Dave Lofts: "I’m a firm believer in that thing of there being only two types of music – good and bad"

“I’ve said it from the get-go; when fans come to your gigs, you have to bleed for them. You give them every fucking thing you’ve got.”

Dave Lofts is not a man who believes in half measures. Whether on stage or in the studio where he’s increasingly been spending time of late, when he steps in front of a microphone it has to mean something. Or, as he succinctly puts it, “What’s the fucking point?”

Nowhere is that more evident than on ‘Just A Man’, his viral hit which in detailing his mental health journey cuts painfully close to the bone.

Listening to lyrics like “I’m a cradle to meself/ I’m just so lonesome/ I’ve struggled with my demons and mental health/ And I drink just a little bit to numb the pain/ You see I’m going crazy/ Too much liquor and cheap champagne”, you know the Wicklow-born, Waterford-residing singer has a story to tell, which is why we’re sat in the Hot Press interview room with the ‘Do Not Disturb (Unless You Have Biscuits, Pastries or Cakes)’ sign switched on.

It speaks volumes about the 32-year-old’s talents that he’s been embraced by some of Ireland’s most celebrated performers.

“I supported Damo Dempsey for the first time in Waterford where he has family,” Dave tells me. “Man, I had the best conversation with him after that gig. I’ve spent years suffering with mental health and so has he. The two of us got together and had this amazing chat about cold water, magnesium and other things that can be beneficial. He’s a wise, gentle soul. That was one of the most amazing days I’ve had so far in this journey.”

Also taking Dave under his rock ‘n’ roll wing has been Glen Hansard.

“I covered Shane MacGowan’s ‘A Song With No Name’ – what a fucking great number! – as a tribute to him when he died and stuck it up on the internet,” Lofts recalls. “This local lad who plays a lot of trad sessions, Sean Bermingham, is good friends with Glen and kindly said ‘Do you mind if I send the track on to him?’ Which, of course, I didn’t! Long story short, Glen loved it, reached out to me and we met up at Shane’s funeral. It was hugely emotional seeing Shane’s family, Victoria Mary and close friends of his like Nick Cave and Johnny Depp there. Imelda May, Liam Ó Maonlai and Declan O’Rourke did this beautiful rendition of ‘You’re The One’. I ran into Imelda not so long ago when I was doing something for 3 and said, ‘I still listen to that song when I want to cry after the pub, y’know?’ I’m obsessed with everything about it.

“I’m not interested in names. What I am interested in, though, is kindness and appreciation and that’s what I’ve got from all those people we’ve been talking about.”

Asked what his musical influences were growing up, Dave says, “For me going into a pub and seeing Johnny, aged seventy, singing a song a capella about something long ago that he remembers is what gets me going. Shane MacGowan was a hero to me growing up, for sure, but it’s the guys and girls I’ve seen in local bars who’ve inspired me with their authenticity.”

Which is actually a perfect answer. Dave later adds: “I love pubs. The bar sticky from tequila and the smell of piss going from the toilets into the bar. The smiles, the laughter and the sense of camaraderie. Honestly, there’s nothing I like more in life than sitting in a pub with me mates and me missus and just shooting the shit.”

Dave Lofts. Photo: Hana May

Dave had just hit his teens when he became the proud owner of his first guitar.

“It was a black Tanglewood which I brought over to the school across the road from our house in Tiknock,” he reminisces. “I climbed up on top of the main building which overlooks Luqnaquilla and Mount Céidín. The sun was going down, I had a packet of Drum tobacco and two bottles of Budweiser, and was figuring out chords on my guitar. It was magic.”

Moving to Waterford from Wicklow when he was seventeen, Dave bagged himself a job locally with Odeon Cinemas before four years later joining the Irish Army.

“I was in the defence forces for just over a year,” he recalls. “I never had the privilege of being deployed – in a heartbeat I’d have gone to somewhere like the Lebanon – because I pulled a bit of an injury during my basic training. When I went back in for the 2-3 Star Course it was still there, and… You know what it was, Stuart? I just couldn’t be arsed. I was kind of done. I was only young and thought, ‘There’s so much more I could do now.’”

What had he hoped to get from being in the army?

“I believed – and still do – that everybody should go into the military at a young age,” he replies. “Do the six months basic training just to say you’ve done something for yourself and your country. Why not learn how to fire a rifle or do a section attack or iron your clothes and stand with your chest out and pride in your eyes?

“Chatting to you, I’m starting to realise that maybe I’m using my injury as an excuse. At the time I was totally balls deep, I loved it, but maybe it was just too tough for me and I couldn’t handle it. And that’s okay.”

Had Dave experienced mental health difficulties before joining up?

