Introducing: Finnegan Tui

With over 7.7 million streams, coverage from The Guardian, CLASH, Wonderland, and Rolling Stone India, and live slots supporting FINK, RY X, and more, UK-based indie-folk balladeer Finnegan Tui is fast becoming one of the most captivating new voices in the scene. Raised in New Zealand before relocating to the UK, Tui studied at the Guildhall School of Music, earned high-profile commissions from Channel 4 and the Tate Modern, and has gone on to sell out headline shows across Europe.

His latest single “Fuel on the Fire” (via Eywa Music Ltd) distils that journey into something both intimate and cinematic — a track born in solitude in the Scottish wilderness, then expanded into a widescreen soundscape that feels like a phoenix rising from the ashes. We caught up with Finnegan to dive into the making of the song, his artistic journey, and the way his cross-disciplinary background shapes his music.

Fuel on the Fire feels both intimate and cinematic. Can you walk us through how the song took shape — from the first spark of an idea to its fully realised form?

This song came about when I spent two weeks alone in the wilds of Scotland. No phone, no map, just a guitar and the land. I’d spend the days walking, foraging, listening to the wind in the heather, and at night I’d play by the fire. The first chords arrived there. When I came back to the studio, I kept those same bones but built them outwards, layering in field recordings from the trip and textures that carried that same sense of space and solitude. I wanted the finished song to still feel like it was born in the wilderness, with the embers of that fire still glowing in it but also I wanted it to grow into something massive and studio quality which is where we tried to take it at the end. The sonics of the song mirroring the content of the lyrics from a fragile place into a fearless one.

You’ve described the track as a “phoenix rising from the ashes.” What personal experiences or turning points shaped that transformation for you?

The song came out of a period where a lot had fallen apart; projects, relationships, the way I thought my life was meant to look. At some point you realise you can’t just patch things up; you have to let them burn and start from the blackened ground. It’s not a triumphant, movie-ending kind of rising. It’s slower, stranger, but there’s a beauty in watching something new take root where the old thing used to be.

Your music blends indie folk and folktronica in a way that feels very organic. Was this fusion intentional from the start, or did it emerge naturally through your songwriting process?

It wasn’t calculated, it’s just the sound of my two musical worlds colliding. I grew up with folk music, the rawness of a voice and an instrument, but I also love the possibilities of electronics — how you can make a sound feel like it came from some dream-landscape. When I write, I don’t think, this needs to be more folk or more electronic. I just follow what the song is asking for.

You’ve toured extensively, supporting artists like FINK and RY X, and playing everywhere from Omeara to La Boule Noire. How have those live experiences shaped you as a performer and storyteller?

Touring teaches you to find the centre of a song no matter what’s happening, whether you’re in a sold-out theatre or playing to a half-full room where the sound system’s misbehaving. It’s also shown me how much a crowd can transform a performance. Some nights the audience leans in so close it feels like we’re all holding our breath together, and that’s the magic, when it stops feeling like me performing to you and becomes us making this moment together.

Beyond the music itself, your journey has included collaborations with visual artists, prestigious commissions, and exhibitions at the Tate Modern and Barbican.

How do those cross-disciplinary influences feed into your songwriting?

Working in those other worlds changes how I think about music. Visual artists, for example, often talk in textures, light, and movement rather than chords or melodies. That seeps in, I start thinking about a song as a space you can walk through, or a piece of weather you can stand in. It’s made me less concerned with just writing songs and more interested in creating little worlds people can inhabit, even if only for a few minutes. I hope those worlds can remind people about the beauty of the world. Visual, sonic, narrative they all tie into the worlds.