Tyce Delk might have arrived at C2C in London as one of the artists that people weren't as familiar with, but he won himself a legion of new fans.
At only 23-years-old, Delk has grown an audience via social media when his song ‘Adaline' went viral. As his popularity quickly rises, Delk is building on the promise of ‘Adaline' with his subsequent releases. Mixing Country with Soul, the singer-songwriter is turning heads for all of the right reasons.
I caught up with Tyce during C2C to talk about playing at the festival, find out what his plans are for new music and to discuss the pressures of growing an audience on social media…
How has C2C been treating you?
It's been awesome. This is my first time outta the United States and being here in London. We got here Thursday night and we went to like Oxford Street and we've been able to go do a few things. This afternoon we're gonna go try and find a couple more spots and go sight see a little bit. It's been awesome so far.
You've done all of your shows already for this year's festival. What were the crowds like?
Yeah, we've done three shows and they've been great. It's been pretty cool to see people sing some songs back. It's pretty wild that my music makes it all the way from America to here, you know? That part of it's really cool.
You've probably noticed with the fans here that they'll research everything you've ever done and they will know everything…
Yeah!. They all know ‘Adaline' but then a lot of 'em are like, ‘but we love your other music too'. It's pretty cool to see 'em dive deeper into that aspect of it.
‘Adaline' was your debut single and it started everything for you. What was that experience like when the song started to blow up?
It was pretty crazy. Social media has really changed the way the music world works nowadays. It's a blessing and a curse because you get thrown into the fire so fast. It's been a dream of mine. A lot of people have some degree of a vendetta against the overnight blow up on TikTok and any stuff like that but at the end of the day, if you want anything to be sustainable, you're gonna have to be consistent and work with it. ‘Adaline' blew up, but we've played a couple shows to less than 60 people. You still gotta have that road dog mentality a little bit. It's been awesome getting thrown into the fire, but then also having to earn it in another aspect. It's been really cool to just go through the entire process.
I've been covering C2C since the very first one back in 2013 and it used to be the case that artists had to have an album or two under their belt. The past couple of years, we are seeing more artists coming here that have a handful of singles out after finding an audience through social media, so we can see that change. How did you leverage social media to your advantage?
I'm still learning. There's such a way to go about the social media thing and obviously you gotta be able to sing. You gotta be good, but you gotta be somebody that people like to see, you know? Social media is so unique, so you've gotta develop an audience on social media and in real life. I'm still learning the social media aspect of it but it's such a great tool for artists and songwriters to use to get their work out.
I imagine with a voice like yours, it's a lot easier to grab attention? Your voice is incredible…
Oh, thank you.
I was listening to your music on the drive in this morning, and there's so much soul in there. You can hear inspiration from quite a lot of the greats from Soul and Country. Who were those artists that you grew up on that have helped you formulate this sound?
Growing up, it was honestly like a lot of Willie, Waylon and Merle, some of those old Western swing guys. My giants would be Stapleton and Vince Gill so being able to find a marriage between the two sounds and ride that middle ground of western swing, but also soul and blues s where I find my cup of tea. Red Clay Strays are more of a recent one that I really gravitate towards.
To my ear, your voice sounds effortless. It just sounds like it's ripping straight from the soul and you can hear all that emotion in it. When did you realise you could sing?
I writing songs and singing when I turned 18 and I'm 23 now so it hasn't been that long. I played acoustic gigs for nearly five years, just every Tuesday and Thursday at any steakhouse I could. I never sang the soulful blues stuff until I started writing ‘Adaline'. That's the beautiful thing about songwriting, nobody can tell you it's wrong. I just blurted out (starts singing) ‘baby' one day and one of my friends was like, ‘holy shit, that's crazy'. I didn't really know I could sing like that. ‘Adaline; was that first song that I was like, ‘okay, I can sing in this register, this type of tone. Let's do more like that'. I guess when I realised I could sing in that register would've been like December of '23, but I was writing songs and singing gigs three to four years before that. I just didn't know I could do that.
