Catatonic for the troops

“What do I think of Westlife?” ponders Cerys Matthews, furrowing her brow, crinkling her nose and giggling girlishly. “Em… they’re nice boys, very pleasant boys but they’re not really doing anything new, are they? I’ll tell you, I thought the worst record of the last year was ‘Uptown Girl’. I thought they really shot themselves in the foot with that one. I didn’t mind Coast To Coast so much, because I could see the attraction of it, you know. I mean, a boy-band is a boy-band – but they shouldn’t do ‘Uptown Girl’ so badly and pretend to rock out.”

Of course, being a notoriously ‘uptown’ kinda party-girl herself – and a hell of a lot more raucously rock’n’roll than the vast majority of her contemporaries, to boot – the Catatonia star is certainly qualified to judge. Just while we’re on the subject (we had been bemoaning the increasingly sorry state of the pop charts), how does the famously hedonistic singer rate Westlife’s spiritual mentor and former manager, Ronan Keating?

“Ronan Keating? Oh dear, Ronan, what are you doing?” she sighs, in mock horror. “He can’t dance! He’s like a yellow-pack Tom Jones stroked with Cliff Richard. Just because you’ve got a pair of leather trousers on, it doesn’t mean you’ve got a cock in there, does it? Someone really should tell him.”

When hotpress points out that it’ll be only too happy to oblige, she lets out a horrified schoolgirl squeal: “Nooooo!! Oh no, please don’t print that in Ireland – he’ll hate me forever!”

Then she takes a healthy swig from her Bloody Mary (laced with two mini-bar vodkas), smiles mischievously and obviously decides that the wrath of Ronan Keating is something she can easily afford to incur. “Actually, fuck it – go on!” she grins. “Print away! It’s true, isn’t it? Then again, a lot of people get really snobby about so-called ‘manufactured’ bands, but to be honest, in this climate, most bands are just the same once they get involved in signing contracts. You’ve still got commitments to fulfil. It doesn’t matter whether you’re pop or rock.”

Not that the redoubtable Ms. Matthews (who is a little bit of both) is really one to talk about fulfilling commitments – musical or otherwise. ‘Manufactured’ she most certainly ain’t but, as many around her will happily attest, she’s hardly likely to win any awards for being the most reliable person on the planet. For a start, there’s her former fiancée. Last Christmas, she got formally engaged to her then live-in musician boyfriend, Anthony Genn (who enjoyed a brief period of notoriety when he appeared naked onstage with Elastica at Glastonbury ‘95). Rather unromantically, the couple separated on Valentine’s Day, exchanging red cards, rather than the more traditional heart-festooned Hallmarks. “Forty days – not bad, eh?” she shrugs. “My mother’s washing her hands of me!”

Then there’s her long-suffering band, who once found themselves anxiously waiting for their wayward singer backstage at an important gig in Brighton, only to receive a frantic phone call from a seriously hungover Cerys, who was stranded somewhere in the South of France and had absolutely no idea how she’d got there. She’d gone on a drinking binge in London three days earlier but, beyond that, she wasn’t quite sure what had happened. It’s not for nothing that she was once described as “the Welsh Kim Deal.”

And then there’s her record company, of course, and the little matter of Catatonia’s relatively lengthy (and hugely unprofitable) absence from the public gaze of late. Around about this time two years ago, the Welsh band were hanging-ten on the crest of a veritable tsunami of commercial and critical success.

And it seemed that things could only get better. America began to sit up and take notice, and the band were quickly signed to Atlantic Records for a bank-manager-pleasing sum. The record-buying public was baying for more and every gig on every tour was a total sell-out. Perhaps most importantly, Mark Roberts – chief songwriter, lead guitarist and Cerys’s former beau – was on a creative roll and really wanted to go back into the studio and cut a new album. Hardly the most opportune time for any band to take a break from the limelight – but that’s exactly what Cerys Matthews decided to do. She went on strike while the iron was hot, much to the chagrin of, well, just about everybody around her. She dismisses rumours of nervous breakdowns, spells in dry-out clinics and band meltdowns with a hearty laugh and a casual wave of her heavily bejewelled hand. She had her reasons for taking a breather, but maintains that they were nothing the tabloids would have any particular interest in.

“I just wanted a break, because I didn’t want to get into doing it by numbers,” she explains. “I felt that we had run our course on the material we were touring, and the amount of freshness and energy we could generate. It was necessary to go back, read books, watch TV, play chess, go to ballet lessons, go horse riding, meet new people, cut your hair, romp in the countryside, and come back with a fresh palette. There was a bit of pulling and pushing, with the boys wanting to go straight in and do another album, but I didn’t. That’s just being honest.

