Robert Grace has had a busy first half of 2020. He recently signed to Sony Records, has been writing music while raising his three year old son, and is trying to keep up with his huge TikTok following.

Last month, he released a song called 'Fake Fine,' and the track quickly garnered an immense amount of plays on both the social media platform as well as usual music streaming platforms.

Hot Press caught up with Grace about the single, ahead of his performance on the Lockdown Sessions Y&E Series this evening, supported by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

How have you been faring through the pandemic? 

I have a three year old son so he's been keeping us busy, and then just writing as much music as I can. Trying to keep myself distracted with TikTok. Trying to keep some sort of a routine going so you don't go crazy.

The TikTok thing is interesting. Were you familiar with it before it blew up? 

I wasn't really, no. I knew people did dances, but I wouldn't have been aware of it for music purposes. I downloaded the app about a month before I started properly uploading videos. In that month, I was scrolling through and seeing a few people doing really well singing. Whether it's their own songs or doing covers.

It's becoming quite a platform in the music industry. Do you think it'll change the way we do things? 

It really helped me in terms of getting a record deal. There's another Irish guy I know who is massive on Tik Tok - he doesn't necessarily put up singing videos but he got a record deal from having half a million followers. I think the music industry is looking at Tik Tok as a talent spotter

What was your headspace like while you were writing 'Fake Fine'? Where were you at in your personal life?

Well basically, I came into this year with absolutely no money. I think it was two days before New Year's Eve and I had a big bill I had to pay, and that was all my money gone. And so I came in to first of January with absolutely nothing, and at the same time, my son woke up and had a vomiting bug and he was sick for two weeks. And then my grandmother died the day after my birthday, on the 5th of January. And we have a massive family, and she was kind of the matriarch of the whole family. So that was a massive blow to everyone. It wasn't long after that that I started writing this. You know when things don't hit you for a while? It sometimes takes a couple of weeks, but I ended up having a few really bad days, mentally, where I was thinking 'what am I doing with my life?' It was a lot of wondering whether or not I should be doing music, and if I was going to start something else whether or not I was too old to start something else. I just kind of started writing the song there. I started with the first verse and wrote that when I was in a really bad state of mind, and then a couple of days later I finished it off, when I'd come out of that state of mind and was able to explain it better.

I sent it over to my friend, and he sang his version of the second verse because I was struggling with it a little.

Listen to 'Fake Fine' below.

Robert Grace plays the Hot Press Y&E Series on Hot Press Instagram at 7.30pm tonight (Thursday July 23). The Y&E Series is supported by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.