DECLAN MCKENNA

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When the British singer-songwriter Declan McKenna shows up to C&B Cafe on Avenue B for his shoot and interview, he arrives with a full entourage—not because he’s any sort of diva (he most certainly is not), but because it’s the law. He’s seventeen, and when he works and travels, he needs a guardian. On this day, he has a few.

It’s a funny setup for someone so casually independent—McKenna got his first guitar at age nine, started writing his own music soon after, and was playing solo gigs in clubs around London by thirteen. “I didn’t know what I was doing at all,” he recalls. “I would just look up music venues in London and email the people at the venues or the promoters or whatever and try and get a gig. There were two or three venues that would actually let me play.”

At age fifteen, he released the now-internet-famous, anti-FIFA anthem “Brazil” on his SoundCloud page. It’s a deceptively breezy, considered rumination on poverty, globalization, and the act of bringing the World Cup to one of the globe’s poorest countries, led by his surprisingly world-weary and gravelly voice. The track earned him entrance to last year’s Glastonbury Festival, where he won the Emerging Talent Competition, and soon after earned him a contract with Columbia Records, which courted him along with dozens of others.

“It’s weird,” offers the young artist. “I was playing with my band back at home, and now I’ve come out and been on my own [touring in America]. It’s weird, but it’s been fun. It’s just been busy and quite tiring, it takes it out of you.”

It’s also been great. McKenna, who grew up in Hertfordshire outside of London as the youngest of six (his older brother tours with him), has left school to write and tour full-time, passing through South by Southwest and New York’s Rockwood Music Hall earlier this year and making his television début on Conan last night. “I stopped doing my A levels—which is like sixteen to eighteen years old—which you are supposed to stay in, because it was just too busy and things were going well,” he admits. “A lot of people say it’s an immature thing to do, but I feel like music is what I want to do now. It’s as difficult as any industry to get into, but if you’re doing well, you might as well take the opportunity and go with it.”

The music he’s making—his second single, “Paracetamol,” touches on the isolation of transgender teens—is hitting a nerve. It’s nuanced, often political, and genuine songwriting. McKenna references David Bowie, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Johnny Flynn, Kendrick Lamar, the Kinks, and a number of others as influences.

“[I look to] be inspired by their songwriting, rather than the sound of their music,” McKenna muses. “[I don’t] really have a format. Sometimes, I’ll go months without writing anything good and then I’ll have a week where I’ll write like ten songs and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I’ve got an album, it’s gonna be amazing.’ And then it’s never as good as you think it is.”

His first EP, Liar, which came out last week and features both “Brazil” and “Paracetamol” along with two new tracks, including the jangling “Bethlehem,” proves otherwise. McKenna is hoping to release his first album later this year after writing and recording this summer.

What that album will sound like is, according to McKenna, hard to say, and that’s just how he likes it. “I’m definitely very, very different, and I’m into different music as well than when I was fifteen,” says the artist. “I just want to experiment and try out a load of different things and just see what I come up with. I guess at fifteen, I was really insecure. I still am, but I’m just slightly more okay with that. I’m trying to be as honest as possible in my music and what I do, so it’s what I enjoy and what feels natural. I’m just giving it a go.”