Cian Ducrot is the Irish singer-songwriter who won hearts with hits including All for you and I’ll Be Waiting and has just received the prestigious ASCAP Vanguard Award for artists whose work is recognised as helping to shape the future of music. He rose to fame through TikTok for his soul-searching take on indie pop but is classically trained having won a scholarship to Wells Cathedral School in Somerset, after which he was accepted at the Royal Academy of Music to study classical flute. Classical to pop is not a very well-trodden route, so we were fascinated to learn more ahead of his appearance at Alex James’ The Big Feastival over August Bank Holiday weekend.
How much do you think your training contributed to the kind of music you make?
Probably a lot subconsciously. I think it’s important to try and let go of the feeling of having to involve that on purpose, you know? I learnt so much that I felt pressure at the beginning, when I first made the switch, to try and put some of what I’ve learnt to use. You learn so much in music, it trains your ear, it trains what you like, the way that you write and the way you perform [but let it happen naturally.
Good music can allow us to explore our emotions. Does writing heartfelt songs help you process your experiences and emotional responses?
Yeah, I think so. It’s hard to know how much it helps you process, but I think anything creative is good for you; doing anything creative is good for your soul and feeding your soul helps with processing. Maybe even just releasing emotion in general or allowing feelings to come out is therapeutic.
I think more people should use creativity to allow themselves to connect with their emotions, or just like be human – you know? It’s such a human thing to create and we’re all capable of creating in different ways. It helps you connect with an emotional side which I think is important, especially with singing. I think that’s probably why people love to sing and sing along, and sing together because there’s this release, and you get rid of some bottled up feelings for sure, without even knowing about it.
There’s a lot of pain in some of your songs. What does it feel like to be singing that at a festival and to hear it sung back at you by a huge crowd of revellers?
It’s kind of euphoric. I think that’s like the most special emotion and feeling. I love to get that euphoric feeling from music and when you perform live you get that in many ways. When you have a song (or songs) that connect to people they become their songs for their reasons and their emotions. In the moment, like when you’re at a festival, and you’re singing a song that you've written about something it isn’t about that at all anymore. By the time your singing it on stage, the people listening to it will have put their own stories on it. Also, it’s just about that moment itself, and there’s so much happening in that moment – so much that people are going through in that very moment itself – that it doesn’t even need to be about a past or a future, but it can just be about the present. It just becomes about that time and place, which I think is quite special. Then, it doesn’t need this pressure of what is it about originally or where it comes from; its just this special moment where everyone is together and singing along.
Are there any other acts at The Big Feastival you’re hoping to see?
Honestly, I was looking at some of the people who are performing and there’s a bunch of different acts that I would love to see, but I don’t know yet who is playing what day. It’s always like you show up and then you find out on the day who's playing the same day as you and then you just hope that its thing you'd like to see. There’s always great stuff so there’s always something you'll get the chance to see, something that doesn't clash with you. It can be quite hard – the amount of times I’ve tried to see friends of mine or people I’ve just wanted to see and missed it because there’s just no way of getting to watch it in time. Hopefully I’ll get to watch a couple of great acts and have some nice food.
Nice food is a given, right?
You want to get to the food, so you’re like; hmmm, go watch this or eat some really nice food.
What is your festival must-eat?
Depends on the mood on the day, depends how easy it is to eat as well. What do I tend to have at a festival? It’s always different; I’ve been to so many different festivals and as an artist you get catering so you don’t have to go out but we do go exploring as well. Not all festivals have good food so when they do it’s such an amazing thing
Do you get swamped when you’re wandering through the crowds?
If you’re playing at a festival, 100% you have to have a disguise. It’s like everyone knows you’re someone because you have the disguise on, but they don’t know who necessarily. I went through a phase last summer of wearing a double black Nike tracksuit and…actually I probably shouldn't tell everyone what I wear.
No, unless you've got a new outfit lined up for this year.
It does help, because you can try and sneak along somewhere and if you don’t have a disguise it’s a pain because if you’ve got 10 minutes to run and get food and get to see a friends’ set you'll never get there because you'll get stopped.
What are your plans after the summer?
I’ll be working on finishing my second album and all the music that’s coming next. I’ll be doing that whilst on the festival run as well, and then I think there’s maybe some more touring and shows after the festival season. So just the usual just back-to-back with shows and writing and recording. Just keeping that up and having fun.
Cian Durcot performs at Big Feastival on Saturday 24 August. Tickets are on sale now at thebigfeastival.com
