Get To Know Get To Know… CMAT

Describe your music to us in the form of a Tinder bio.
I don’t use Tinder anymore because every time I do I almost immediately get a long term boyfriend. And I’m too much of a popstar now to have a long term boyfriend. Name one good popstar with a boyfriend… you can’t.

What’s your earliest musical memory?
I remember being four years old and knowing the words to every Boney M song on my mam’s Boney M cassette tape. You could test me on any Boney M song today and I could still pull all those lyrics from the deep recesses of my mind. TikTok has taken to liking Boney M recently and i’ve personally never felt more culturally relevant.

Who were some artists that inspired you when you were just starting out (and why)?
When I first started learning the guitar I literally just wanted to be Taylor Swift, and on some level I still do. When I started getting into songwriting properly though I took huge inspiration from freak folk writers of the 70’s, like Judee Sill, Dory Previn, Vashti Bunyan, Linda Perhacs, and Karen Dalton, people like that. I also think at this point it goes without saying that I idolise Dolly Parton, and her ability to write like a literal tank. She’s so jacked, in terms of her writing ability, she’s so hot, I love her.

You’re from Dublin! What do you think of the music scene there at the moment?
Dublin scene is great, but the wider Irish alt scene really seems to come into its own outside of Dublin right now. You’ve obviously got Queen of Ireland, Denise Chaila, in Limerick, who I think is the best sonorous writer we’ve ever produced. Nobody can write lines as good as her. There’s also Junior Brother from Kerry, who I had a Christmas single (‘Uncomfortable Christmas’) with, and who is probably the most talented person I’ve ever met. And then just off the top of my head, I’m deeply in love with Aoife Nessa Frances, who’s been living in Clare and working on her next album there. Her music floors me.

Are there any other artists breaking through at the same time that you take inspiration from?
Ehhhhhh, I don’t really know a lot of artists who are ‘breaking through’ at the moment because the only contemporary music I listen to is big pop music and the music of my friends around me or stuff I’ve seen live. However if it counts I can’t stop listening to the album ‘Ungodly Hour’ by Chloe x Halle. I put it on when i was in the bath yesterday and I almost drowned because I was trying to recreate their stage choreography while lying down in the tub. The water displacement was something fierce, but so was the passion.

Who would be your dream collaborator?
On the one hand, it’s like, I’m dying to just make an album of funeral songs with Orville Peck, because I love him and feel I reeeeally get what he’s doing. His music almost feels scientifically engineered to appeal to all of my interests. On the other hand, I keep threatening my pivot to extreme-country-hyper-pop, and so would like to do a Rednex 2.0 project with someone like A.G. Cook (who I genuinely really really admire). I think that would be very fun and also completely tarnish my reputation within the country music establishment and undo seven years of my very hard work in one fell swoop. Which in my opinion could only be a good thing!

Musically or otherwise, what are you most looking forward to this year?
I’m looking forward to getting that sweet, sweet vaccine up my bum at some point this year, please God. I am seriously losing my mind not being able to go out for a bop. If they told me that they had to inject it into my eyeballs 10 times over and over again I think I could make peace with that. Musically? I’m really looking forward to people seeing my next music video.

If people could take away one thing from your music, what would it be?
It’s ok to be sad, but it’s very important to make it entertaining if you are. Just kidding! Uhhhh… you’re not alone and believe in yourself? I don’t really have an answer to this question. I just want everyone to have fun.

Tags: Cmat, Features, Interviews, Neu, Get to Know