MCD proudly presents
DIRTY BLOND
plus support
Whelan’s Upstairs • Wed 24th June 2026
Corey Sanders, aka Dirty Blond, stepped up to the mic at a recent sold-out gig with a grin and a warning. “Are you having a good night? Good — because I’m going to ruin it.” The crowd laughed. Then he played. And instead of killing the mood, he tightened it —a roomful of strangers locked into the same feeling,singing back every bruised lyric like it belonged to them. That’s the trick: the heavier the heartbreak, thestronger the connection. In Corey’s hands, melancholia doesn’t isolate, it unites.
That tension — sorrow turning into connection — sits at the heart of Dirty Blond. The songs are bruised and vulnerable, but in a live setting they feel expansive, even euphoric. There’s comfort in the candour, in the shared recognition of something difficult but true. It’s no surprise that audiences keep growing, both in rooms and online. Hailing from Wales — “the land of music and magic,” as he fondly calls it — Corey has been steadily building towards this moment. With an album due later this year, he’s been sharing a run of stripped-back sad songs on TikTok, quietly amassing tens of millions of likes and an increasingly devoted following. The online rise tells one story. The real one, though, is happening in real time, in packed-out venues where heartbreak somehow makes everyone feel a little less alone. The John Lennon adage “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans” landed hard for Corey after his relationship fell apart. He had bought a home and a ring while his partner was quietly making plans of her own, ultimately leaving for the United States.
Facing the collapse of the life plan he believed he was building, Corey returned to the one constant that had always sustained him. Guitar in hand, he began writing — channelling loss, love and disillusionment into a body of work that would come to define his voice as an artist. The rupture powered the writing, but the songs resist autobiography; they trace the collective rituals of heartbreak — the reckoning, the replaying, the slow reassembly — that follow every ending.Radical in their emotional nakedness, the songs are a deliberate attempt to write the kind of classic break-up records that document the aftermath of love; the disillusionment and the autopsy after the dream has failed. “I hope I’m writing forever songs,” Corey explains — music where raw emotion and concept drive the craft, where heartache becomes so tangible it feels character-driven, like someone you could talk to, argue with, or mourn.
This yet-to-be-released debut album explores the fallout in all its forms. Empty of You captures self-recrimination and emotional exhaustion — “I’m sick in the heart and it’s all ’cos of you / You’re livinginside it and all a wanna do is cry ‘til I’m empty of you.” Elsewhere, Emily and James inhabits a different register of regret, as Corey compares himself to friends who have secured the future he once imagined — “They’ve got a house and kid on the way / We could’ve been like Emily and James.” Perhaps the most devastating track is So Long Baby, which grieves not only a lost relationship but a lost future, imagining the daughter they might have had: “She would have been an angel, a devil in disguise / She would have had your kindness, and my own mother’s eyes.”
For the first time since his teens, Corey decided these songs needed a band. He brought in his brother, Tommy Sanders, on bass, and close friend Mark Prendergast of Kodaline on piano. The music had to be lived in and shared. Raised in Bridgend, Corey describes a happy childhood, loving parents, and a close bond with his brother. Yet he still refers to his hometown as “a place where there are monsters under the bed.” Though the coal mine closures occurred long before he was born, their impact rippled through generations, compounded by more recent tragedies that cast long shadows over the community. At school, Corey wasn’t academically inclined, but music offered a way out. He taught himself piano and guitar, writing songs from the age of twelve. When a teacher explained he could earn a GCSE through song writing, it was revelatory. “Until then, I felt like there was no way of getting out,” he admits, reflecting on the creative constraints of a working-class town weighed down by low expectations. At fourteen, he formed his first band. By seventeen, he had signed a publishing deal. At eighteen, he moved to north London, living in a garage for two years on stacked mattresses while friends occupied the house above. After a breakup with his school sweetheart, he wrote You Are the Reason — the cinematic tearjerker that would become a global hit for Calum Scott.
Many song writing successes followed. Today, Corey’s songs have amassed more than nine billion streams, but now he’s ready to step out from the studio and into the spotlight. So why the sadness? And is it personal, or cultural? “It’s the DNA of where I grew up — trapped in its melancholia,” he says. “In Wales, people sing in pubs, but they don’t jump around like they do in Ireland.” Reflecting now, Corey sees his roots differently. “I spent my whole life trying to escape. Now I see it as something beautiful and damaged. I want to write songs for the people — to give them new songs to sing in the pub, after they’ve finished Delilah.” Healed from the end of his last relationship, Corey has since found love again. Alongside the sadness, the album also holds space for songs that don’t deny the damage — but still dare to open the door once more.
Ultimately, these songs are about storytelling as catharsis: shared pain, nostalgia, healing — and the hope that quietly emerges in the aftermath.
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TICKETS
€20.50 available online from Whelan’s – 50c per ticket service charge applies.
Strictly over 18′s, I.D. may be required
AFTER THE GIG
Whelan’s Silent Disco from 10:30pm – 2 DJs, just pick the one you like best (€5 cover charge), plus Late Bar