Cerys Matthews, guitarist and vocalist

[the_future_modernes]

Catatonia - Goldfish and Paracetamol (Live)

THE WELSH ARE COMING! THE WELSH ARE COMING! An Interview with Catatonia's Cerys Matthews 1998 interview

What would you be doing if the band had still gotten nowhere by this stage?

I just wanna sing for the rest of my life, so I'd still be playing in the pubs, places round where I live, y'know. We've been doing this for 5, almost 6 years, and you don't do it to get the approval of others. You do it because you love it. Getting the approval of others means you've got an easier life style and less financial pressures -- less worries about getting money to pay for your fix of music. You expect success, though. You must have faith in what you're doing. It's like the crock at the end of the rainbow, but the biggest buzz is, like, simply singing and playing and listening to stuff you enjoy y'know. And that won't change. I sing all the time, you can't shut me up!

What current American music do you like?

I like Ron Sexsmith, and there's this guy, what's his name? Elliot Smith. The Dandy Warhols are a little bit flash for me.

What about the image? You used to wear white tracksuits, now it's amazing ballgowns.

I couldn't go along with grrrl power anymore cause I'm reaching maturity, (now it's) lady power! Nah, I change like the wind. I just like dressing up. I had my track suit phase, then the Spice Girls started wearing my shoes, my platform shoes, so I had to change because I don't want to be doing the same as everybody else. I've got my hippy period at the minute. I had my Queen period with my tiara... I wear what-the-hell I want.

What about your reputation for drinking?

I just get excitable... I'm a kid at heart and alcohol is my favourite drug.

Do you take it easy on the booze before a gig?

No, not really. But I'm much more relaxed naturally now, cause I've been blessed with a new monitoring system... like a headphone system -- a lot of people use it now -- Celine uses it, hahaha. That's made a hell-of-a difference. Before that, I started having problems with my voice and that helped.

Do the boys in the band feel overshadowed by your huge media image?

No, cause like, Mark approached me, when he was looking for a singer, with the whole purpose of looking for a singer who would allow him to take a backseat. They love it, they're laughing all the way. I'm their bloody workhorse, but it's a role I relish. I love it. We work together as a band, we get along and stuff.

Who does the song-writing ?

People always conclude the lady only writes the lyrics. Is there something wrong with a lady's brain that she can't write melodies, or what? There's about four writers in the band and we all write melodies and three of us write lyrics. We're lucky to have a lot of writers. I might come in and find a song completely done, but mostly it's a mixture of us all. I bet that you could never tell who wrote what. The male members of the band are very in touch with the feminine side!
MORE

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Catatonia - The Mother of Misogyny.

Catatonia - Bleed (Live)

Cerys Matthews was the lead singer of Catatonia, a Welsh band who became famous in Britain and Wales in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the increased fame brought pressure on Ms. Matthews and the relationship between the band deteriorated. In 2001 it seemed that though there was tension, they may have put their troubles behind them.


'I'll end up a spinster, like my role model Anne Widdecombe'

It was June 1999 when it became clear that all was not well with Cerys Matthews. The Welsh singer and the other four members of her band, Britpop darlings Catatonia, were in Australia and New Zealand on tour. Q magazine flew a journalist out to write a cover feature on the band, expecting tales of joyous hi-jinks and alcoholic excess that the gregarious, party-loving Matthews invariably generated. But in Melbourne, things were very different.

The dismayed writer found Catatonia, in his own words, "in the worst state I'd ever seen a band". After months on the road, they were exhausted, homesick and factionalised. The band were scarcely talking to each other. Relations between Matthews and her former boyfriend, songwriter and guitarist Mark Roberts, were particularly bad. She appeared to be coping by taking every breakfast with a side-order of alcohol. When the magazine ran the ensuing gobsmacked feature, the cover line ran "Cerys: I'm in a bad way".

...
In fact, the opposite was true. Matthews set about salvaging her career and her mental state by throwing herself wholeheartedly back into her first love - making music. "I was determined, making this album, to be sure that I could agree with every word I sang and was comfortable with every sentiment and every note," she reflects now, eyes gleaming. "I knew it had to be exciting and poignant and heartfelt. I decided to rekindle my love affair, my first love affair, with music, because I was sick to death with fame and attention and what it all means."MORE

But it didn't last. The band broke up and she decided to go solo. A great deal of her stuff on youtube is her singing trad. Welsh songs, which are pretty beautiful in their own right. But since we are focusing on her rockier stuff:

Cerys Matthews - Chardonnay (Live)

My favourite song of hers so far is this one:

Cerys Matthews - Into The Blue

Apparently she has recorded albums in Welsh, and made history as the first person to record an album in Welsh and English simultaneously: Don’t Look Down/Paid Edrych i Lawr.

Cerys Matthews - Trwy'r Drych

Albums: Albums
Cockahoop (UK #30, 5 weeks on Chart) (Blanco y Negro - 2003)
Never Said Goodbye (Rough Trade - 2006)
Awyren = Aeroplane (mini-album) (My Kung Fu 030 - 2007)
Don't Look Down/Paid Edrych i Lawr (Rainbow City Recordings - 2009)
"Tir" (Rainbow City Recordings - 2010)
"Explorer" (Rainbow City Recordings - 2011)

Here's a single from Explorer:

Cerys Matthews - Sweet Magnolia

What's On Wales: Cerys Matthews Interview

....Matthews’ latest album, Explorer, is her fourth solo effort and the follow-up to the bilingual double-album Don’t Look Down/Paid Edrych i Lawr.

“The album is about endlessly exploring music and how songs have the ability to travel,” says Matthews. It’s clear she’s also taken influence from her own radio show on 6music, delving into her vast record collection with songs influenced by a wide range of worldly sounds and her own trips on the road.
...

Matthews has been collecting music, in some form, since the age of seven. “I could read music very early on and used to visit the local library searching for sheet music, especially a lot of Welsh language music,” she says. A huge record collection was garnered soon after, but what was her first purchase? “I don’t know,” she says, “Probably something really dodgy like Video Killed The Radio Star by Buggles.”

The first song Matthews learnt on guitar was The Animals’ classic House of the Rising Sun (“It has that really simple four-chord structure”) and she will be on lead guitar duties with her band on her forthcoming Over Land and Sea tour in the UK. With so many global sounds filling Explorer, surely Matthews will need more than just her guitar? “I’ll be taking a whole host of different instruments on the tour with me,” she confirms. “One of my favourites is an Oud – it’s similar to a lute but much smaller and with fewer frets. It’s steeped in a fascinating history.”MORE

Wikipedia, Website, Twitter

Comments

[rockunroll]

Aw yeah! :-D

I had a passing interest in Catatonia when I was younger, but I never properly looked into their discography or Cerys' own projects. I'm quite fond of Mulder & Scully and Road Rage. Cerys also featured on a song with Space called The Ballad of Tom Jones which I really like.

Cerys also has her own programme on BBC 6music.

Anyway, I'll check out those videos - thanks for the interesting post!