Interview: Dylan Marlowe on Navigating the ‘Mid-Twenties Crisis’ that Inspired His Debut Album

When you listen to Dylan Marlowe's debut album, Mid-Twenties Crisis, it sounds like the project has been meticulously built around the vulnerable, keystone title-track.

Marlowe presents an eclectic array of stirring vignettes, which accentuate the volatile, variegated rollercoaster-ride of feelings that colour Mid-Twenties Crisis as a whole.

Dylan Marlowe flits seamlessly between crushing heartbreak (‘Heaven's Sake’, ‘Devil on My Shoulder’) and rose-tinted portrayals of young love and married life (‘Shop Radio’, ‘The Fence’), with a healthy dose of his trademark rural pride sprinkled into the mix for good measure (‘Deer on the Wall’, ‘Stick to My Guns’ with Riley Green).

However, crucially, it's not a steady, one-dimensional progression from despair to contentment. The sweet slow-dancing of ‘Shop Radio’ quickly dissipates into the post-break-up angst of ‘Devil on My Shoulder’ and ‘I Never Miss’, before he plunges us back into romantic territory with the endearing first-date jitters of ‘There Goes That’.

This is intentional, showcasing the highs and sudden lows and numerous days spent in a perplexing limbo that accompany this curious period of our lives - our 20’s. It's not an easy trajectory, and Mid-Twenties Crisis powerfully captures the spirit of this in a starkly relatable way that few other artists have been able to achieve.

Given how steadfastly Dylan Marlowe holds to the titular theme of the album, the assumption would be that ‘Mid-Twenties Crisis’ was the first song to be written for the project.

In reality, it was the final piece of the puzzle. As the deadline loomed for submitting the title of his debut album, the old adage ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ rang true.

Dylan Marlowe laughs, “I didn't have anything. I had nothing! I literally had no idea what I was going to name it, and everybody was like, ‘Hey, you've got two weeks ‘til it has to be turned in. They were printing vinyls and getting everything ready. I was praying a bunch about it, and then one night I woke up and God was like, ‘Here's your title’. It suddenly came to me at like 4am one morning”.

Marlowe's faith permeates the record, with a number of songs pivoting around witty plays on spiritually-minded phrases, such as ‘Heaven's Sake’ and ’Devil on My Shoulder’, while ‘Stick to My Guns’ and the title-track offer more earnest reflections on religion.

“It just flows naturally, because that's what I try to chase after”, the 27-year-old muses, “But also, I feel like there's a reason I'm doing this, and I think that reason is to be able to spread the Word, regardless of how I do it. Talking about it and having it present in my music is important to me. It's just little bits and pieces for sure, and in some songs more than others, but it's definitely intentional”.

Another vital pillar upon which Marlowe's Mid-Twenties Crisis rests is a fierce determination to celebrate his country roots, a drive that is shared - perhaps more than any other artist in the industry - by Riley Green, who appears on ‘Stick to My Guns’.

Dylan Marlowe explains how that collaboration came about, “We knew we wanted him to be on the song since the beginning. We wrote it two years ago. Dallas, my manager, is really good buddies with Riley, and I'd met him a few times. We had opened up a few shows for him, and he's just awesome. He's so down to earth. We sent the song over to him and asked if he'd hop on it, and thankfully, he said ‘Yes’. He crushed his verse, and it creates the perfect mesh for that song”.

Now, as seems evident through his laid-back but unmistakably positive demeanour, Dylan Marlowe has - hopefully - made it through to the other side of his Mid-Twenties Crisis.

Reassessing his relationship with social media, Marlowe stresses, has been key to preventing him from getting lost in constantly comparing himself to his peers, “It's a lot better than it was when I wrote that song. I think it's inevitable. Everybody probably [compares themselves to others] a little bit. I don't really see a world where you don't, unless you're just not on social media at all. It's hard, you know?”

What's perhaps most striking about this internal tussle that Dylan Marlowe explores on the Mid-Twenties Crisis title-track is the fact that, rather than concerning himself with comparisons relating to his career trajectory, the most pressing issue is that of his family. All of his closest friends, Marlowe notes, have children, while he spends the majority of his weekends out on tour away from his wife, Nat.

On ’Mid-Twenties Crisis’, Dylan Marlowe wistfully confesses, “This life on the road keeps me gone from home / And I hate it for the one I know it hurts the most / ‘Cause I know that she would probably be / Better if she wasn't living with my ghost, oh, oh / Lately that's what keeps me up at night, oh, oh / So baby I apologise”.

It feels fitting, therefore, that the final song on the album is an intimate, stripped-back tribute to Nat, ‘The Fence’, which finds Dylan Marlowe crediting his wife with taming his wild side, just like how a railing catches and calms a wayward tumbleweed.

Marlowe outlines, “We wrote that on a writer's retreat. There's actually like six or seven of us on the song, not because it really took six or seven people, but it was probably midnight, and we all just started writing in the living room. It was the last night of the trip. I had the idea from driving through Oklahoma and seeing a tumbleweed smack into a fence, and I knew it had to be something. We wrote it and did a really basic demo. As you hear on the record, it's just me and an acoustic guitar. There's nothing else. I always felt like it had to be the last song on the album”.

When you take into account that Dylan Marlowe already has a Gold-certified single (‘Boys Back Home’ with Dylan Scott) under his belt, a No. 1 as a songwriter (‘Last Night Lonely’ by Jon Pardi) and a solidified position at the forefront of country music's next wave of stars, his admissions on Mid-Twenties Crisis are made all the more touching. Listeners will see that, despite all the accolades, even someone at the pinnacle of their craft can still struggle with direction in their 20’s. Marlowe takes you with him on this journey and vulnerably lets you in on the full spectrum of emotions that have accompanied his path so far, before leaving you on a note of optimism and peace with the warmth of ‘The Fence’.

In doing so, he produces a debut album that will act as a highly effective springboard for a storied career in country music. But, perhaps more importantly, it will also serve as a reassuring, accessible source of comfort for listeners that find themselves in a similar position to Marlowe on the evocative ‘Mid-Twenties Crisis’.

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