“I wonder if there is another world where I didn’t pick up an instrument very young, and I wonder what I’d be doing,” Darren Kiely ponders as he dissects his classical music background. Buzzing from his last night’s show in London, Kiely talks to Noctis about moving out of Ireland, finding his feet in Nashville, and his ‘Never Been Here Before World Tour.’
Darren Kiely is an Irish singer/songwriter named one of Amazon Music’s 2025 artists to watch. Being raised in an environment where ‘music is what everybody does,’ Kiely unravels his journey from picking up a fiddle to playing a world tour, with stops all over – his hometown, Cork, Australia, South Africa, and dates through Europe.
In need of a clean slate and an anonymous status, Darren Kiely moved to New York, where he lived through the textbook hustle lifestyle of an aspiring musician. It wasn’t until one of his songs began to stream exponentially better that he knew he had to hold onto the momentum and commit to pursuing the unpredictable career.
For Noctis, Darren Kiely gives his verdict on living in New York, his admiration for Bob Dylan, and the freeing sensation of tapping into the vulnerability of songwriting.
As the artist and the one performing on the stage, what does make a show a good show?
I think there’s a few different things. When the band goes on stage before I go on stage, like that first initial cheer, you can get a sense for how into it people are. I think the lesser known songs, when you can hear people singing along to them pretty loudly, you’re like, okay, people are really into this. The London show felt like everyone was engaged. There’s a feeling you get sometimes and obviously it differs, some places, people are louder and other places people prefer to listen and are a bit quieter. So it’s tricky to get sometimes, but last night you could just feel there’s was an excitement in the room.
How do you calm down after the show?
It’s usually just chatting to the band. When we were in Europe, we used to watch a movie, after the gigs, which was nice, and we just sit some days. If we were very excited, we wouldn’t even watch a movie, we would just be talking too much. Then last night I had some friends and family at the show, so we just chilled out backstage for an hour and a half, just talking, which is a nice way to make everything feel normal again. It’s so surreal I think being out in front of that many people that when you go into a room and it’s just friends and family it feels like old times again, which is nice.
What city are you looking forward to performing in the most?
It’s really exciting just to go so far away from home, and play music. That’s been the surreal thing. London’s not far from home, but it’s still far. I’ve only been to London a handful of times. So, to be on stage playing in front of people, you can’t tell from online and Spotify streams and stuff that there’s people listening and then it makes it a bit more real. It’s still so hard to comprehend, but no city I’m like, oh, that one or this one. The gigs in Ireland and the UK are always, last night felt like I was playing to people at home. I can’t express how lovely that feels to feel like you’re one of their own. I don’t think I placed too much expectation on any one place.
What about your hometown of Cork?
I’ll be playing in City Hall in Cork, which is mad. I’ve only ever been to one gig there. There’s an Irish band called Bellx1 that I love. They were huge in Ireland and like maybe 20 years ago was their peak probably. In that venue, my dad saw U2 play in 1982. It’s going to be nuts for him, I think, that I’ll be playing there like 40 something years later. Obviously that was at the start of what they were doing. That’s a weird thing because I didn’t always play music. And definitely the support I’ve got from home and to see all the people you love and your friends in the one room, it’s lovely.
What goes through you head when you’re performing?
I’m very conscious that any song you play could be someone’s favorite song or could be the one they’re waiting for all night, maybe. I think I’m so conscious of delivering each song like it’s the best I could do it. Then at times here’s like three different conversations going on in my head where you’re thinking about the song, you’re thinking about what that means, then you’re thinking about maybe something technical with the performance or something, or what song is next and then you catch eyes with someone and you’re thinking, oh, that’s that person.You just have to stop yourself. I usually just stare into space after a while because I’d forget the words. I’m not able to even double tasks, not to mind multitask and all those things. So, it can be tricky.
What made you pick up your first musical instrument?
It was in my family. People were always playing music around my family and we used to go and watch Irish music a lot and go to different places where Irish music was being played. It was a natural progression. You’re six, seven, eight years old, we’re going to buy an instrument. Which one would you like to learn? I chose the fiddle at that point. And then we did lessons after school. It wasn’t me watching music going like oh, I really want to play that. It was something that everyone did.
It was more as the years went on, it was more my curiosity of music and watching as I got more into it myself and got better at playing. I think my curiosity and my interest in it grew. If I’d never stepped into playing instruments very early on, I don’t know if I’d be here right now. I needed to do a little bit of it to know that I loved it. I wonder if there is another world where I didn’t pick up an instrument very young and I wonder what I’d be doing.
What about the performing part of being an artist, did that come naturally to you?
I would play solo competitions and fiddle or playing in groups and bands. I really didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t enjoy being up in front of people. I played classical violin as well and it always felt like you were trying not to make a mistake, that was how you were judged. I never liked that perspective or approach to music.
