It’s not easy to ‘make it’ as a full-time musician these days, but Fly The Nest, aka Stephen Cooper, is doing his damned best. The Ballinteer native splits his time 70-30 between Scandinavia and Ireland, playing Irish pubs in Oslo and Copenhagen, after being plucked from the Dublin circuit. And between all that, he also writes music for an advertising company in LA.

Recently, he launched his solo career as Fly The Nest, a reference to constantly being on the move.

“I wanted a change, and I wanted everything to feel different to what I had before,” he explains. “My own idea of making it is being happy writing and playing music, and making a living from it. That’s what I’m doing, so in my mind, I feel like I’m making it.”

Cooper draws inspiration from his day-to-day life, writing about his experiences and transforming them into cinematic rockers. ‘Animal’, for example, “is about female empowerment and basically just putting women up on a pedestal.”
“She don’t care if you wanna stop and stare / But she’ll put you under a spell while you’re there,” go his distorted vocals over headbanging guitar.

And there are more anthems on the way from Fly The Nest. His next single ‘Super Human’ is set for release in January, and after that, he plans to release a series of singles every other month with accompanying visuals.