The Cosmic Reinvention of Declan McKenna

So much of Declan McKenna’s career has been defined by image. With hefty labels like “the voice of a generation” being thrown around at the beginning of his rise to fame, he spent much of his early career being told who he was. Thrown into the spotlight at age 16 with “Brazil,” a track about the corrupt practices of FIFA, McKenna was quickly scooped up by Columbia Records after winning Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition. However, as the saying goes, heavy is the head that wears the crown. McKenna has admitted he spent his younger years trying to prove himself as an artist and, with rigid recording practices and a pressure to feel the need to say something with every breath, his first album, What Do You Think About The Car?, felt exactly like what it was: a teen fighting to find his voice in a world where things seem to be on fire.

“It’s strange when you’ve been somewhat of a public personality for the better part of 10 years. It’s weird because, obviously, no one really likes who they were at 16,” McKenna explains. “Not that I don’t like a lot of the stuff I’ve done—I think it was the same person in many ways—but it leaves you with a lot to reflect on. Without having that experience, I wouldn’t have had the amazing opportunities to learn and grow that I have. So it’s part of what has made me feel so confident, free and able to express what needs to be expressed without inhibitions getting in the way—thinking that it has to remain in the same vein as my past work. It can’t really be the same thing at 25 as it was at 16.”

Declan McKenna’s “star boy” personality didn’t start to fully poke through until his second album, Zeros. Once again, however, he wasn’t entirely in the driver’s seat. With a pandemic looming, the release date kept getting pushed back, making him feel like he still couldn’t have complete creative control over his own work. Even with the unforeseen delays, the album brought a new aspect of his personality to his music—one rooted in the glitzy allure of the glam rock era. He evoked that moon-age energy in tracks like “Be An Astronaut”—almost a Bowie beacon with grandiose production mimicking the thrill of a launch into space. Zeros has a rock opera appeal through concept, along with production that proved the Enfield-born artist wasn’t just a kid with a guitar spouting about the hypocrisies of the world—he expresses those political commentaries in an intelligent and abstract way on Zeros.

McKenna has always had his head among stars, aspiring to emulate artists he admires, like Bowie, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. Rather than reject any comparison, he gushes about how these legends have inspired him. Realistically, all modern artists are drawing from what they grew up listening to—no one is reinventing the wheel anymore—so it’s refreshing to hear an artist feel complimented by the comparisons rather than insulted. That’s not to say Declan McKenna is parading around as a copycat revivalist—anything but, actually. Everything about his music is a swirling love letter to his heroes with the bite that living in the modern age gives this new era of rock ‘n’ roll cynicism.

While the singer-songwriter has matured, in a way, McKenna has tapped into his adolescence more than ever on his latest album, What Happened to the Beach?—as if he is, at the age of 25, taking a chance at reclaiming the playfulness he missed out on in his teens. “I feel like I’m taking more influence now from my teenage self than ever before, in terms of how I create,” he says. “I think there’s something beautiful about simplicity, just going for it and not overthinking it. I’m really the type to want to keep trying out new things and working on showing different aspects of what I can do musically. As I say, stuff like this album has existed for a long time. It just hasn’t publicly for me. It’s as much a part of myself as anything else.”

What Happened to the Beach? finds Declan McKenna at an interesting crossroads. His first album was an artistic release of songs that had been swimming in his consciousness for years, and his second was delayed over and over because of a pandemic. Now, his third effort finds him leaving behind the rigor of a strict recording process and releasing it on his terms. “I think having a bit more confidence, more experience, you just want to do things a different way. I know what my strengths are,” McKenna continues. “That’s really been the key to making this album; I’ve been able to trust my own tastes and not necessarily go down the beaten track of making a record and go about it in a way that suits me. It’s obviously a stylistic change, but I’ve been leaning into how I make music most naturally in my bedroom: exploring ideas on a whim and not trying to sort of drag in any particular intention or concept.”

One thing so many of these whims have in common is an inspiration rooted in the visceral and strange. While going into the ideation of the album, McKenna let freedom reign. Yet a narrative began to form with interludes harkening back to a mystery planet. “I think the original idea of the planet was, basically, that there’s a lot of billionaires building rockets at the minute, and it’s the idea that, one day, we will get away to a planet that we’re not even sure exists. The mystery planet is the dream planet of the billionaires building rockets—it’s like a safe haven for humanity, which may or may not exist out there if we destroy planet Earth.”

If Zeros was a Who-like rock opera, then What Happened to the Beach? is a genre-bending, theatrical sci-fi amalgamation of McKenna’s heroes. “There are definitely a lot of elements that are in the same vein as a lot of music that I listen to,” he says. “I’ve always been into different kinds of psychedelic music and stuff that has a not-too-dissimilar sonic planet. It’s more about not worrying too much about the end product when I’m creating and just worrying about throwing things down in an interesting way. And having the perspective afterward to shape it. So that’s how the sound evolved—trying new things and gradually picking up little sounds and things I wanted to repeat across the record.”

“Then the interludes and stuff came right at the dead end. Random little bits from the album-making process that weren’t going to turn out as full songs for the record but that just maybe gave a little—it’s nice to have little grounding moments to give a bit of character,” he continues. “Messing around in the studio really is just pure fun. And that’s kind of what most of those interludes came out of; that was us building the world for it all to exist in.”

