Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

KONNO is the moniker of songwriter, producer, sound engineer and multi-instrumentalist Dylan Connolly. Over the last couple of years, the Galway native has been involved in a host of projects, working with the likes of Darragh O’Dea and Rachel Walsh, and largely facilitating other artists in a wide variety of roles.

Now, Dylan is fully focused on his own work. KONNO’s debut single, Meet Me Later, arrived on streaming services last week. Inspired by the sounds of Sam Fender and Bruce Springsteen, it is a striking and dynamic indie-pop introduction to his music.

Co-written with O’Dea and Dillon Brady, the single arrives as the first of a catalogue of songs that have been percolating as demos for some time.

“I’ve been writing on and off the last couple of years,” Dylan says. “It’s only recently that I have confidence in my writing, and that was the first song of a batch of, like, ten that just felt right. It kind of wrote itself and that’s how I like to write.

“The music always comes first – that always comes really natural… Lyrics don’t come as natural as the music would. If the lyrics don’t come very easily, I’m terrible. I tend to just leave the song, and I might never come back to it again.

“I was lucky with this one. It just kind of fell out of me. Then I brought it to a friend of mine and a fellow musician, Darragh O’Dea. He tweaked a couple of things.

“There’s references there to the old barracks wall in Tuam and the old scout hall. I guess what we were trying to do there was tip the hat to the old showband days. I have great respect for musicians who lived through that era and it’s kind of an era that’s forgotten about.”

Dylan has another three or four songs nearly ready to go, but none came together as quickly as Meet Me Later. Having long worked to facilitate other artists in-studio, there were nerves around returning to recording his own work, but they quickly dissipated.

Pictured: Debut single…Dylan Connolly, aka KONNO.