How agreeable are you?
It all depends. I think the best thing you can do in life is help people and do things for others, and be there for others – your friends, your family, loved ones and a stranger. But then I also think it’s important that if it’s your work, your music, for me in my career, it’s also important to stand my ground and put myself first and do the things I want to do, and make the music I want to make. But if I’m writing for somebody else, it’s all about what they want.
What’s your middle name and what do you think of it?
My middle name is Brendan and it’s probably the most Irish thing about me. And that’s what I think about it. I think it was after my grandfather, but my brother got Philippe which I’d have much more preferred, after my French grandfather. Such an exotic name. Why didn’t I get the exotic French one? But I suppose I got the Irish in the middle and the French at the end, so it’s all good.
Where is your favourite place in Ireland?
Probably west Cork. I just love the tranquility, the beauty. There’s something magical there in the air, for sure. There’s something there that’s mystical. And I just love the people. I love the little pubs. I love nature, the countryside. I love the trad sessions in the bars. It’s just a beautiful place, I love it. And it’s home as well.
Describe yourself in three words
Enthusiastic. Perseverant. Creative.
When did you last get angry?
Probably on my most recent music video set. It just annoys me when people don’t want to keep working and don’t want to work for the best. When people are like, “oh it’s five o’clock we’ve got to stop now”. I’m just like, “everybody here is a creative, trying to make the best piece of art”. You’ve got a director over there working weeks and weeks to do this. You’ve got a creative director. We’ve got videographers. We’ve got all these other people and then sometimes there’s one or two people who are just like, “yeah well this is all I’m doing”, and it kind of ruins things. It makes me angry because people are working really hard.
What have you lost that you would like to have back?
My grandfather. He was an amazing man and I think all my memories that I think back on, and that I would love to relive, they all have him in it. And I’d love to just know him better now. We were really close, but I was obviously young, so it was a different kind of closeness. And I wish that he could have seen all of these things that I’m doing now.
What’s your strongest childhood memory?
I have amazing memories of being on the beach in France with my grandparents, my family, my cousins, my loved ones that I’m closest to. And I remember that we would make these boats out of sand. And we would sit and pretend we were driving a boat in the sand. And the waves would come up eventually and destroy the boat that we’d made out of sand. And we just loved it. Those are my favourite memories.
Where do you come in your family’s birth order, and has this defined you?
I am second of two. I have one older brother. And definitely. I look up to my brother so much. I’ve looked up to my brother my whole life. He’s one of the most amazing musicians I’ve ever known. He was always better than me. He was always more talented. And he was always harder working. I looked up to that and I just tried to keep up. And I just tried to figure out how I could be somewhere as talented and gifted as he was, and work as hard and love music the way that he loved it.
[ Irish musician Cian Ducrot wins Grammy Award for songwritingOpens in new window ]
What do you expect to happen when you die?
Start a new life, I hope. Go somewhere magical, I have no idea. But meet everybody in my life that I lost. I do believe there’s something. Life is too crazy already to not believe there’s something else. What is this? It’s the weirdest thing ever that we exist. We can speak and move our fingers. It’s already alien enough that some sort of afterlife is not at all a crazy thing to believe in.
When were you happiest?
Now, I think. I’ve always been very happy in many ways. I’ve always managed to find happiness. My mum had taught me to always see the glass half full, no matter what. There have been moments, of course, where I wasn’t as happy and I struggled. I was happiest as a kid, being myself. And I feel like I’m finding that again now, being as much myself as I can be. And I’m happiest when I’m with my friends and my family and my girlfriend, and just doing those things that are important.
Which actor would play you in a biopic about your life?
I’d love it to be Barry Keoghan or somebody like that. Or Paul Mescal. Simply because they’re fantastic Irish actors, so I’ll take one of them.
What’s your biggest career/personal regret?
I think my biggest personal regret is not giving more time to my friend that I lost. He took his own life. You can’t know, of course, but I think if I had known I would have looked deeper into things. I would have given him more time and attention, and I would have been more aware ... It’s a stupid thing, in hindsight I could have never done it really. We’re all caught up in our own lives. It definitely has taught me a lot about life.
Have you any psychological quirks?
I stare into the distance. I tap my feet when I’m thinking, and I click my fingers. I’ve got a lot of tics, people probably don’t really know this. I do things with my eyes, my neck, and I do little humming noises and stuff all the time. I just have crazy ADHD, so I can’t stop thinking, and my mind jumps around. I can’t focus on certain things unless it’s things that I’m really passionate and focused on. It’s very hard to get me to do something that I’m not interested in. If I’m writing music and stuff, I’ll be there all day long focusing. Otherwise, I’m bouncing all around. If I think of something I have to do it. I have to do it immediately.
In conversation with Jen Hogan
