“It's all a bit surreal really. I was in a band called Elephant back in 2003, actually I think you might have done a piece on our album at the time, but through a friend of a friend a copy ended up in Stuart Murdoch's hands.

We had always been compared to Belle & Sebastian so it was amazing and pretty daunting to audition for this band,” Catherine Ireton tells Alan Jacques.

“Someone had said to Stuart about five years ago that I was going to be in Glasgow and why didn't he audition me for this girl-group he was putting together, it was as simple as that, real fairytale stuff. Everything just fell into place and I've been very lucky.

This is by the far the biggest thing to have happened in my career so far,” Ireton proclaims.

God Help The Girl is a story set to music about a 'better summer', which the Belle & Sebastian frontman has been working on intermittently for the last five years.

After an engrossing audition Catherine, a past-pupil of Laurel Hill Secondary School, was cherry-picked as lead vocalist alongside other female singers including Brittany Stallings (Olympia, Washington) and Dina Bankole (Jackson, Michigan).

'God Help The Girl' was recorded during 2008 with a total of nine different singers, including Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy and Asya from American teen trio Smoosh, joining the members of Belle & Sebastian and a 45-piece orchestra conducted by 'Withnail & I' composer, Rick Wentworth.

“The album was recorded in February of last year but the whole God Help The Girl thing is something that's been knocking about as an idea for about five years, but it's only now that it's come together.

It's an unusual project and I know Stuart is keen to get back to Belle & Sebastian so I'm not sure what the long-term plans are right now.

We did our first live performance there this week and it was really great.

I think everyone can see the potential that's there. It's an exciting time,” says the charming Limerick chanteuse.

The girl-group is described as combining the strengths and feel of the early Belle & Sebastian records in a broader musical palette, which draws equally on musicals, sixties' girl groups, eighties' indie, and most of all, classic pop records.

The 'God Help The Girl' album released through Rough Trade Records this week is also being touted as a soundtrack to a film Murdoch is currently writing the script for.

“As Stuart was working on the songs for this album it became clear that three main characters drove the songs so he's actually working on a script for a movie right now.

I'd love to be involved with the movie as well, but as the album has taken so long to get here I probably shouldn't hold my breath on that one,” says Catherine with a wry giggle.

Having previously provided backing vocals to the Belle & Sebastian track 'White Collar Boy', Stuart Murdoch has high praise for Catherine's delicious voice.

He has described the Limerick singer as “a rare talent” whose “clear, lilting vocals bring to life the characters in his imagination” and make for “an ambitious and engrossing musical journey”. High praise indeed!

“Yeah it's great really. Stuart is a lovely guy, very understated and just totally relaxed. He asked me round to his one day for some Mexican food and said there was going to be a friend from New York joining us, but he never told me this person was coming over from the New York Times. Everything is just so low-key with him.”

Catherine currently “pays the bills” working fulltime with the Scottish Arts Council and also fronts her own outfit Go Away Birds with musical partner Michael John.

The duo plays the Roisin Dubh in Galway on June 30 and The Pavillion in Cork on July 1.

“We have nothing booked for Limerick at the moment, but I'll have to see if we can change that in the near future.

We are hoping that the God Help The Girl record will open up doors for Go Away Birds, that would be just great because I'm a songwriter as well as a singer with my own band,” she confesses.

Catherine grew up in Castletroy, but her family comprised of dad Vincent, mum Libby, sisters Sarah and Jean, and brother John later moved to Annacotty.

'God Help The Girl' is available now from all good record stores.

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment