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It\u2019s hard to believe it\u2019s just over two years since Drake Milligan made his UK debut at C2C festival \u2013 but it\u2019s safe to say fans here have taken him to their hearts ever since.<\/p>\n
From a pop-up stage back in 2023 to making his main stage debut at the festival and a sold out UK tour last year, his rise has been nothing short of stratospheric. This weekend, he became the first ever Friday night main stage headliner at The Long Road, delivering an absolute barnstormer of a set that had the 30,000-strong crowd singing and dancing along all night!<\/p>\n
During the festival, Laura Cooney caught up with Drake to talk about his headlining experience, his love for UK audiences, plans for new music and more.<\/p>\n
How is your Long Road experience so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n Incredible, incredible. We played last night. It was my first time headlining a festival period, and it was magical. I was just blown away at the amount of people that showed up, the amount of people that sang along. It’s something that I’ll probably remember forever.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been phenomenal seeing how much your fanbase has grown in the UK in just a couple of years. What do you think it is that UK fans are particularly connecting with in terms of your music?<\/strong><\/p>\n You know, I think I think a lot of it is our live show. And I’ve got a wonderful band around me. They\u2019re amazing, and everybody has their own unique style on stage. And I’ve always made sure to incorporate that and people love that. And I think that far more than anything. You know, we first came over a few years ago to C2C and I brought the band over. And that’s what advice I give to all my friends who are coming up, like, \u201cBring the band. Spend the money, lose money on your first time, it’s gonna be worth it.\u201d Because I’m glad we did and word gets around. It’s such a country community here. And the word truly does spread everybody tells their friends and they tell their friends, and so it’s kind of old school in that way. So I think that’s part of it. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure it out because it’s definitely new for me and not something that I thought would happen.<\/p>\n How do you find the experience of playing a festival compared to your own shows?<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s cool because I get to hang out and see other artists that don’t get to usually see. So I love that aspect of it. I think it’s more fun for fans that way. I do approach it a little differently, because you realise that not 100 per cent of those people bought a ticket to see you. You know, they might just be hanging out or they just want to go to the festival or whatever it is. So you kind of change a little bit of the set maybe, to play maybe a cover or an extra cover and so on. \u00a0But you also want to, for the people that did maybe buy a ticket just to see you and spent all that money really just to see one artist, you want to deliver a show to them and try to play all the songs for them too. So energy wise, for me, I always want to keep the energy up in a festival and try to be the facilitator for that.<\/p>\n Are there any songs you\u2019re particularly enjoying playing live at the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n We’ve been playing a lot of new songs, brand new songs, I just finished recording a record that is hopefully coming out soon and we’ve already been trying out some new songs from it. We played a number of them last night. It just helps us start to get into it, you know, find our little things like we have on every other song and kind of get used to it. But I feel like it’s a special experience for a fan to be kind of in on it if they go to a live show and then get to hear those songs for the first time.<\/p>\n How do you feel that your music has evolved since you made your last album [2022\u2019s \u2018Dallas\/Fort Worth\u2019]?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, it’s a good question. You know, the way I approach music is a little different now. Just because when I did my first record, I didn’t know what my show was like, I didn’t have a show. I was writing to make that show. And now it’s a different approach too, because I realise that not everything I record, now I\u2019ve got enough music out, not everything I record, I\u2019m going to play.<\/p>\n But I keep in mind, maybe I want to fill a certain slot in the show, [or] I want a certain kind of energy in this part of the show that I’m not getting, so I should write something for it. And also just keeping in mind that maybe this is a song that is just meant to be recorded and enjoyed that way, and not really meant to be played live. But you never know. You never know what people are gonna gravitate towards. So it’s nice. It’s a freeing experience for me because I it’s the first time I’ve gotten to make a record knowing what I was doing in a way. You know, I’ve got all this experience behind me over the last few years \u2013 knowing who I am and what my show’s like and what my fans are like and what they like. So it\u2019s been really fun.<\/p>\n Are there any songs that have surprised you in terms of how people responded to them? Or ones they\u2019ve really connected to in ways you weren\u2019t expecting?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, yeah. I mean, especially coming over here and playing songs like \u201cGoin\u2019 Down Swingin\u2019\u201d, which is a Western swing song. [It was] one of the first songs I wrote in Nashville. Vince Gill did a duet with me on it, and that always surprises me that fans react to that song. Because it’s kind of a\u2026 you hate to say a dying art but there’s not a lot of people that that play Western swing any more. But it’s good to see that people all over the world still want that, and that whether they know what it is or not they\u2019re like, \u201cOh this feels good. I like this\u201d. So that one’s been kind of surprising. But it’s really cool to see.<\/p>\n