Hozier

Irish singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Hozier first captured worldwide notice in 2013, when the dark, soul-infused rock track “Take Me to Church” spread rapidly online. The single secured him a major-label deal for his self-titled debut album, platinum certifications across eleven territories, and a 2015 Grammy nomination for Song of the Year. After extended touring and promotional cycles, he resurfaced in 2018 with the EP Nina Cried Power and followed it in 2019 with the full-length Wasteland, Baby!, which entered at number one in both the United States and Ireland. Four years later came Unreal Unearth, an expansive, chart-topping song cycle loosely inspired by Dante’s Inferno.

Born Andrew John Hozier-Byrne on March 17, 1990, in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, the musician grew up as the child of a local blues player. At fifteen he joined his first band and began gravitating toward R&B, soul, gospel, and blues. Drawing from James Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Leonard Cohen, John Lee Hooker, and community choral singing, he enrolled in a music degree at Trinity College Dublin and performed with the Trinity Orchestra before leaving during his freshman year to record demos for Universal Music. Between 2009 and 2012 he sang with the Irish choral ensemble Anúna and toured internationally. Using Hozier as his stage name, he issued the solo EP Take Me to Church in 2013; once a video for its title track—an explicit critique of gay discrimination within the Catholic Church—circulated widely on YouTube and Reddit, an international audience quickly followed. Columbia Records released a second EP, From Eden, in spring 2014 and, that September, his self-titled debut album.

The breakout momentum of “Take Me to Church,” which appeared on the album, placed Hozier inside the Top Ten in eleven countries and earned him gold certifications in Canada and Great Britain. He spent the ensuing years promoting the record, performing at the 2015 Grammy Awards, and issuing the live album Live in America. In 2016 he contributed “Better Love” to the Legend of Tarzan soundtrack. September 2018 brought the four-song Nina Cried Power EP, whose title track featured soul legend Mavis Staples; the song later appeared on the March 2019 sophomore album Wasteland, Baby!.

Rich in apocalyptic and socio-political imagery, Wasteland, Baby! opened at number one in the U.S., topped the Irish chart, and reached number six in the U.K. Early in 2020, after months on the road, Hozier released his interpretation of the traditional song “The Parting Glass” as a charity single. The following year he appeared on Meduza’s “Tell It to My Heart,” which climbed to number thirteen on the Irish charts.

October 2022 saw the release of the atmospheric “Swan Upon Leda,” the initial preview of 2024’s Unreal Unearth. Moody and ambitious, the concept album marked Hozier’s first recorded use of the Irish language on the track “uiscefhuaraithe” and debuted at the summit of both the Irish and U.K. charts while peaking at number three in the U.S. In early 2024 a live rendition of the 2014 cut “Work Song” gained traction on social media. That March he issued the companion Unheard EP, which included “Wildflower and Barley” with Allison Russell and “Too Sweet,” the latter reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and making Hozier the fourth Irish artist to achieve the feat. A deluxe edition titled Unreal Unearth: Unending arrived in December 2024, appending ten tracks that featured the previously unreleased “Hymn to Virgil.”