“So I’ve been stepping out of the hamster wheel and I’ve been feeding my brain with all sorts of things and just really enjoying myself and feeling no pressure whatsoever to sell another single record in my life or do anything that I don’t particularly take pleasure in. And I’ve been saying this in every interview but I don’t care, I’ve been finding a new sort of equilibrium. And that’s a nice thing.”

So you’ve just been chilling out then?

“No, I’ve been busy!” she protests. “I don’t want anyone thinking that I’ve been sitting there doing cross-stitches on some isolation ward, slowly going crazy. I’ve been doing stuff. It was really about getting home and getting perspective again, and digesting the fact that a slight bit of success changes people’s attitudes towards you a little bit. And then realising that you must also lose your own naivety a bit – you’ve gotta wise up a bit, you know.”

Why? Did you encounter much begrudgery when Catatonia became successful?

“No, not begrudgery really – just that I trust so much. The thing is you don’t see the begrudgery because it’s being done behind your back. All you see is people being so nice to you. And you think they’re being nice to you because you think you’re a nice girl. So you can get quite confused then, when things go tit over ass. But it does change, you know. I never had time to really take stock. So this taking time away allowed me to reflect on it properly.

“Like, it all happened really quickly for us,” she continues. “We went from years and years of nothing, even though we’d been on the road a lot, and then suddenly we had loads happening. I did the duet thing with Space and had three Top Fives in six months and wasn’t off the A-list for six months – what with the Space duet, ‘Road Rage’ and ‘Mulder & Sculy’. And then the Tom Jones thing happened. It just didn’t stop. We went straight into doing Equally Cursed And Blessed and then America started to take off. And that’s when I went ‘I can’t do this anymore’. I’d run out of… something. Juice!”

Today, snugly ensconced in a luxurious suite in London’s swanky Metropolitan Hotel, midway through a lengthy day of press promotion for Catatonia’s long-awaited fourth album Scissors, Paper, Stone, the only juice she’s run out of is the kind you mix with alcohol. She refuses my offer of a cigarette (“I won’t have one till after 9pm, thank you sir – or at least until after ten pints of beer!”) but insists that I try out one of the pre-bottled Bloody Marys from the mini-bar. Unfortunately, she’s already polished off the readily available supply.

“I think there’s probably some in the next room,” she announces gleefully, before getting up and bursting into the adjoining suite where the PR people from Warners are entertaining waiting journalists and telephonically organising tonight’s VH1 TV appearance (amongst other promotional commitments), and performing a quick smash-and-grab raid on their mini-bar. “Got some!” she giggles, returning with a couple of bottles. “You’re gonna love these! They’re properly mixed with all the spices and everything. They just need a bit more vodka in them!”

Drinks mixed, we get down to business. Or try to, at least. Cerys is in typically bubbly form today, seeming thoroughly refreshed after her lengthy sabbatical, and is as happy to chat about the renovations she’s supposed to be doing on her old house in Cardiff and newly purchased one in Paddington (“It was a good investment – you can’t drink bricks and mortar!”) or her new gardening column in Time Out (“It’s more social commentary really”), as she is about the new record. Her time off was well spent, she says, but now it’s great to be back on track with Catatonia. And speaking of tracks, are those braces on her teeth?

“Yeah,” she smiles, pulling her lip down to give me a closer look. “I’ve been quite enjoying spending a little bit of money on myself. I’m fed up with looking like a fat heifer-lump compared to all these fancy, pearly toothed, stick like, gorgeous looking, pretty pop princesses – so I’m trying my best. There’s no harm in that, is there? Because you do get rather self-obsessed. And gaps and a little bit of darkness on your teeth sometimes make you look like a witch in the wrong shadow. And I’m not a witch. Do you know what the worst most off-putting thing that people tell me is? They say, ‘Oh, you look so much better in the flesh!’ I don’t know whether that’s good or bad (laughs).”

I point out (truthfully!) that she looks great in the promo shots scattered before us on the table.

“Thank you – I had them touched up,” she smiles. “It wasn’t me! Actually, I always wondered what they felt like, these braces. They’re actually a man-magnet. I think there’s something masochistic about it or something.”

Last month, Cerys made a surprise appearance at the Hay-On-Wye literary festival, where – together with actress Lisa Jen-Brown – she duetted her way through a couple of traditional folk songs for the guest of honour, one William Jefferson Clinton. Did her magnetic braces have any effect on the famously philandering politician?

