Elijah Hewson’s natural state of stardom is coming over him in glimmers. “Yesterday there was a kid who came up on the street and said, ‘your music helped me out of a dark place,’” says the Inhaler frontman, piling into none-less-rock’n’roll mineral waters with his bandmates in the garden of a chic King’s Cross hotel. “That’s the most rock star I’ve ever felt.”
The Dublin pop-rock band’s ascendance speaks for itself: 250 million streams; a No 1 debut album with 2021’s It Won’t Always Be Like This; its 2023 follow-up Cuts & Bruises pipped to the top spot only by Pink. Then there was the subsequent UK and Ireland tour, which culminated with a homecoming show at Dublin’s 13,000-capacity 3Arena. Hewson’s got the fanbase, the profile and the swarthy, chiselled looks, yet rock godhood is a pedestal he approaches with some caution.
