PHOTOGRAPHY Amy Lidgett
STYLING Benjamin Carnall
STYLING ASSISTANT Annabel Webster
GROOMING Chad Maxwell
WORDS Madeline Reid
COVER GRAPHIC Peter Bonomi
“2023 has been an impactful year, for sure. It’s had everything,” says a weary-eyed Declan McKenna. Bundled in a vintage faux fur coat and peering through strands of his dishevelled mullet, he’s still recovering from a whistle-stop tour around Australia and New Zealand. Despite the jetlag, his eyes light up upon recalling his recent performances. “Australia was great, the people were really excited and the festivals were cool,” he beams.
In particular, he compliments the continent’s proclivity for vegan food: “It’s easy when you’re on tour to eat a lot of crap. I felt pretty good [in Australia], the sun was shining and I was eating well which I think is a big factor in how much I actually enjoy a tour.”
This seemingly small nutritional change is symbolic of an artist who, despite having just turned 25, is approaching a decade in music, and whose focus has shifted to sustainability – of the planet, his music and himself.
McKenna was only 17 when he famously snagged the Emerging Talent award at Glastonbury. A bidding war between record labels immediately ensued, all while the young musician was finishing his GCSEs, and his debut album What Do You Think About The Car? was released to critical acclaim shortly after. 2020’s follow-up, the retro-futuristic Zeros, saw the artist set straight any guitar-strumming singer-songwriter comparisons for an epic catalogue of glittering, glam-rock anthems.
“For the first couple of years of your career, you feel like you’ve got to take every opportunity and tour everywhere,” he explains. “But after a while, when you do these ridiculously long tours, you don’t have any time to be creative. This tour has been a good example of how to do things sustainably for myself because I love making music and I always want to have the energy to do that.”
When you do these ridiculously long tours, you don’t have any time to be creative. This tour has been a good example of how to do things sustainably for myself because I love making music and I always want to have the energy to do that.
T-shirt KENZO, Cardigan MARNI AT MR PORTER, Jeans LOUIS VUITTON.
His keen knack for crafting catchy bangers remains razor-sharp, as is evident from this year’s captivating singles, ‘Nothing Works’, ‘Sympathy’, ‘Elevator Hum’ and latest release, ‘Mulholland’s Dinner and Wine’. McKenna’s concern instead lies with the songs that haven’t been released.
“I constantly have this nagging thing in the back of my mind, I have so much other music that I want to work on,” he says. “With this album, we made 20 or 30-odd songs, probably more. There were some really cool ideas that were worth pursuing and I didn’t want to leave them. I feel like it’s always calling to me to music and to be working on something.”
In fact, it was through revisiting old demos and half-written ideas that the artist’s third album, What Happened To The Beach?, came to fruition. Tracks that might have been previously shelved due to a lack of overt political messaging or instrumental complexity have found a home on this album, which instead gives us a glimpse through McKenna’s lens at where he’s at now.
The resulting record is an eclectic collection of twelve playful tracks that lean into a wonderful wonkiness, yet are filled with heart. The genre-twisting album flirts between indie-rock, folk and psychedelia, combining the best of his biting, tongue-in-cheek lyricism with the same world-building qualities he developed on LP2. The artwork equally plays into the absurd, featuring McKenna aimlessly searching a field with a metal detector, while the album’s accompanying music videos include washing machine cosmic portals and sleepwalking-induced dance breaks.
“I think that’s why, with this album – and to some extent with every project, but really consciously with this one – I’m trying to take steps forward with each project and express something that feels like it needs to be expressed and not just leaning into what people are anticipating from you. There’s a bit of that that nags at you, when you’re getting known for doing one thing.”
McKenna gained a reputation for deploying politically-charged take-downs from the get-go, calling out the corruption of FIFA’s then-president Sebb Blatter in his debut single, ‘Brazil’, with staggering maturity and moral clarity. In 2019, his seething anthem ‘British Bombs’ condemned the UK’s arms deals, while 2020’s ‘Listen To Your Friends’ laments a number of societal problems, from wealth disparity and the cost of public transportation to the stigma surrounding drug use.
“At the start of my career, I think it was hard to find places where people were discussing the things that my friends and I were discussing. I felt like my generation wanted to talk about tonnes of things socially and politically, to call it out or to feel like they could make an impact in some way,” he recalls.
Now, however, the 25-year-old feels the atmosphere has shifted again. “We got it, but it’s a bit fucking weird,” he says. “We got what the owners of Instagram and TikTok and Twitter wanted, it works for them because now there’s discourse happening all the time about everything. The constant stream of information makes it harder to see the woods from the trees.” While he claims that he’s “definitely not done” exploring socio-political issues in his songwriting, he understands that a message, however important, can lose its meaning when overused. For now, he’s consolidating what he’s learned thus far with astute introspection.
One such lesson was letting go of grandiosity. “I always come up with great ideas, but then I need to fit it into this bigger idea,” he admits. “With this album, when I was overcomplicating the lyrics, I could feel it destroying the point of the song. It’s been refreshing…You know, most songs don’t explain themselves too heavily, they just give you a good feeling that helps you through the day. That’s what this album is for me.”
With this album, when I was overcomplicating the lyrics, I could feel it destroying the point of the song. It’s been refreshing…You know, most songs don’t explain themselves too heavily, they just give you a good feeling that helps you through the day. That’s what this album is for me.
