Dylan’s doing big things
“Walking home, I can figure it out on my own.” The first line in Cork singer/songwriter Dylan Brickley’s debut single says it all.
Dylan has busked the streets of Cork city for over a decade, one man and his guitar, winning the hearts of his fellow Leesiders to become one of the city’s best-known street performers.
He did it by himself, figured it out on his own, and although his single ‘Close To You’ may be a love song and a song of loss, there is a defiant joy buried in its energy.
When the bridge sets in, replacing the vulnerable fingerpicking in the verse, the listener knows something explosive is coming, and it does. The chorus is on fire, sparse and full at the same time, sitting perfectly on top of the mix.
“It's a love song we'll say, but it's more upbeat now with the producer I'm working with,” explains Dylan.
“He added in drums and there's a nice beat to it now. We kind of changed it around then a bit, we changed the key of the singing from the busking version, it's much higher now and there's a fierce strong chorus in it.
“It's about going through change in your life, it could be a relationship or a friendship, it's about the loss of someone in your life basically.”
Like all good love songs, ‘Close To You’ was born on a balcony in Cambodia, one of the many places Dylan has taken his music to since finishing college.
“I was over in Cambodia back in 2020, I was travelling, and it was during the Covid times. I was living on an island in Cambodia and I had the guitar one night out on the balcony and I started writing a few lyrics,” recalls Dylan.
“Some songs come out very easy, other ones then might take a couple of weeks to finish. When I started playing properly at about 18 or 19, the songs were terrible, but thankfully with a bit of hard work it's getting better.”
The new song, which is officially released this Saturday 15 April, has already been teased on a few local radio stations and Dylan says he wants to push on now, get some momentum going and focus a bit more on his own material.
He says: “I hope it will open the door for me as a songwriter and hopefully big things will happen. I made a promise to myself at Christmas to get as many songs out there this year as I can and hopefully towards the end of the year put on a show in Cork.”
Dylan’s debut single ‘Close To You’ can be pre-saved on Spotify ahead of Saturday’s release. To check out some of his hugely popular videos, visit tiktok.com/@dylanbrickleymusic or facebook.com/DylanBrickleyOfficial.