to feel unique, I don’t want it to feel like a repeated thing. I want to connect and feel a moment in that night that feels really special to that city, to that venue, and to that crowd.
SM: You started from busking in the streets and now you’re playing sold-out arenas. Do you ever stop and look at how far you’ve come on this wild journey?
CD: Now and then. Last night, I was thinking about it, and watching back some of my shows from last summer, and trying to take it in that that is really me. It’s really hard to understand it – and it’s hard to take in – but I’m trying to. It’s very easy to always be looking forward towards the next thing and to feel that pressure.
I’ve done it. I have huge goals and I still have so much further to go, but I’ve done it. I’ve done the things that most people could only dream of doing – getting to this point, playing those kinds of shows, and making [my] dreams come true.
I’m at a place where I do this now; this is my life and this will be my life forever. I want to take it in and be like, “This is pretty sick! Nobody can take this away from me.” Now, I just need to really enjoy it and take it in. So I’m really excited about the next tour.
SM: Not many people can say they’ve had a number-one album and selling out arenas… everything else is just a bonus.
CD: Absolutely, exactly.
Little Dreaming by Cian Ducrot is out now.
