Ciaran Lavery on Spotify Success, Record Labels & Finding His Own Creative Path
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In this episode of Wasted Creatives, Michael Crilly sits down with singer-songwriter Ciaran
Lavery to talk about the unexpected journey from working in a leisure centre to building a
full-time life in music.
Ciaran shares how his self-funded album quietly found a huge audience on Spotify, why
early streaming success felt both exciting and confusing, and how that momentum
eventually led him into the world of record labels, touring, creative compromise and industry
pressure.
The conversation explores what happens when success does not look the way you
imagined, the difficulty of staying creatively honest inside commercial systems, and why
Ciaran eventually found more freedom by returning to making music on his own terms.
Michael and Ciaran also discuss songwriting, poetry, collaboration, nostalgia, live
performance, the importance of creative limitations, and the story behind Soft Gut Song
Camp, a project built to connect and support artists, producers and songwriters across
Northern Ireland and beyond.
A brilliant conversation about music, identity, creative control, collaboration, and what it really
takes to build a sustainable life around the work you love.
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