“No,” he says. “For me, it was after I left the military. I returned to Waterford, got my job back at Odeon and thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing? I’m after going from the coolest career ever – rolling around in fields and shooting guns with your mates – to whatever this is.’

“I was later working in a bar when this friend of mine, Darren, came in and said, ‘Hey, you always talk about food, I could get you a job in a kitchen.’ So I went into a kitchen. As well as cheffing I was gigging a lot and one day outside a pub had this fucking mad moment when everything went wavey.

“I just broke down; the whole world swallowed me, man. I really thought I was dying. It was the Executive Chef where I was working who said, ‘Go to the fucking doctor, there’s something wrong with ya.’”

The eventual diagnosis being that Dave had an anxiety disorder that could lead to a panic disorder.

“The doctor was like, ‘You’ve two options here. You can either go and get help or just fucking brush it off like the majority of men.’ I said, ‘I can’t do that. If I want to go into music, I have to lead by example.’

“Do you know what’s been really good for me?” Dave adds. “Box breathing. You breathe in for four seconds, hold it for eight and then breathe out slowly for four seconds.”

Which brings us to ‘Just A Man’, a song that delves into the darkest reaches of Dave’s psyche.

“Yeah, this one was personal,” he nods. “I was like, ‘Right, let them fucking have it!’ How can I ask you to be vulnerable and show me who you really are if I’m not prepared to do it myself? I’d just be a hypocrite. Like I said earlier, I need to bleed and put it all out there.”

When did he realise that ‘Just A Man’ was connecting on a guttural level with people?

“When my mum cried. It got to the last lyric – ‘Mammy, take a look at me and tell me you’re proud of all I am’ – and she started bawling. That was the moment I knew I’d done it right. All that you are and all you aspire to be you owe to your angel darling mother.”

Last summer found Dave topping the Irish independent album chart with Live From Phil Grimes, which was recorded over five rabble rousing nights in the titular Waterford boozer.

“I’ve two locals in Waterford and that’s one of them. When my other manager, Edison, said, ‘Let’s do five shows there and record the last one’, I was like, ‘This is stupid, no one’s going to come.’ But he was fucking right, they did and it’s a record I’m really proud of.”

Phil Grimes was also the scene in February of Moncrieff’s triumphant Déise homecoming.

“I knew Moncrieff when he was still Chris Breheny,” Dave reveals. “We used to pal around and sing songs together in his house. I never forget when he told me he was going to England. Like every Irishman, I said, ‘Fuck off you eejit, why are you doing that? You can make it here.’ He took the risk and it’s paid off big time.

“When Chris did that pop-up show in Waterford, I got a text from him saying, ‘Are you coming down?’ I was like, ‘Try fucking stopping me!’ I’m very proud of him.”

By the time you read this, Dave Lofts will, as far as we can ascertain, be the only musician to have supported both Wolf Alice and The Wolfe Tones.

“I had to speed all my songs up for those Wolf Alice shows!” he jokes. “My priority was to show their fans that this guy’s real, he’s not hiding behind an image. Anyway, they let me in and treated me like one of their own. They were wholeheartedly beautiful and amazing. I’m sure The Wolfe Tones fans will be the same when I open for them in Limerick.

“I also went on tour with The High Kings who are fucking great guys, so sound! One of them, Finbarr, is Liam Clancy’s nephew and looks just like him. I’m a firm believer in that thing of there being only two types of music – good and bad.”

Dave Lofts supporting The Wolfe Tones @Thomand Park on July 9th 2025. Copyright Trevor McGrath/Hotpress.com

In addition to running round Ireland, Dave is fresh back from Burbank, California where all the right people seem to have been impressed.

“Edison rang me and said, ‘I want you to do a showcase out in Los Angeles’,” he concludes. “I hate flying so I was like, ‘Thirteen hours? Bollocks to that!’ He went, ‘No, this is a great networking opportunity, you’re going to meet a lot of major heads.’ So, anyways, I got pissed to knock meself out on the flight and was hungover as fuck when we arrived at LA-X. I went and played in S.I.R. Studios on Sunset Boulevard and then in Burbank where I was with this really famous music industry guy called Sat Bisla. He said he hadn’t experienced anything like it since Adele, who he worked with early on in her career, so that was a big compliment.

“Sam Fender’s also reached out and called me a legend on social media after I covered one of his songs. How many people at thirty-two years of age get to do what I’m fucking doing? I don’t take any bit of it for granted.”

Dave Lofts plays The Haven, Co. Waterford (September 5); Cyprus Avenue, Cork (October 16); Dolan’s, Limerick (November 2); Roisin Dubh, Galway (21); and The Ambassador, Dublin (December 13)