Shirt ADAM JONES, Jeans AV VATTEV, Sandals AMI, Sunglasses STYLIST’S OWN
During the worst of the pandemic lockdowns, McKenna found himself spending time at home and making music in a way he hadn’t since he was a teenager. The following January, he traded London for Los Angeles and met with the album’s producer, Gianluca Buccellati. “He’s a vibes guy,” he says with a grin. “He’s so creatively clever and he knows a hell of a lot about music but he doesn’t overcomplicate it. He really focuses on the feeling.”
Feel-good music takes on new meaning under McKenna’s direction – sonically, the warmth of LA shimmers on opening track ‘Wobble’ and ‘Honest Test’, while ‘Mezzanine’ offers goofy grooviness and ‘The Phantom Buzz (Kick In)’ feels fit for an A24 coming-of-age movie.
The darker strokes on the album were inspired by the city’s less-favourable qualities. Unlike the maximalist arrangements of Zeros – which were largely recorded as one-takes with his band – McKenna set off to LA solo, and describes his solitary experience in Hollywood without a car or his closest bandmates. This discomfort sparked the inspiration behind his latest single, ‘Mullholland’s Dinner and Wine’, which describes the wacky tale of two gallivanting criminals inspired by conversations he had at intimidating industry soirees. “I couldn’t have written it a few years ago, it’s just too audacious,” he smirks.
Despite its insular beginnings, this album ended up being the most collaborative of McKenna’s work to date. What he describes next sounds like a scene from a movie – he hosted a work-in-progress listening party at 64 Sound and invited everyone who had contributed to the record already. “We played the album through and a bunch of stuff that didn’t make the album, just everything that we had, and got people to play over the top. Getting everyone together and recording in that way helps make the album not feel like an island. It sounds like a party.”
The session was responsible for some of the unusual sounds hidden across the record including chunky guitar riffs, breathy backing vocals, and Mellotron flugelhorn. McKenna has equally put his vocals to work as an instrument across the record, showcasing his impressive range and discovering new voices, from the woozy coos of ‘Breath of Light’ to the vintage-tinged rasps of ‘I Write The News’. The separated recording sessions also allowed him to explore the quirks of recording phygitally – playing with digital tools and equipment utilised in a physical or live way.
“There’s something more exciting about doing a show that has an element of risk to it and you’re not locked to a click track,” he explains. I ask him what song he’s most excited to play live. “I feel like ‘Mullholland’s’, on paper, should go off,” he declares. “It should, but we’ll see.”
To celebrate a record with such a comparatively carefree mood, McKenna has announced a series of intimate gigs, offering fans a unique experience to see the Glastonbury mainstage rockstar up close and personal. I had the same opportunity a few weeks before our interview, getting to hear glimpses of the new record during a live performance at the Sony head office in London. Surrounded by beach chairs and inflatable seagulls yet adorned with a seasonally-appropriate Santa hat, he served cocktails named ‘Dex on the Beach’ before smashing out performances of the record’s singles.
I don’t think I’m very good at being pristine, whether that’s on the record or with my live shows or with what I wear. I feel like I’m playing to my strengths when there are rough edges to it.
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It’s not only his music that has undergone a marked transition – his outfits too have shifted from the glam-rock influences of David Bowie and T Rex to an appropriately wonky attire that could be taken from the wardrobe of David Byrne. He cites American musician St Vincent as an “aesthetic icon”, admiring her considered approach to developing a visual language for each of her records. “I’ve sort of taken that influence and made it my own because I don’t think I’m very good at being pristine, whether that’s on the record or with my live shows or with what I wear. I feel like I’m playing to my strengths when there are rough edges to it,” he says. While he’s excited to embrace a more casual look, he promises that the performances “won’t be without showmanship.”
As he approaches the 10-year milestone, What Happened To The Beach? marks the first time McKenna is examining his own career via his lyrics. Unlike rockstar bravado, which he says he can tap into whenever a lively enough crowd feeds it to him, there’s a different kind of confidence that’s needed to address your career self-consciousness so openly. McKenna credits Buccellati and the album’s collaborative creative process for reaffirming what he enjoys about his music and about making it.
This new-found self-assuredness is essential for assuring an enjoyable future in the murky landscape of the music industry today, especially when your fans blow up your debut single nine years after its release. Written when he was just 15, ‘Brazil’ was responsible for skyrocketing McKenna’s career early on. Even so, he seems bewildered at the reaction it received last year when the track was revived by fans on TikTok, receiving silver record status as a result.
Such virality cannot be designed, says McKenna, despite what industry marketing teams will have you believe. Luck will inevitably always play a part, as does his loyal fanbase, many of whom have grown through their adolescence alongside him. So supportive (and, perhaps, impatient) are his fans that, in the two years since he last released new music, they found a way to create their own. A live stream of McKenna performing ABBA’s ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ was recorded and reshared to TikTok where it has since soundtracked over 650,000 videos.
“I’ve always thought it was a beautiful song,” he says. “I’m a huge ABBA fan and it’s from one of my favourite albums of all time.” The song is understandably meaningful to many, however for McKenna, the lyrics took on new meaning after the sudden loss of a close friend. “Everyone was asking me when I was going to record and release the cover, but I just couldn’t sit there and play that song. It’s so heartbreaking. That was when I discovered what is so resonant about it. On one hand, it’s about this story of a mother and daughter, but it’s so resonant in terms of loss and change.”
His reflection showcases another layer of self-analysis that is abundant across What Happened To The Beach?, best executed on ‘It’s An Act’, where McKenna confronts the contrived reality of artist life. No longer listening to his anxieties, the record invites us into an intimate and innovative new chapter of a musician who has figured out, above all else, how to have fun.
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