Dylan Gossett was catapulted onto the music scene last summer when his song ‘To Be Free’ went viral on TikTok. Texas born, Gossett has songwriting at his core and his second song, ‘Coal’, delivered him away from social media fame and firmly established him as an artist to be taken seriously in the industry.

Ahead of his international tour, Gossett spoke with me about his second EP, ‘Songs in the Gravel’, heading over to the UK in June for a run of mostly sold-out shows and his appearance on that album – the highly anticipated Twisters soundtrack.

How are things going for you? You’ve got your tour coming up in June and you were just over here in Feb, too, and both times sold out! How do you find the UK crowds over here?

I love them. I think the energy is unmatched. I cannot wait to go back. In February, we started in Dublin and then two nights later was London and they were both very different but both just, honestly, insane – in the best way possible – so we’re very excited to get back there with a full band and then run it.

The June shows, you’ve upgraded the venues haven’t you because the tickets were flying out – that must be pretty cool for you.

Very cool, very cool feeling. I have the highest respect for those fans over there and I think it’s super important and my team’s been so impactful in this as well, just kind of building the music over there. We think it’s such a big deal and I love doing it and as long as people will come to the shows – it’s a dream come true. The fact that we’re selling tickets across the ocean, it’s uh, it’s pretty wild for us.

I guess this is all kind of new for you, right? Your song ‘Coal’ blew up last year – is that right?

Yeah it was a little bit less than a year ago, maybe late July or August.

How has that journey been for you? Can you remember the first time you played and people were singing those lyrics back to you?

Yeah, I’ll never forget it. I was in Lubbock, Texas, and I was at this place called The Blue Light and I was opening. Many people didn’t know any of the other songs except ‘To Be Free’ – I only had two songs out at the time. I played ‘Coal’ and it was like a room of 300 and like half of them were singing back and it was a really cool experience. And then you have a headline show in London or Dublin and the whole room is screaming it – it’s a great feeling.

What do you do to celebrate that, with your family and friends?

Yeah, what you just said, family and friends. You know, we’ll maybe have a couple beers backstage and high five and hug and do all that but it’s just a lot of fun. We’re not taking any of it for granted for sure.

So, your latest EP – Songs in the Gravel – how’s that going?

Very well, I love the four songs that we put out on that project and it was kind of my first step into not producing everything myself. I had help with two of the songs on it which I think really brought those to life. It was just a really cool project; I really enjoyed it. It’s half story songs, half kind of self-reflective songs. I really enjoyed it, and people are as well. It’s funny, you never really know which ones people are gonna scream the loudest and sometimes it’s the ones you least expect, so it’s been a lot of fun.

What was the process for you putting that album together?

So, there’s four songs and two of them I had written for a while. ‘Somewhere Between’ I wrote in college; it was one of my first ones I ever wrote. It’s about a guy that lives on a train, and you know it’s just a real story song. The other one was ‘If I Had a Lover’ – I had like 90% of that song written for a long time; I loved it, it was catchy to me and I just really enjoyed it and we kind of finished it up for that record.

Bitter Winds…actually, funnily enough, I was sitting on the couch one day with my buddies and I was just playing the guitar and trying to think of something to write. I think it was like Fall at this time and I was like, “somebody say something cool,” and my buddy Christian said ‘bitter winds’ and that’s all he said he was like, “what about bitter winds?” and I was like, cool, and just wrote the whole song about it.

I feel like the whole project is just pretty special songs that just…I think the songwriting for all of them was very different and I feel like they just meshed together. And I just wanted to get some more songs out for everybody.

So as well as that, you’re on the Twisters album, right?

Yeah – super excited about that one.

That’s so cool, tell me about that, how did that come about?

That’s a funny story. My team told me about it pretty early on and they were like, you know, they’re trying to make this album for this movie and there’s this certain scene that they might want you on, maybe give it a go. But there was so much going on like my first ever tour, I was trying to put out music and I was like, I just can’t think of it. I just kept pushing it back, pushing it back, and then all of a sudden, they were like you have 24 hours basically to get a rough demo in or you’re just not getting it – and I’m on a plane when I’m getting these texts. So, I’m like, I’ve got to try something. So I basically wrote the song on the plane with no guitar – which was very hard for me – and then went to my brother’s house and we just tried to figure out chord progressions and stuff. I kind of had one in the back of my mind that worked and we just kind of made that song – just threw it at the wall and sent it in and they were like ‘we love it’.

I worked with Eddie Spear on that and he’s amazing. It was a really cool – but stressful – process and I’m really glad that we got on that soundtrack.

Hot Country Artist To Watch – that is pretty impressive. Did you know that was coming?

No – they approached us and just really loved our stuff. I loved the guys over there at Spotify, so it was a no brainer for us when they came and said that this was something they wanted to do – it was an automatic yes. They’ve also just been so helpful with everything they’ve done for us with playlisting and stuff like that. Yeah, that was a shock to me but a very cool day.

It’s been such a journey for you hasn’t it if you think like before 2023 there was no music and now Country Artist to Watch 2024, massive sold-out tours. What are you most thankful for in that?

That’s a hard one. I mean, I’m just very thankful, one, for everyone that listens to the music – it means the world to me that people connect with the songs and it has a real connection to them and in real life like when I get to meet them and stuff, it means the world. I’m also just really thankful for the team that I have. They’re incredibly supportive and my wife is always with me, and my brother is my guitar player so it’s a family thing – my parents like to come to the shows and enjoy it. I’m incredibly grateful and thankful and lucky to have the circle that I have right now through all of it.

My last question – dream collab. Who do you want to be working with?

That’s a great question and do you know what, I change my answer on this literally every time. I would love to do something with somebody maybe like in Texas country that’s kind of like roots for me, whether that be someone like Pat Green back in the day or more recently Flatland Cavalry or Shane Smith and the Saints. But also I’m a huge fan of people like Ed Sheeran or Noah Kahan or Mumford and Sons – the singer songwriter folk kind of stuff is right up my alley. I think really anybody, it’s a hard one for me.