On the Rise
FLYNN

Today is Darren Flynn’s birthday. He’s back home with his mum and stepdad in Mullingar, Ireland where he grew up, in a 5km radius of locked-down countryside. Unable to see any friends, his plans for the evening are to “Drink Guinness and eat cake,” he laughs.

Flynn grew up listening to artists like Ed Sheeran, obsessing over their stories, until his dad bought him a guitar for his seventeenth birthday. Admittedly, he didn’t excel at school. “I was always trying to run into the music room and hide and play guitar,” he says. “I felt like I couldn’t speak my mind and I couldn’t express myself. It’s quite tough when you’re in a smaller school, especially an all-boys school. There’s a lot of pressure to have the best marks and be the best at sport, and I found that I never fell into any of them categories. I was desperate to find an outlet.”

At the age of nineteen he moved to Bristol for a year-long music course. “At the time I was watching Skins,” he smiles. “The nightlife seemed pretty fun, and when you’re in a small town, you feel trapped. I wanted to explore, I didn’t want to be tied down. I always had my mind fixed on going to England and trying to make it in the music world.”

And did he live out his Skins dream? “I definitely did that.” He laughs, “I definitely spread my wings in Bristol.”

Flynn began busking on the High Street and outside the station, Temple Meads. “That was huge for me, just standing on the street playing music for random people,” he smiles. “I remember doing that for the first time and I’ll never forget the sense of freedom of just being in the streets with my guitar, singing songs for people that I had written.”

With his dad living in London and the two of them sharing a strong relationship, he found himself on many weekend Megabus journeys to the capital. “I liked the contrast, London was super busy and Bristol was a lot more chilled out,” he explains. “I could never find a happy medium.”

However, eventually he hit a wall. “I got to the point with Bristol where I was going out every weekend, hopping between different jobs, and then just getting sacked because I wouldn’t turn up and constantly, constantly under pressure financially,” he explains. “I had this identity crisis where I didn’t know who I was and time was going by very quickly because I spent a lot of time getting lost in other things.”

He phoned his dad who offered him a place to stay in Croydon, rent free, so he could concentrate on his music. Flynn moved to London the next day. “That was the turning point for me. I was that guy who used to travel round on the tubes and the trains with my guitar on my back,” he smiles. “Like a fox, I was constantly on the look and on the hunt. It was a really exciting time. I could just focus purely on the music. For the first time in a long time I felt like something was going right.”

But back home in Ireland, unknown to Flynn, a friend had entered him into a songwriting competition for which he was shortlisted. And while he didn’t win, he did leave an impression on one of the organisers who sent his video, a DIY clip for a track called “Ask Yourself”, to several Irish websites. “All of a sudden it goes viral, and people are like, is this the next Ed Sheeran?” He shakes his head, “And these were the headlines on the articles. I was making local papers and tabloids and all blowing up, but in Ireland only. I’ve just moved to London, to try and make it in London, and now it’s popping off in Ireland.”

And so Flynn moved again, back to Mullingar, picking up part-time work and beginning to build a fanbase, headlining small summer festivals in pub gardens. Yet the video continued to spread and caught the attention of a manager in the UK who offered Flynn writing sessions in London. “It was really exciting. I’d never done a proper writing session before,” he grins. “So I was constantly over and back then for writing sessions.”

From those sessions came “Red Light”, Flynn’s debut single, a skittering surge of pop hooks that allow Flynn’s silver vocals to flow and soar effortlessly. Four months after release it began to blow up, racing up Spotify’s viral chart. “At the time I was managing all my social media, all my emails, and I was getting emails from every major record label in London.” He laughs, “That was crazy. But I was very naive, I’ve learnt that it’s not always what it seems.”

Signing with Jive in Germany, Flynn wrote a track for Belgian DJ Lost Frequencies, the instant and anthemic “Recognise”. “All of a sudden, we’re performing at Tomorrowland,” he shakes his head in disbelief. “I was lost for words. The song had been in the airplay charts for six weeks in Germany and Belgium so everybody knew this song, so I was under massive pressure to perform it. The whole song was completely shuffled up and I had two days to learn it and perform it in front of forty-thousand people. And everybody in the crowd knew the words, it was insane. I’d never experienced anything like that before.”

Recently releasing new single “One Of Us”, a rousing and empowering paean to his homelife in Ireland, the video mirrors his romantic pledge. “I wanted to capture Ireland in its best light and I wanted to pick out some of my favourite locations from around Ireland,” he explains. “We went to the Wicklow Mountains which is just beautiful countryside, you’re really high up so you get a lovely view of Dublin city, and we went to Poolbeg as well which is a massive lighthouse on the coast of Dublin and it’s just beautiful.”

And as the world slowly eases back open, Flynn has one thing on his mind. “Number one of things on my list is to play a live show. It’s gonna be a dream come true.”