Intentional or not, his third record feels like a spiritual sequel to Zeros, as McKenna explores the weird and wonderful universe it took all of his sophomore endeavor to travel to. The vast darkness and unknown of space found him unable to control the destination, similar to his rise to fame, but now that he has inhabited this new mysterious plane—that could still be controlled by billionaire overlords—he still finds his own identity and courage to stand on his own after the tumultuous journey.

The album doesn’t demand attention in the same way Declan McKenna’s past work has—and I’m saying that in the most loving way possible. It’s laid back, sunny and music-forward, which the singer has confessed is how he tends to listen to music himself. However, that’s not to say that What Happened to the Beach? is devoid of emotion; if anything, it’s his most emotional work yet because it is so deeply personal. Being so different from his past, McKenna is most excited for his long-time fans to hear “Wobble.” “I just love the guitars,” he says. “It has a great balance of things that I love; it has quite an authentic, organic kind of sound but also lots of weird digital noise. The mixture of emotions—that’s what I love about this album; every song is quite emotional. Even though it’s not maybe my most direct work or, you know, somewhat sonically, people might consider it experimental. It’s emotional.”

What Happened to the Beach? sits in a new realm lyrically as much as it does sonically. When McKenna was younger, he—self-admittedly—didn’t have much to write about in his own life, but, at 25 and after years on the road, he is bringing his own stories to his work. With this newfound vulnerability, he gives a piece of himself to fans they have not seen before. “I wasn’t trying to think about it too much in the process, I think that’s kind of the whole point—that it was almost like throwing paint at the wall in some respects. Just going for it, just saying what I feel I can say in a moment and not overthinking it,” he explains. “So, it wasn’t necessarily nerve-wracking. Maybe it is a little bit now that it will be released. It’s starting to feel a bit more real but, at the same time, this record also feels different. It feels like the response and reaction are already different. I do feel like I’ve grown up in a lot of ways and grown into what feels very undeniably my own sort of path for me. I think [having] a bit of nerves when you’re releasing something is good. You have to keep the stuff that may make you sweat a little bit because it’s probably original and a little exposing.”

In an era where it seems like the average music listener wants to be spoon-fed a specific type of artist, Declan McKenna sits at a crossroads from the space his music used to occupy in the industry—a youthful take on political pop—and where it is headed—an experimental spark of inspiration and a focused future. His younger perspective was weighed down by the desire to have something to say in every lyric. Now, he wants to stand out just by finding his joy in music again. “The best way to stand on your own two feet is to not worry about this zeitgeist and make stuff that you just think is cool because I think other people will think it is cool as well,” McKenna says. “I know when I land on something that just feels good. It might not be for everyone but, at the same time, I’m just like, ‘Surely there are other people who, like me, will appreciate what’s gone into this and how it feels and what it does for me.’ I think the best way to approach making art is to trust those instincts.”

Maturity has a great deal to do with McKenna’s fresh, give-no-fucks attitude, but the change in his album making process has clearly left a significant impact on him. Specifically, creating with Gianluca Buccellati—the Grammy-nominated musician who has previously worked with Lana Del Rey and Arlo Parks—offered the most reverential influence. “The free-spirited vibe of it—I’m used to going in to record an album and really settling into a studio and being there for a set length of time,” McKenna says. “[With Buccellati], it wasn’t really like that. We were working out of his house, and we would just come and go as we wanted—float through different ideas and try to make something that felt cool throughout. There’s just something about having a soft focus on everything that really helped bring this album together, rather than have a really intense focus for a short time. It lets the ideas happen naturally, which I really like. It also helped instill this kind of confidence in me.”

“Nothing Works” was the last song McKenna wrote for the album. It feels like his final middle finger to his past self, someone who felt the urge to prove himself to an industry that would always find something to critique. “I sing the song, and you didn’t like the words / I try to fix myself, but nothing works / I feel wrong, I feel rehearsed,” he laments during the chorus, a direct callout to the critiques about his commentary-heavy past. McKenna finds a balance between his 16-year-old self and his 25-year-old self that I have to say I’m envious of. It’s fun, emotional and weird. Being thrown to the wolves at such a young age helped him learn to trust himself and stick to his visions. What Happened to the Beach? found a planet away from the serious radio pop of “Brazil,” offering space for McKenna to explore a wonderful world of creative expression. In many respects, the Declan McKenna of the past would be thoroughly surprised by the Declan McKenna of today. It’s hard for artists to seamlessly reinvent themselves in a way that doesn’t feel like a cop-out. For McKenna, it feels not just like a natural progression, but a cosmic and freeing necessity.

Find out what four albums Declan McKenna can’t live without below.

@pastemagazine @Declan McKenna tells us about the albums he can’t live without at @ACL Music Festival. #declanmckenna #austincitylimits #declanmckennabrazil #aclfestival ♬ Brazil – Declan McKenna

Olivia Abercrombie is Paste‘s Associate Music Editor, reporting from Austin, Texas. To hear her chat more about her favorite music, gush about old horror films, or rant about Survivor, you can follow her on Twitter @o_abercrombie.