Ryan Mack is leaving nothing to chance. After previous incarnations as a BIMM student, a member of the boyband HomeTown, and a furniture deliveryman, the only thing on the hard-working Newbridge lad’s mind is his burgeoning pop career.

He shot to prominence as a solo artist last year with a fresh pop sound that drew inspiration from the likes of Jon Bellion and John Mayer. He’s back stronger than ever with ‘Got You Covered’, a smash hit from his highly anticipated EP that’s already clocked up hundreds of thousands of Spotify streams. And after securing a coveted performance slot on RTÉ’s Dancing With The Stars, he’s well on his way to becoming a household name.

“To have people dancing to my song was a bit funny,” he tells me. “I only got a video of the dance a couple of days before the show. It wasn’t too hard in the end, but I still nearly managed to get bulldozed by the two dancers during the dress rehearsal!”

Ryan’s Dancing With The Stars slot had previously gone to Irish pop sensations Picture This. With five consecutive sold-out 3Arena shows under their belts, the Athy boys have left some colossal footsteps for Ryan to follow in.

“I’d be happy with one night, let alone five!” he laughs. “I know the guys really well. I was actually the first ever guest artist on their ‘Traffic Jam’ video series. To see them go from there to their 3Arena shows was amazing. Getting as big as them would definitely be the goal.”

For a while, that goal didn’t look too far off. During his studies at BIMM, Ryan became a member of Louis Walsh’s hotly tipped boyband, HomeTown, who eventually disbanded in 2016. Is it a relief to be out of that space?

“From a creativity sense, yeah,” he says. “I’d been studying at BIMM, where I was literally writing songs everyday. But when I got into the band, songwriting completely took the backseat. It was only when the band was coming to an end, and we had reached that desperation stage, that I started whipping out the guitar again to write. I’d forgotten how good it was. But I really had to learn all the tools of songwriting all over again.”

After the group split up, Ryan found himself making a dramatic career shift.

“I worked a furniture delivery job for a while,” he recalls. “That’s when it really hit me that I didn’t want to do anything else except music. My brain needed to be creating – not knocking on doors delivering furniture.”

With a string of festival dates lined up this summer, including slots at Indiependence and Sea Sessions, it looks like he made the right call. While this will be his first year on the festival circuit as a solo performer, he enjoyed his fair share as a festival-goer too.

“I went to Electric Picnic when I was at BIMM, but Oxegen was my first festival, as an underage drinker,” he laughs. “It was rough! I remember sitting on the bus at 10am with the lads, and being told to get a can of Tuborg into me. I wasn’t really cut out for it!”

These days, Ryan largely avoids the drink – letting his career ambitions take full priority.

“I gave up drink a year-and-a-half ago,” he explains. “People give me second looks when I say I’m not drinking. When I’m supporting an act, and someone offers me a drink, I just say that I drove, because I don’t want to get into it there and then. People are always looking for a big reason, like I was a mad alcoholic or something. But really, it’s because I want this music to work. I don’t want to go back to delivering furniture.”

Ryan Mack’s debut solo EP is out now. He plays Whelan’s on Friday, May 3.