Forty million streams and 60,000 tickets can’t be wrong. The numbers don’t lie, and nor do the tunes – impassioned songs of love and regret, faith and fatalism, rejection and connection, realism and idealism.

After selling out six nights at the Barrowlands, Dylan John Thomas is Scotland’s worst kept musical secret. From pavement to arena, the DIY artist who did it all for himself, all the way to a sell-out homecoming show at Glasgow’s 14,300-capacity OVO Hydro. A self-taught, multi-instrumentalist, mainlining the old-time rhythm of Johnny Cash (“boom-chicka-boom…”), the high-picking melodies of Simon & Garfunkel, the lyrical poeticism of Leonard Cohen – but all retooled with a twentysomething’s freshness, rigour and vigour, and the ardent fandom to match.

His second album, Nothing Here Worth Taking, was recorded at Magic Box studios over the past year with Scotty Anderson (The Snuts). Entirely written by Dylan, with most of the instruments self-played too, the 10-track set is a rousing, carousing blast of brass, blues, banjo, piano and classic, retro-futureproof, singalong songwriting.

That spirit is there in vivid form on lead single ‘Got You on My Mind’. The first song completed for the album, it’s a banjo-and brass-driven anthem. “I got into banjo two years ago, just after the first album came out,” Dylan explains. “We went on a wee trip round Scotland, and I took it with us. We were just kicking around, playing all the old folk songs. And by the time it came to recording this album, I'd written a couple of songs on it.”

“The thrilling blast of brass is also there in the title track, a song of encouragement and support for a mate whose relationship was breaking down. That brass sound, he explains, calls back to the ska he loved as a kid. ‘Nothing Here Worth Taking’ and ‘Got You on My Mind’ represent the overall palette of the album: “It's an amalgamation of all different kind of influences pulled together to create the sound. Which seems to kick off live all around the country.”

That music was first showcased in 2024’s self-titled debut album. Rousing and impassioned, it’s a record that distilled everything Dylan had learned growing up as a kid in foster care and finding his way. Mentored by Gerry Cinnamon and hand-picked for arena-scale supports slots by Liam Gallagher, Sam Fender and Stereophonics, his is a story of letting his music do the talking, the fans do the shouting and the music industry playing catch-up.