It wouldn’t be The Long Road Festival without a little British weather. By the time I catch up with Bec O’Malley, the rain has well and truly arrived. Festivalgoers are soaking up everything falling from the sky while simultaneously soaking up the energy coming from the stages. And Bec O’Malley has plenty of it.
Bec O'Malley @ The Long Road Festival 2026
I catch him after seeing him perform on the Front Porch the previous day, where he pulls one of the biggest crowds I have seen there all weekend. Now he has delivered another confident performance with his full band. What makes that even more impressive is the fact that, at the time of our conversation, Bec O’Malley has just two songs officially released. There is clearly something happening here.
His music draws on country and Americana, but there is also his Irish heritage and Manchester upbringing in the mix. Both come from places where storytelling is hardly in short supply, so I want to know whether those roots have naturally steered him towards country music.
“I think so. Growing up and hearing country here and there as a kid, I didn’t really like it too much, to be honest. Then as I grew up, I was like, I’ve got to lean into it a bit more. That was the Irish country stuff, but also the rootsy American bits. What I’m trying to do is bring all these influences together with the way I’ve been brought up, my experiences, and do it in my little way.”
Finding His Own Kind Of Country
Authenticity is a word thrown around constantly in country music, but it is something Bec O’Malley seems particularly conscious of. He has spoken about not wanting to simply sing about trucks and dirt roads because that is what country artists are expected to sing about. Instead, his starting point is considerably closer to home. “Definitely. I only want to sing about the stuff I live and experience. That’s where it comes from.”
Bec O'Malley @ The Long Road Festival 2026
And when we talk about the importance of actually believing what you are singing, he is equally clear. “One hundred percent. It’s got to feel real to the artist, I believe.”
There is certainly country running through Bec O’Malley’s music, but pinning down everything else is considerably harder. There is rock, pop, Irish instrumentation and the influence of the city where he grew up. So I ask whether he is inadvertently creating another country subgenre: Manchester country. “I’m just trying to do me and bring my influences and my love for different types of music into this thing that I’ve got. Obviously, I love the country stuff, but it’s a mixture of all sorts of bits.”
That mixture is arguably what makes his sound so intriguing at this early stage. Rather than presenting country as a fixed template, he is treating it as something flexible enough to absorb the places, people and music that have shaped him.
Two Songs, One Very Big Crowd
For someone with so little officially released material, there is already a sizeable audience paying attention. I mention the huge crowd I witnessed at his Front Porch set and the buzz surrounding him despite having only two tracks available. “Two songs,” he emphasises. Not bad going.
So when can we expect to hear the rest? At the time of our conversation, Bec O’Malley is still drip-feeding new material ahead of his UK and Ireland tour. Since we spoke, Back To The Rain has been released, giving listeners another taste of what is to come. “The full lot is coming out. It’s all going to be out by November, by the time I do my UK and Ireland tour.”
I joke that Bec O’Malley appears to be doing the traditional musician’s career in reverse: start with the festival crowds and eventually work your way down to playing pubs in Ireland. “Exactly. I feel like it’s going that way, to be honest. We’ve started off strong, so we’ve got to keep it going. I feel like if we can start strong like this, you can aim for the stars and the moon.”
It is a typically ambitious answer from an artist who already seems to be thinking several steps ahead.
From Oasis To Fiddle And Banjo
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a lad from Manchester, country music was not actually the soundtrack to Bec O’Malley’s childhood. “As a kid growing up, it was always Oasis and the Manchester bands. One hundred percent, believe it or not. I was doing that for so long, and then I branched out a bit and opened my mind to more different types of music.”
Bec O'Malley @ The Long Road Festival 2026
When I first hear Bec, I remember describing him to another reporter as sounding “box fresh”. For an artist this early into releasing music, everything already sounds unusually polished. There is, however, considerably more experience behind those two songs than the release count suggests. “I’ve been doing music my whole life really, and then more seriously in the past couple of years. Luckily, I’ve got a great band and friends around me that make me sound better, basically. So credit to them, not really me.” That band is important.
Watching Bec O’Malley at The Long Road Festival, the combination of the full-band country sound with those Irish influences really stands out. There is fiddle and banjo in the mix, but neither feels bolted on simply for effect. I ask how important those elements are to creating a sound that people can immediately recognise as his. “I think it’s essential. I want to create this sound where, when you hear it, you know it’s me and you can’t get it mixed up with someone else. So it helps having Coleen on the fiddle and then Dom on the banjo, and different little bits like that mixed in with what we do.”
And getting that balance right is not accidental. “We try and do that. We spend a lot of time together playing, and if it sounds wrong, we’ll tweak it and make sure it sounds right.”
For all the confidence he displays on stage, Bec O’Malley freely admits that he is still working out exactly where all these influences will eventually take him. “I think I’m still figuring it out as I go along, to be honest.”
I tell him he certainly looks like a guy who already has it figured out. “I’m glad it comes across that way because it’s not what it is! I’m trying to do the raw-sounding stuff, but also a mixture of the poppy stuff as well. I love the Morgan Wallen sort of pop, but then also a bit of the rockiness. I want to touch all the different bases, and it probably will evolve over time as well.”
Whatever direction that evolution takes, he keeps returning to the same principle we started with: authenticity. “Exactly. I think the more time goes on, the more real it’s gonna sound.”
Bec O'Malley @ The Long Road Festival 2026
Taking Manchester Country Across The Atlantic
His ambitions are not confined to the UK either. When I ask about possible collaborations, Bec O’Malley talks about working with artists on both sides of the Atlantic — and, perhaps more importantly, helping convince American country audiences to take what is happening in Britain and Ireland seriously.
“Definitely. I’ve got some great mates over in America, and we could link up with a few of the country guys out there and obviously homegrown UK guys as well. But I want to expand this genre to where people take people from the UK and Ireland seriously, and do it in our own sort of way. I think collaborating with certain guys over in the States and getting out to that American audience, where they can see we’re not messing about, is going to help.”
So far, that American audience appears to be listening. “So far, so good. On social media, all the people from America have loved it. And then streaming-wise, America’s at the top of the list. So they’ve been great so far. I love it.”
I suggest that being a young, attractive male probably is not doing him any harm either. “No, the American guys are great. And girls — we love them all.” Fair enough.
Back in Manchester, though, Bec O’Malley has ambitions beyond simply building his own career. I ask whether we might eventually see a whole collective of Manchester country musicians following him and attempting to take the sound to the world. “We’re doing it. I’m trying to fly the flag and hopefully I’m going to be the first one to do it. Fingers crossed. But that’s the plan.”
And don’t assume that means keeping everything strictly country. When I suggest rock collaborations might be an obvious next step, one particular Irish band immediately comes to mind for Bec. “One hundred percent. I love all the rock boys, even all the Irish lads. Fontaines D.C. and those boys are smashing it.”
The crossover makes sense. Bec O’Malley’s music already feels capable of sitting on bills outside the country circuit without having to change itself to get there.
‘You Need To Believe’
Perhaps the most Mancunian answer of our conversation comes when I ask what advice he would give to young musicians from similar backgrounds who might want to follow him. “I’d just say we can do it. Being from where I’m from, Manchester, kind of Stockport, we’re born and raised kind of nitty-gritty. We’ve got to get it done because if we don’t get it done, someone else is going to do it.”
I suggest that what he is describing is simply a hard-working mentality. “Exactly. That’s what I was looking for. Hard-working mentality.”
There is belief in there too. “You need to believe. I think you’ll have it if you can play a tune. If you think you’re good, normally you are pretty good. But every now and then…”
Not always, I remind him. But judging by the reaction Bec O’Malley receives at The Long Road Festival, the belief is certainly taking him somewhere.
As we wrap things up, I tell Bec that I expect I will be catching him many more times over the coming years. There is just one condition: if we sit down for another interview after he has spent more time breaking America, I do not want to hear an American accent. “Oh no chance. You’ll keep hearing the accent.”
Good. Because that accent, and everything behind it, might be exactly what makes Bec O’Malley interesting.
Rather than trying to recreate Nashville in Manchester, he is pulling together country, Irish roots, Manchester rock and his own experiences and seeing where they take him. There is no attempt to disguise where he comes from — quite the opposite. The city, the accent, the Irish influence and the hard-working mentality are all part of the story. And there is plenty more to come.
Bec O'Malley @ The Long Road Festival 2026
Since we spoke at The Long Road Festival, Back To The Rain has been released, with more new music set to follow ahead of his UK and Ireland tour in November. If his performances at The Long Road Festival left audiences wanting to see what all the fuss is about, there will not be long to wait.
As for where Bec O’Malley sees himself going after that, he makes that pretty clear. “One hundred percent. We’ll be going for the main stages only soon.”
I wouldn’t bet against hearing that Manchester accent from a few more of them.
Interview and photography with Bec O’Malley by Henry Finnegan at The Long Road Festival 2026 on 30th August 2026. Instagram: @finneganfoto | Facebook: @finneganfoto.
The Long Road Festival 2026 – Day Three: One Last Walk Down The Long Road
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