Hozier joined host Bru backstage at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles for a special Audacy Check In while on his 2024 Unreal Unearth Tour, revealing he's ready to get back into creative mode once his overseas dates wrap up.

Currently taking a break at home before bringing his show to Australia and New Zealand to wrap things up by the end of November, Hozier tells us the tour so far has been “super rewarding… the crowds have been amazing,” especially after releasing brand new music while out on the road.

Now a decade since the release of his first album, Hozier finds it funny how he doesn’t seem to have felt that time went by very quickly. “It's so weird,” he admits, “maybe 6 to 7 years of that was me on the road, or promoting, or touring or something, and life on the road kind of becomes this blur -- it feels like no time passes and it feels like a lifetime as well.”

Once the tour wraps overseas, Hozier is “super eager to get back creating. I really enjoyed making the last record,” he says of 2023’s Unreal Earth. “I'm kind of at that point now where I'm hungry again to have space and time to think about new music, and I've pretty much emptied all of my pockets now at this point… I'm kind of hungry to feel my way through new work again.”

“We start fresh,” he adds, revealing he does have some tracks from previous writing sessions that will never see the light of day. “Everything that I felt like, ‘this nearly made the record, that this could have made the album, or if we'd finished it in time, or this was battling out for another song,’ I feel really glad that I've released a lot of that after-work, or work that didn't make the album proper. That's been super-rewarding, but yeah, I'm just at the end of that.”

Choosing which songs make it onto a release can be “like picking which children go on the right boat,” he admits. His latest hit "Too Sweet," is just one example of a track that almost didn't make the cut on his 2024 Unheard EP.

“It can be tough. There's ones that you really feel so close to and you feel very protective of certain songs -- you really want them to see the light of day because they mean so much to you," he adds. "Everybody has their favorites; Your producer or the team that you work with are gonna have their thoughts, you have your thoughts… it's a whole process.”

Hozier also got a chance to work with Noah Kahan recently on his “Northern Attitude,” and aside from sharing incredible songwriting prowess and similar luscious locks a beard, Hozier joked that they also share fashion senses.

“Noah's amazing and he's having such an incredible couple of years, and this wild kind of hurricane is going on around him. He's so cool, he's so grounded, he's just so down to earth. He's a really nice guy as well too, and he carries it very lightly. Jumping on ‘Northern Attitude,’” he adds, “I remember first hearing that song before they'd reached out, I f***ing loved that track and was so delighted to hop on.”

Don’t miss Bru’s full Audacy Check In with Hozier above -- and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite artists on Audacy.com/Live.

Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Bru