In Volume 33's first issue of OTwo, OTwo Editors Cillian Howley and Polly Rogers chat with folk singer-songwriter Becca Colley about her debut single ‘Nicely’, musical inspirations and the open mic scene in Dublin.
Irish folk-pop singer Becca Colley is an up-and-comer in the music industry. Currently studying at BIMM in Dublin city centre, she has already released music online, opened at the 3Olympia Theatre, headlined her own gig, and and played a festival.
A few years back, Becca was in the middle of a nursing degree when she took a gap year, during which she decided to try performing at open mic nights, something she had seen online. “At this point, I hadn’t sung in front of anyone other than my Mam!” Becca admits. “I was absolutely terrified; I hated it. I was like, no, this is not for me!” The more she performed, the more her confidence grew, and she decided to audition for BIMM’s music programme. “I started in BIMM, and it was completely different to nursing, the opposite end of the scale” While glad she made the jump to follow her passions, initially Becca felt like a fish out of water: “You go in, and everyone was just ready to go; they've all released music - and I had literally sung in my bedroom; that’s it.” Becca reminisces on her panic:
“I remember coming home my first day of BIMM, and I was like, Mam, we need to release an album tonight; get all the instruments out!”
Becca kindled friendships and connections within the music academy, curating her band from other talented pupils - “Bar one girl - my best friend Nora. She plays violin in my band. I went to a Florence Road gig, and I saw her playing with them.” She describes her first thoughts when hearing Nora play: “I'd love her to play in something, and she's also the most stunning human ever!” The support from her bandmates encouraged her to release her very first single “Nicely” which has been available to stream on Spotify since May. Becca acknowledges shes a perfectionist, and was hesitant to release this first single until she felt it was ready.
Becca laid out the differences she finds between a standard college course, compared to BIMM “to your lecturers (in a standard college) you’re just a number, I know a lot of courses are like that, but it can be isolating.” The small classes and close relationships with lecturers in BIMM allows for the workshopping of ideas, and helps progress and prepare these artists for the industry, “My greatest help has been my lecturers, who are all musicians and have done really cool things! One of my main mentors - is in a metallic rock band which is completely the opposite of what I would do, but, I would ask him to look at this folk song and I chat back and forth about it.” While Becca cannot recommend the course enough, she does acknowledge how different it is to what she had experienced in education previously, “it's a lot of just get up and do it. Which terrified me for 6 months, and I remember thinking, “I don't know if this is for me - before I settled in.”
Becca caught up with her classmates in no time, and November of 2025 opened for an idol of hers, Alessi Rose. This established artist in the global pop scene video by posting and tagging for their consideration, but Becca was a little late to the game, “I saw it was posted months ago, and I thought surely they’ve chosen someone…. but, I’ll just tag her in one of my videos anyway” A scam email turned out to be true, the video which Becca's sister had, “told me to take it down as the quality was so bad it sounded like I was singing through a microwave” had not gone viral or even broken 50 views, but landed on the FYP of some important powers that be. Becca reminisces; “Randomly, I came out of the college one day, and they asked to do a call to go through some back-of-house rules and I said perfect, and I answered the call, and it was Alessi Rose, and I was like… Great. I hadn't washed my hair! I had no make-up on, and I was like, oh my God, why would you do this to me!?”
The 3Olympia Theatre was a dream venue for Becca, somewhere she had long aspired to perform, ”The Olympia is like cosy folk, the dream that came around so early; I hadn't even released a song. I thought if I ever got to do that it would be in 10 years. So it was really cool my mum got to come and sit in a box; it was amazing.” She was starstruck, explaining how it felt to be on that stage, “Everyone was asking, “Are you nervous?” and I’m nervous singing in front of three people - so I felt like it wasn't even real. I didn't really feel like I was awake, I was kind of just going with it!” The audience that greeted her was such a welcoming and small fanbase, Becca was very grateful for their supportive presence.
Before the Olympia, taking stage at the Zodiac Sessions, an open-mic off Grafton Street, was a huge deal for Becca. She popped down with her mam, “I remember being absolutely terrified. I didn’t have a guitar. I didn’t have anything.” With musicians like Aaron Rowe and All Things Eve performing, Becca recalled feeling too green to sing in front of her fellow singer-songwriters. “No, I just came here to watch for the first one.” But, with much encouragement and a borrowed guitar, Becca took the plunge. “It was lovely; everyone was so supportive.” For a year, it was a weekly ritual. The crowd at Bruxelles was mostly the musicians themselves and “drunk old men”. Becca’s favourite part was “getting to know everyone really well and my mam getting to know [the other] families.” The end goal was not climbing the music industry’s ladder but about celebrating live performing.
Still, playing at open mics around Dublin opened doors and led to Becca supporting All Things Eve’s at a show in May. At that gig, an innocuous chat about festivals with a booker for Aiken Promotions became an offer to perform at All Together Now. In three words, “oh, yes please”, Becca secured her band’s festival debut much sooner than she had anticipated. Alongside Eve and other “beautiful, folky women”, Becca played the Hidden Sounds stage. Just like late nights in pubs, the camaraderie between the performers fostered a fun, collaborative atmosphere, “my friends were playing so we popped in and out of each other’s sets.” Unlike her first headline show in June at Bello Bar where much of the audience she knew “on a first name basis”, the festival crowd was mostly strangers hearing her music for the first time.
With the Olympia and All Together Now under her belt, Becca does not have her sights set on playing larger venues necessarily. “Obviously, in your head it’s the Olympia and then the 3Arena but I’m too timid for that. I think it would drown me out.” Folk music is better suited to smaller venues that foster a more intimate atmosphere. Vicar Street, where Becca has memories of great gigs, would also be a dream stage to perform on. That, or anywhere abroad, are bucket list items for the singer. Performing can be as much about worldbuilding as it is about the music. When it comes to her onstage wardrobe, Becca’s style skews Bohemian and consists of very dreamy, loose-fitting pieces in browns and whites. The creative direction given to her bandmates is “think fairy, think pirate, go down that way.” Self-identifying as a Vinted addict, much of her style is procured secondhand and online. Days surrounded by creatives attending BIMM and being close to NCAD has only increased her love for fashion.
Her debut single ‘Nicely’ has amassed nearly 15,000 streams on Spotify- a stat that has Becca boggled. She recalls texting her boyfriend, sure her account had been hacked. Becca even contacted Spotify to make sure this wasn’t a mistake on their end. “I am really grateful but I don't know what’s happened.” The song, a delicate folk ballad, would not be out of place on a playlist alongside Lizzy McAlpine, Noah Kahan and Hozier whom she cites among her biggest influences; “all the folk, really sad, depressing music.” Canadian singer-songwriter Lennon Stella, however, may be her ultimate inspiration. “If you don’t know her, get to know her.”
On “Nicely’, Becca pines for a lost love, perhaps a fellow musician,“I saw your picture on a poster / In the street / And I cried all night.” Her delivery begins soft as the gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar. As the instrumentation builds, Becca tells herself “Stay calm / Keep your composure” as it becomes increasingly clear that the singer is unable to do just that. Although Becca has a project “ready to go” that she hopes to release in the coming months, she is still “really precious” about her work. Several albums worth of music are resting in the vault. Looking toward the future, Becca hopes to keep doing what she loves and hopes “to have toured with someone I look up to” in the next five years. Becca conceded that it is hard to make a steady living from performing. Regardless, Becca is undeterred, “my mam keeps asking me what I’m going to do if it doesn’t really work out. I say: ‘I don’t know, we’ll talk about it when it’s over’”.