I've spoken to a few artists this weekend that have said similar in terms of not realising they could do something musically. Once you did realise, how did you hone your voice. Was it listening to the artists you admire to try and recreate those riffs and sounds?
In a sense, I'm blessed and fortunately it came naturally. A lot of it has been trial and error, seeing if this vocal movement works compared to this one, you know? A lot of it was influenced by those (artists I admire) but a lot of it is just trying to find my own sound and just trial and error. See what works and what doesn't.
You released your EP ‘Enough Ain't Enough' last year and you've dropped a couple of singles this year. What's your plan for the rest of the year in terms of new music? Are you looking at more singles or a longer project?
We've got quite a few more singles coming down the pipe. Nowadays, it's the world of singles. Everybody's dropping singles, but I would like to get a project in sometime later this year. But for right now we've just got some really, really cool singles coming that I think are my best work by far. I'm really excited about 'em.
I grew up in the era of the album but it seems now the minute you drop a single, the fans are like, ‘what's next?' and they just want to be constantly fed. That must be exhausting?
The attention span of today's music world is so small. It's the same deal with social media. The entire world is obsessed with either one artist or one song for three days and then another one pops up. It's just a constantly moving wheel and you have to be able to keep up with it. I'm fortunate enough to have a great band and we put together a really good live show. I think that's 50% of it. You've just gotta stay up with the times and keep feeding the audience because the attention span is so minimal.
I feel like it must be a full-time job just managing social media in this age and the pressure is on the artist to market themselves. That must be a lot of pressure?
Yeah. You see a lot of artists that will get a million views every video, and then some of the smaller artists like me, we get five to 10,000. It's a blessing and a curse. I think back to the ‘ 90s and '00s when guys didn't have that; they just had radio and live shows. At the end of the day, the social media deal is such a great tool and it helps, but if you're good enough, I believe it's gonna work regardless between radio and live shows. Social media is a full-time job because you do have to keep up with it, one to two posts a day, and it can change your life just like that. It's always in the back of your head that one of these videos could pop off and change your life and that's what happened with ‘Adaline'.
When it does take off, do you then feel the pressure for the next one to do exactly the same?
Yeah and that's one thing I've been struggling with because ‘Adaline' has set such a high standard so I'm like, ‘dang, why aren't my other songs doing this?' but it's just how the world works. A lot of artists have one song blow up and then your next ones don't do as well; that's just the name of the game nowadays.
Do you have your eye on any dream collaborations that you want to make happen in the next few years?
I would love to do a song with Vince Gill or Emily Ann Roberts. Their voices are just so good naturally and they're such great musicians and great people. It would be awesome. Vince, obviously he's one of my giants. He's been one of my idols since I was a little boy. That's just more of a dream collaboration and then Emily Ann is an artist that I respect so much and just who she is as a person. I think she's just a great vocalist, just in the room with her and her guitar. I think she's able to put together such a good sound that'll make a living room feel like an arena. I have so much respect for both of them.
Now you've been here and played C2C, are you plotting your return already?
Yeah, i'd love to come back and do a little a tour with my band… bring my band back over here and play some shows for you guys. I feel like that would be awesome.
Do you have your sights set on the Main Stage in the future?
Yes, 100%. I'd love to play in that arena or even the Spotlight Stage. Playing in front of that many people would definitely be a dream come true. It's an epic venue. I'd love to come back one, with this festival – the festival's been great, the hospitality, everything's wonderful – but two, just to come back on my own as well, I think would be really fun.
What is the rest of your year looking like?
We're staying hammered down the rest of this year. By the end of the year we're gonna have, probably not counting the album, another seven to eight songs out. We're playing two to three shows a week for the rest of the year. We're just trying to get in front of as many people as possible. Very busy. We fly back (from here) to the States and then this coming weekend we got two shows in Texas. Then we go to Nashville the following week, and then we're back in Texas the week after that. It's just growing thankfully. We're staying busy, but that's the way I like it.
Tyce Delk's latest single ‘I Hit a Wall' is out now along with his EP ‘Enough Ain't Enough' and his breakthrough single ‘Adaline'.