“No, he was too busy with a Monica Lewinsky lookalike,” she sighs. “They put him next to a Monica Lewinsky lookalike and he seemed quite ensconced in her stories, by the looks of it. But it was all quite bizarre. There was this big gala banquet dinner – something I would never ever in a million years dream of going to – but I always like to try things once anyway, you know. And they said, ‘Cerys, will you sing?’ so I said ‘yeah’. I was flown up and didn’t have much time rehearsing so it was really off-the-cuff and I could have fallen flat on my face.”

Fortunately, she didn’t: “It was the first time I ever sang folk publicly, but it is something that I’ve always enjoyed doing. It was where I started. So I sang him an American Civil War song and a Welsh-language old Welsh folk song. And it was great! I told him to go back to America, change the constitution – which every American balks at – and get Bush out of the White House. I said all this over the microphone and everyone was going, ‘Oh my God – what has she just said?’ And then all of the world’s press were there so I kind of went on – (wags finger) ‘Right, there’s one thing I want to say to you, mister…’ No, it was great, it was a great opportunity. It’s not quite as good as saying I’ve sung for the President, but I’ve sung for the ex-President.”

Which must make you the Welsh Marilyn Monroe…

“Actually, I sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in Welsh under my breath, just so I could tell my grandchildren. If I’m ever lucky enough to have grandchildren, that is.”

The last time we met, you told me that you wanted to have “millions” of babies. Do you still?

“I do, I do,” she nods enthusiastically. “But not to look after them or do the washing too much. I can barely do my own washing!”

How is love treating you these days?

“Oh, love is a fickle thing,” she avers, giggling. “Love is a changing thing. But I dunno – I’m not very good at it. I love too many people. I was out with a bunch of people the other night and someone said to me, ‘you’ve got too many boyfriends’. And I looked and they were all ex-boyfriends and new boyfriends… and boys I liked. Actually, we’d better not go on. It’s too dangerous. Dangerous ground, that is! Change the subject – quick!”

OK – how did the rest of the band feel when you suddenly decided to take a break?

“Well, I think it’s hard for them to understand,” she muses. “They might think that I’m a bit of a… (pauses). I dunno, you’d have to ask them really. I mean, I love them to bits, they’re my band and I’ve grown up with them, and lived through loads of stuff with them and I love this album…”

‘My band’? You can’t say that!

“I can!” she insists, indignantly. “I say it all the time! They’re my boys! But then, they say the same about me – calling me the ‘old slapper’ or whatever. But they don’t like me working outside of the band, and they don’t understand why I say I have to take time off from the band and then still work with other people. I mean, I can understand the inconsistency there, but I try and explain to them that there is absolutely no pressure when I work with other people. That it’s a pressure intrinsically with representing ‘us’ as a group. Because the pressure’s on us to perform and particularly on myself, being the lead singer, to put a good show on. It’s totally different! And I want to be passionate about something. I don’t want to do it just because that’s how it’s set out on the agenda. I ran out of juice, I ran out of passion, I ran out of freshness, I ran out of… confidence, really.”

Confidence is not sometihng she lacks in the new album Scissors, Paper, Stone. Fortunately, while she may be somewhat biased, she’s still not wrong. Co-produced with legendary knob-twiddlers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley (Madness, Elvis Costello, etc), the album sounds like a cross-section of all the best bits from their three previous efforts, with some added attitude, hard-edged harmonies and exotic sonic spices thrown into the mix for good measure. Musically it’s tighter and more mature, with subtle shades of folk, pop and computerised melodies merging nicely with the usual Catatonia blend of angry, venomous but always tuneful rock. All in all, it’s their best work to date – a sparkling return to form from a band who, in truth, never really lost form anyway; just a little time.

“I’m more proud of this album than I am of anything else we’ve done,” she enthuses. “I’ll stand up and be shot in the back for it. I’ve heard it about three thousand times and I still love it, which is unusual, because I usually don’t. But I’ve got more and more involved in the mixing element and the production side of things with this one – which is why I’m particularly proud of it and fond of it and excited about it. There were some pretty heavy arguments and pretty heavy disagreements and pretty heavy all round stuff going on with the band at the time, but I think out of arguments can come something strong.”

Although the band’s lyrics are generally written in collaboration, she feels that Mark Roberts has surpassed himself on this particular outing.

