Ciaran Lavery on Spotify Success, Record Labels & Finding His Own Creative Path

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.