There is a charm, a coolness and a crazy-mad voice behind Irish superstar CMAT that continues moving her up the industry ranks.
After being namechecked by icons like Robbie Williams and Elton John, CMAT is the Irish songstress bringing an interesting mix of country and pop to sold out stages across the world. After two critically and fan acclaimed albums, CMAT’s en-route to our dusty country, for both a solo tour and support slot alongside The Teskey Brothers for A Day On The Green.
Keep up with the latest music news, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
View this post on Instagram
It’s been a huge year for the singer, receiving a nomination for Best International Artist at the BRIT awards.
“The nominations are amazing, and I love it, and I find it more entertaining that I keep losing all the awards,” CMAT adds with a laugh. “It’s really funny to me, it feels on brand for me.”
This year’s BRIT Awards saw Australia’s Kylie Minogue receive honours, CMAT finding herself sitting next to the star. “I was just looking at her in awe. I was thinking ‘how can someone so famous be just sitting next to me?’”
“She’s so famous, she’s famous on a level that is genuinely quite difficult for me to comprehend, because I’ve looked at her face so many times in my life and there it was. It wasn’t a screen or a picture, it was really freaky.”
“She’s a teeny tiny woman. She’s like four feet tall or something. She had a really good time too, which I enjoyed.”
Last year saw CMAT’s sophomore release Crazymad, For Me receive critical acclaim, a record she described as a bit of a concept album, following her debut, If My Wife New I’d Be Dead, which CMAT described as an intro record. The world of writing and having an overall theme being an area of interest for the vocalist.
“When I got signed, I had maybe 60 songs, 70 songs that were just sitting there. The task of my first album was to be like right, I need to take the songs that have the same theme in order to make the album.
“Some of the songs I wrote in the studio, but most of it was selecting stuff that was already there and finding a way to categorise it. So, my first album ended up being about comedy versus tragedy.”
“Then the second album, I knew what it was going to be before I had even made the first record, which is that I wanted to make an album about this one relationship and this one guy who I fucking hate,” CMAT adds with a laugh.
“Because I knew I had to get it out of my system. And I knew that it was important to do it at that exact moment in time, rather than, like, sitting on them for ages, and I knew I had some of my best songs I’ve ever written on that record before I even made the first one.”
View this post on Instagram
Now in the process of getting her third record together, CMAT’s currently considering the direction of it.
“Now I’m on my third album, and it’s all a really big question for me. It’s so fucking stressful making this record, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, because I’ve got some songs on this one that are my favourite thing ever.”
“So I was like, let me make the second one about this guy and this relationship and how interesting and weird it is that I’m, like, still angry about it after all this time, because time is the context and time and perspective, and that’s what the whole album is about.”
“What I realised was the thing that this album should be about is ‘What am I talking about the most at this current moment in time?’ That’s what my third album is about, which I’m not going to tell you what it is yet.”
With a clear adoration for Queen Kylie, CMAT loves all things Aussie, expressing adoration for Kath and Kim, and tour mates Teskey Brothers.
“I’m expecting that me and Audrey, who plays with the Teskey brothers, are going to get really wine drunk every night,” CMAT laughs.
“I’ve toured with them before, I’ve toured with them around Europe, and they’re really, really lovely people!”
CMAT supports The Teskey Brothers at Mt Duneed Estate on 11 January, and Northcote Theatre (an upgrade from the Corner Hotel due to public demand) on 14 January 2025.
Tickets to see the Irish songstress live at A Day On The Green can be found here and headline tickets can be found here.
