Doing This For Love:
Kris Drever on Confidence, Collaboration, and Letting the Music Lead
The acclaimed Scottish folk musician's latest album, Doing This For Love, arrives after years of touring, collaborating, and building a body of work that has earned him a reputation as one of contemporary folk music's most thoughtful voices.
Kris Drever's latest solo release doesn't demand attention through dramatic reinvention or sweeping artistic statements. Instead, it draws you in gradually. A guitar phrase lingers a little longer than expected. A lyric reveals something new on a second listen. An arrangement opens up just enough to remind you how much can happen when musicians trust one another.
In an era where albums are increasingly assembled piece by piece across hard drives and time zones, Kris Drever found himself drawn back to something simpler: putting musicians in a room and pressing record. "It felt so easy and so musical and so positive," he says of the live tracking sessions that became the foundation of the record. "A really human way of recording."
Human.
It's a word that comes up often while discussing this album, even when he doesn't say it directly. The musicians who helped shape the record are longtime collaborators whose shared musical language has developed over years of playing together. Drever describes the relationship simply: "I hardly ever need to explain what I think I'm looking for," he says. "They just know. We just play." That perspective shapes Doing This For Love from its first note to its last. Rather than chasing a dramatic new direction, the album finds its strength in relationships—between musicians, between songs and audiences, and between an artist and the craft he's spent decades refining.
There are two types of artists when a new record comes out. The first type tells you everything has changed. New era. New sound. New chapter. Then there's Kris Drever. When asked about returning with Doing This For Love, he shrugged off the idea of reinvention almost immediately.
"It's always a continuation with me," he says. "I'm still trying to invent myself, never mind reinventing."
Doing This For Love, seems to be an album shaped not by a desire to chase something new, but by a desire to reconnect with something genuine. As artists grow older, many become more guarded. Drever has experienced the opposite. He describes this record as his most honest work yet, a collection of songs created after learning to worry less about self-consciousness and more about telling the truth. Drever admits he spent years battling what he jokingly calls "cringe"—the instinct to hold back emotionally or avoid exposing too much of himself in his writing. Now, that hesitation has begun to fade. "It feels okay now to be less filtered in the way I write," he says. "I don't mind being exposed, at least in song form."
When I asked what the title, Doing This For Love, meant to him I expected an answer about songwriting or creative inspiration. Instead, I got one of the most honest responses of our conversation.
"I make music because I love music and I make music to make money to feed my family. Work is an act of devotion in that way."
The album's title may sound romantic on the surface, but Drever's definition of love is far broader. Throughout our conversation, he repeatedly returned to the people surrounding the music—the collaborators who help shape the songs, the audiences who keep them alive, and the family that gives purpose to the work itself.
That perspective hangs over the entire record. Not as sentimentality, but as practice. Showing up for the next writing session. Trusting the musicians in the room. Putting in the work even when nobody is watching.
In a musical landscape increasingly driven by algorithms, metrics, and the pressure to constantly reinvent yourself, Doing This For Love finds something meaningful in consistency. The album isn't chasing trends or trying to manufacture a moment. Instead, it finds its strength in craftsmanship, collaboration, and the simple act of continuing to create.
As we wrapped up our conversation, we asked a question we always love ending on: What advice would you give to someone just beginning their creative journey?
Drever's answer was characteristically straightforward. "Do it for yourself. Make stuff that you like. There are other people whose tastes will align with yours."
It's advice that feels surprisingly connected to the spirit of album.
Trust your instincts. Trust the work. Trust that authenticity will find its audience.