Dexys Midnight Runners – LOVE biography 2026.
LOVE, Dexys Midnight Runners latest, possibly last ever album, is a luminous collection of scenes and reckonings. Stories of family and friends, tales from past and present. All drawn from Kevin Rowland’s life, each an individual jewel, threaded together with love. Songs begun three decades ago sit alongside those written in the last year. A vivid depiction of Rowland’s Irish immigrant childhood [‘My Life in England Pt 1’]; a moving letter to his grandchildren [‘You’re Alright’]; a wistful moment at the start of a love affair [‘I Want To Be Holding You Next Christmas’]; a pin-perfect portrait of time spent with a dying parent [‘Once A Man, Twice A Child’]; the difficulties of relationships when you’re older [‘Old Love’]. All deeply personal, all true, all here; the full human span of relationships, family and intimate emotion.
The theme of this album – Kevin’s ninth, Dexys’ seventh – gradually emerged as the songs progressed. “I don’t remember when it happened, but I just thought, ‘Hang on, these are all love songs, of different kinds’,” he says. “I knew then: Call it LOVE.” These are love songs, but not of the usual pop style. Not will-she-won’t-she romance, but something more emotional and all-encompassing. Those small moments that illustrate a rollercoaster sweep. “Everyone came at this project with love,” he says. To tell a lifetime of different loves. A love life.
Love is also their first album under the Dexys Midnight Runners name since 1985’s Don’t Stand Me Down. “We realised a couple of years ago that some young people know Dexys Midnight Runners from ‘Geno’ and ‘Come On Eileen,’ but some that we spoke to, were confused by the name, Dexys. And some, thought Dexys was a different outfit to Dexys Midnight Runners.,” says Kevin. “Since Dexys returned in 2012, we’ve always felt what we do is worthy of a young audience, so it was a no brainer to revert to Dexys Midnight Runners”.
Those familiar with Kevin’s wonderful autobiography, Bless Me Father, will recognise some of the people in these songs: his dad, his brother, his first love, more recent romances. But this is a Dexys Midnight Runners album, the group of players where Kevin began his music career, and where he works best. So his lyrics are explored and highlighted, lifted to greater heights by the songwriting and creativity of long-time collaborators Sean Read, Mike Timothy and Jim Paterson. There are strings, too, arranged by Brian Irving, originally from Belfast.
Fellow Belfast man, DJ and musician David Holmes, is the album’s producer. Holmes had long wanted to work with Kevin and Dexys: “They were the first act I was ever truly obsessed with, the first I saw live”. David’s older sister bought him a Walkman when he was 11, and his first cassette was Searching For the Young Soul Rebels. When Kevin sent him a demo of ‘Once A Man, Twice a Child’ (written with Sean soon after Dexys’ triumphant 2024 Glastonbury appearance), David was captivated. “His song writing is so strong,” he says.
And of course, there is Kevin’s voice. That instantly recognisable sound: soulful, soaring, challenging. More mournful now, but still as formidable. “My instrument is me,” says Kevin, “and it’s all about the feel. The emotion. The soul. It’s always about that. I like to think about who I’m singing to. I’m always singing to somebody, and I often have a picture of them that I take with me into the studio.”
His voice tells us that person’s story, bring us all into the scene. “Kevin could have been an actor,” says David. “He takes you with him, there’s always these spoken word bits, he’ll act out the lyrics.” Kevin acknowledges this: “It is like being a method actor. I did some method training once, and that taught me that you have to do all the preparation, then get in the zone, into the place, and let it happen. And it does.”
During the process of making LOVE, both found themselves thinking about the album filmically. “It was like we were trying to direct a movie,” says David. “I imagined him dressed brilliantly, stepping through these different life periods.” And with Kevin and Dexys, every album is like stepping into a fully realised world – music, clothing, look – and with LOVE, that world is Kevin’s life. To fully serve the songs, he and David got deep into each one, digging into the meaning and musicality, illustrating each emotional landscape. A fairground noise to highlight childhood confusion, some tango strings beneath a romantic battleground.
Kevin and David had things in common, including tough working-class Irish fathers, who became softer in their later years, leading to reconciliation and expressions of love that they could have never imagined when they were children. This made ‘Once A Man, Twice A Child’ – a central song on the album – both devastating and vital, with Kevin’s vocals a final embrace between father and son. “It’s like me hugging my dad,” he says.
As ever, Kevin put everything he had into this album. A man who can never be anything other than utterly committed, he describes his creative process as “taking over everything for me. It consumes not only my waking moments, but my sleeping moments, too. I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea and have to get up and write it down… It consumes you, and then you have to offer it out into the world.”
Though touring is always a priority – Dexys Midnight Runners have festival dates coming up in 2027 and Kevin is interested in promoting some of their excellent, lesser-known albums, such as One Day I’m Going To Soar or Don’t Stand Me Down – LOVE comes with a sense of an ending. “It would be hard to top this record,” admits Rowland. “Never say never, but it seems to end that journey that started with Searching for the Young Soul Rebels.” “It feels like he’s tying up loose ends,” says Holmes.
Maybe a journey coming to an end? A full story, completed by a stunning, thoughtful, record that gathers up and completes a superlative artistic pop career? The final word we hear on LOVE is ‘Goodnight’.
Written by Miranda Sawayer.
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