I never liked that feeling of everything has to be perfect. Because a part of me is a massive perfectionist. I strive for everything to be perfect. That’s why I think guitar and writing songs and the music I grew up loving, like Bob Dylan, all his lyrics are perfect but his performances were never perfect. He wasn’t an opera singer, he wasn’t pitch perfect. I think that’s what appealed to me, it was the rawness of, you can go out there and make mistakes. It’s live music, it doesn’t have to be perfect. That felt empowering and unrestrictive in the best ways.
One of your songs, Avalon explores your relationship with home, with Ireland and the feeling of ‘you need to leave’?
Yeah, I think it was something I felt guilty about for a while. I could have easily stayed at home and done it. There was something about the space from everything I’d known and who I was to that point in life. Also the clean slate and also the mentality that I got in New York and the energy that I fed off was that you can be whoever you want to be, good, bad, or indifferent. No one knows who you are. That was everything I needed at that time. When I felt like I couldn’t do anything, I felt restricted, I needed that space from home.
That was conflicting for a while to know that you had to leave a place that I love and that love has only grown since I’ve gone away. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. That was something I couldn’t write about for a while too.
I couldn’t make sense of it. Avalon was the first time I feel like I’ve described that. I think I referred to other people who immigrated years ago to America or wherever they went to and what it was like for them. I definitely felt like, well, I have the chance to go back. Some people never even got to go back. There was a load of emotions that came with writing a song like that. It took me a while to make sense of why I was feeling how I did.
What is your final verdict on New York? You were an aspiring musician, but you also had a nine to five job and you expressed it was hard juggling the chaos of trying to make it, and working to support yourself?
If the music scene that’s in Nashville, where I am now, if that was in New York, I would probably still be in New York, I would say. But it is an interesting place. Sometimes I’m like, it’s my favorite place to be in, and other times you’re like it’s too intense.The life I lived there, I was working nine to five, and playing in pubs at night and trying to write, trying to record. Every day was full on.
How did you decide to move to Nashville then?
I didn’t even know I was going to move to Nashville really until when I was moving there.
I was working at my job and then one of my songs started streaming better than the ones that had come out before it. Suddenly there was interest from managers and labels. I knew I was so time poor. I knew that I had this little bit of momentum and these opportunities. If I went back to working all the time, I wouldn’t be able to capitalize on them. So, that’s when I decided I have to try to do this full time. I felt like it was a good decision when I’d heard about Nashville and the scene down there. I felt like it was a good decision to move there with what’s going on down there. I found a great management team that was in Nashville, kind of early on, which I was very lucky to find. Regardless of anything else, I’ll have that support in Nashville and I’ll make it work.
I really liked the way you described your experience with songwriting.You said it was like an emotional reawakening. What did you discover about yourself when writing songs in the beginning?
I think I discovered that there’s a lot more to uncover in me than I’m able to access with my brain and through thoughts, and talking. It works for some people to go to therapy or talk to friends and that has its place for sure. But I think music and writing comes from such a subconscious place and I accessed things about myself that I didn’t know. That’s the constant thing I’m trying to do is trying to figure out what don’t I know about myself or what I’m feeling about a certain thing but what am I really feeling or how deep does that feeling go. That’s where songwriting took me and that’s the scariest thing ever and also the most freeing thing. It can make you feel real emotion, real depth, when that happens, it’s the trying to get there is a little tricky and uncomfortable, but it is what it is.
Your song ‘Weight’ is very personal and very vulnerable. What state of mind were you in when you wrote that?
I wasn’t even feeling like that on that day, but it was something that’s been on my mind for a while. How tricky it can be when you don’t feel good about yourself and you have to be around others. It’s this cyclical thing that can make it worse. Feeling like you’re dragging them down as well. You distance yourself from people. I had no song that had described that. That burden feeling is almost attached to every negative emotion I’ve ever described in a song.
I hadn’t written about it. I didn’t really know how to go about doing that and in the end we just hit it straight down the middle of it’s simple enough lyrics like I’m the weight. I’m the problem.
I wanted to represent and try and create a song that felt intense and felt like it was escalating to a point that it’s illogical. I hope people listening to it can realize that it’s not how you’re never that much of an impact on someone else.
Did you have any time to write on this tour?
I was lucky, a couple of my buddies from Nashville came out to four or five of the European shows, they’d never been to. We were in Germany, Switzerland, and other countries. We did some writing during the day, which was great to have the time to do that sometimes. If the traveling is long , you don’t get a chance. There’s some songs I love that have been written on tour, which is nice. I hope there’ll be more. And before I left, I did some recording of music as well. So we’re always trying to keep an eye on what’s going to be new. I feel like that’s the way of music right now. A lot of releasing, but it’s great. It always feels like things are moving and whenever we release, there’s an excitement that anything could happen.
Is there a new project maybe that could come out this year?
I don’t know if it’ll come out as a project. Probably something at some point this year, but there’s definitely lots of songs on the way. That’s what I wanted from this year was to have that regular feeling of releasing music that I love and it just keep things fresh. Hopefully brings in new people and makes the people who are already following along, happy.
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Photographer: David McClister
Words: Karolina Kramplova