Introducing: Stephen McCafferty

Edinburgh’s Stephen McCafferty doesn’t just write songs—he extends an invitation. The indie songwriter, known for pairing existential themes with skyscraper-sized choruses, has carved out a sound that’s both introspective and anthemic. After fronting Return To The Sun—racking up three XFM Breakout Tracks of the Week and festival slots from Isle of Wight to Belladrum—McCafferty stepped out under his own name in 2024. Since then, his singles have landed praise from Fresh On The Net, SNACK Magazine, and Louder Than War, while Grammy-winning producer James Sanger calls him “a fantastic voice and great lyricist.” Blending the widescreen hooks of Sam Fender with the artistic daring of Bowie and Gaz Coombes, McCafferty is building something both deeply personal and unmistakably stadium-ready.

You’ve said “I Am The Buffalo” almost wrote itself on a night shift with an out-of-tune guitar—what was it about that half-asleep moment that unlocked the song’s weary-but-defiant energy?

 I think a big part of songwriting is not overthinking. A lot of the best writers talk about songs just falling out of the sky, Neil Young said “don’t chase the rabbit,” which I think sums it up well. When you’re half asleep you’re kind of forced into that space, because you’re too tired to judge what you’re doing. Half your brain’s awake, half still dreaming.I’m not great at moving between day and night shifts, so I’m usually knackered. I work in a homeless shelter and one of the ways I keep myself awake is by picking away at the guitar we’ve got in the shelter. I didn’t plan to write "I Am The Buffalo" that night, but I’d had the first line in my head for years. It just came out, fit the melody I was humming, and the rest followed. I only really knew what the song was about once it was finished.That’s probably why it carries that mix of weariness and defiance, it was born out of me being exhausted but refusing to cave in. For me, that moment was a microcosm of the bigger picture: the fragility of things and the resolve to stick with them anyway.

You connect the track to those big 90s anthems like James’s “Sit Down.” What is it about that era’s sound or spirit that resonates with you and your own songwriting? 

It’s hard to pin down why some songs resonate and others don’t. Sit Down came out when I was only two, so it would’ve been something absorbed from radio. There’s this stretch of British and Irish music from the late ’80s into the early ’90s that just hits a certain way for me, songs like Aztec Camera’s Somewhere In My Heart, Deacon Blue’s Real Gone Kid, or The Cranberries’ Dreams. It's obviously got a lot to do with nostalgiaMy earliest memories are being in the back of the car during the summer, too small to see out the window, heading up to Kenmore for camping trips. Those songs were always on the tapes my mum played, so I’ve always associated them with a sense of movement, that feeling of travelling somewhere you want to be. These songs also had something to say, though that’s an appreciation I didn’t have until I was older. One of my favourite lines from Sit Down is: “If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor.”What I love about that era is how the songs managed to be both personal and communal, they spoke to people on a huge scale without losing their heart. That’s something I try to carry into my own writing.

With I Am The Buffalo closing out a 20-month run of singles and tying into your debut album Monsters and Lullabies, how does it feel to see this chapter come full circle?

 It’s only recently that I’ve stopped to reflect on the last 20 months. It’s been pretty relentless putting out a single every eight weeks. I actually set out wanting to make an album, but it made more financial sense to focus on singles. When I let go of that album idea I thought I’d just keep releasing singles indefinitely, but I’ve realised it makes more sense to chapter things into bodies of work.I’ve been in bands my whole life, and there was a five-year break between my last band and starting this project. There were times I thought that side of things had passed me by. I knew I’d always write songs, that’s how I process how I feel and what I think, but I wasn’t sure I’d be releasing music again. So to now be at the end of 20 months, having played festivals and had support from places like BBC Radio Scotland, SNACK and The Skinny, I’m just really grateful for it all, especially thinking back to where I thought I was during that five-year gap. It feels like the right place to close one chapter, and a natural place to start the next.

Your music has been described as “existential themes with big choruses.” How do you balance introspection with those widescreen, communal hooks that invite listeners in? 

I’m not sure there’s much intention behind it, to be honest. As I mentioned in the previous question, songwriting has always been my way of processing how I feel and what I think. I started writing when I was ten, after moving schools, the first friend I made asked me to start a band with him. It was all kind of by accident. But as I got older, I realised it was the thing I leaned on. I didn’t have the emotional vocabulary for that as a kid, but looking back I can see it gave me a channel I wouldn’t have known I needed. So lyric writing has always been naturally introspective for me.At the same time, I was raised on 80s and 90s bangers. I’m probably more of a pop songwriter than I’d care to admit, I just prefer the aesthetic of British indie rock. I think songs in their first form are like raw photographs before you colour grade them, and my instinct for big indie hooks is just down to the music I grew up with. In a very Alan Partridge way, a lot of my mum’s collection was greatest hits compilations, basically bangers start to finish.I guess that’s where the balance comes from, the introspection comes naturally in the lyrics, and the big choruses are just in my musical DNA.

You’ve been praised by everyone from grassroots blogs to Grammy-winning producer James Sanger. How does that external recognition influence your mindset as you prepare to start “Chapter Two” in the studio?

 External recognition is always nice, but it meant more to me when I was younger and just starting out. I remember getting a phone call when I was about twenty, inviting my band at the time to play a Club NME night. NME was a huge deal back then, and when the call ended I broke into tears. To know my music was even on their radar felt massive. But there’s a naivety to being that age, at least there was for me. I thought: right, we’re on NME’s radar, we’ll play Club NME, get signed to Sony, have a number one album, and become the biggest band in the world. That naivety inflated those moments, and it made them overwhelming.It’s still gratifying now, of course. Recognition acts as a kind of validation badge, maybe instead of dismissing you, someone will give your song a chance because they’ve seen BBC Radio are playing it, so it must at least be worth a listen. But as I’ve said before, songwriting for me is very personal. There’s very little chance external recognition will ever influence how or what I write.I’m also pretty bad at predicting which of my songs will resonate. If you’d asked me before release whether people would prefer Cabin Fever or Quiet Dream, I never would’ve picked Quiet Dream. Yet that’s the one people reach out about, and when I play it live you can hear a pin drop. Being used to at least a few pockets of chatter in a room, it was unnerving at first to play something to absolute silence. It showed me that if I ever tried to second-guess what people want, I’d almost certainly get it wrong.These last 20 months have really felt like laying the foundations. Recognition doesn’t change how I write, but it does make a difference in how the music is received, doors that were closed before are now opening, and it’s easier to be taken seriously as an artist.