Australian Musician editor Greg Phillips sat down with Dublin-based singer songwriter Dermot Kennedy for a chat while he was on tour in Australia. In this interview, Dermot chats about his past, present and future.
In a relatively short time, the amiable Kennedy has grown a huge international audience organically, based purely on his talent and delivering a passionate live show. Critically acclaimed singer-songwriter DERMOT KENNEDY has recently shared the brand new video for track ‘For Island Fires and Family’. Watch it below. The track is released as part of a collection of his current back catalogue and available now to stream in full here.
The collection precedes Kennedy’s debut album which is set for release later this year. 2018 has been an incredible year for Kennedy and not only has he been announced as part of the renowned BBC ‘Sound Of 2019’ list, he was also voted #1 in NPR Slingshot’s ‘Best New Artist’ and tipped as a key artist to watch in 2019 by YouTube Music, MTV and Ticketmaster.
‘For Island Fires and Family’ has long been a live favourite of Kennedy’s but only now is it getting it’s official release via the incredible new video directed by Brendan Canty (Hozier – ‘Take Me To Church’). The video was shot on location on Inis Mór – one of the famous Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland – and is the very same location Kennedy refers to in the track’s title. Speaking on the track’s sentimental value, Kennedy states;
“It’s been an important song to me for a long time and to make the video on Inis Mór was extremely special. It’s a really important place in my story and holds a lot of very precious memories.”
After Kennedy’s recent tour announcement for May 2019 which is now fully sold out and includes shows at London’s O2 Academy Brixton, Manchester’s Albert Hall and four nights at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre, his massive global streaming numbers continue to rise and have now topped over 320m across all platforms, with 3m+ monthly listeners on Spotify alone. Previous single ‘Power Over Me’ has already garnered cult status amongst his fanbase and has received praise from the likes of The Line of Best Fit, British GQ, Complex Magazine and Earmilk.
With over 75,000 tickets sold worldwide in the past year, new music and ever growing sold-out live dates on the horizon, 2019 is set to be a huge year for Dermot Kennedy.