“He’s written some brilliant songs for this album. There’s always been a mix of me and Mark and Owen writing – so don’t blame it all on me! – to various degrees. But I just happen to think that Mark’s songs on this album are the strongest and most beautiful. I think they work on various different levels as well and are open to interpretation as well, which is a strength in a song. Like a song like ‘Fuel’ – I really love that song.”

Despite opening with the lines “Go tell the captain there’s no water left to navigate / I sailed them all for you / Go tell the engine room, stop stoking up the fire / We’re out of fuel,” it transpires that the song – as memorably melancholic, restrainedly angry and addictively tuneful a track as anything Catatonia have ever done – wasn’t actually written about Britain’s fuel crisis last summer. Nor was it written about the singer’s sudden lack of enthusiasm for the pop life.

“It was actually written way before the fuel crisis or any of that,” she laughs. “But we recorded it during what happened – so much so that when I was due to put the vocals down, I couldn’t get to the studio because my car was empty. So I had to get a taxi. It was so bizarre, that coincidence. But I don’t think you can beat the opening few lines of that song. I really love it.”

Another of her album favourites is titled (and poses the question) ‘Is Everyone Here On Drugs?’

“It’s not just about the illegal substances – though of course that is a large part of it – but it’s also saying things about Prozac nation, antibiotics, the power that drug companies have over social habits and all that kind of thing.”

Although Cerys isn’t aware of the recent legal controversy over the criminally insane price of drugs for AIDS treatment in Africa, she has numerous bones to pick with pharmaceutical companies.

“I heard about the Americans sending all the new drugs to Mexico to be tested on the people there and stuff. And also about the anti-ulcer thing – they did research and discovered that 70% of ulcers could be cured instantly by just one dose of this particular antibiotic and they didn’t release the research because they’d lose billions in loss of revenue because people wouldn’t buy all the other stuff they were selling. And some illegal substances are less harmful than legal ones anyway. And there’s also a little bit of a dig in the song about not being able to be honest about it. Honesty doesn’t get you anywhere, does it? You can lie and run the country, be honest and go to jail!”

Did you vote in the last election?

“No, sorry to say. But I didn’t want to vote for anybody. I know it’s a bit of a cop-out but that’s how I felt. I mean, it’s crap – every single party… (pauses). Actually, we won’t go into it. I’ll bore you to tears. Suffice to say, I know the answer to everything!”

Now aged 32, with several years of success behind her and, hopefully, with many more to come, has Cerys Matthews sown all of her wild oats and quietened down?

“No, of course I haven’t!” she giggles, raising her glass. “But I’m a little bit wiser with it – or at least a little bit more careful. I feel quite liberated now. I’m very proud I got to this age. What I find really strange is seeing your family and seeing us becoming the mainstay or backbone of the family as such, because as your parents get older they start to take a back seat and you start to make the big decisions. And then when you hear somebody is 67 and you don’t think that that’s old anymore – and you used to think that was ancient. It’s really weird. But while I may be older and wiser, I’m still up for it, you know.”

Any chance you’ll go solo at some point?

“I know I’m gonna do something, it’s not a secret but, at this moment in time, with this album – you’ve gotta feed this one first, you know. But it’s nice to know that that’s a definite possibility and it’s out in the open. Because it’s stuff that the boys wouldn’t want to do anyway – it’s more folk.”

Are you in touch with people in the folk world?

“Oh God, no!” she says, looking horrified. “I don’t like the traditional presentation of traditional songs. I like my own presentation of them.”

The girl from Warners enters the room, signalling that our time is nearly up. As I get ready to leave and Cerys prepares herself to face another grilling, there’s really just one question left. Having walked away from it all and then returned to the fray, does Cerys Matthews feel that she could be happy without fame and all that comes with it?

“That’s a difficult question to answer because, you know, once you get used to it…,” she mulls. “You can get spoilt rotten and then you might miss that, you see. I think I’ve got quite a healthy attitude to it. I go to my local pubs and, of course, some people stare over going ‘there’s Cerys’ but once you accept that that’s an inescapable part of what you do, that’s okay. I haven’t really changed the way I exist. I mean, I hear stories about people – especially girls – in the music business getting completely out of order and it’s just stupid. I don’t want an entourage, I don’t want people choosing my clothes, I don’t want people doing my hair.”

I thought all girls loved having their hair done!

“I hate having my hair done!” she laughs. “It’s the most boring thing in the world. You go to the hairdressers and they automatically think that it’s a pleasure for you to sit down and have a gossip and talk about where you’re going to go on holidays this year. I hate it, I’m just like, ‘get on with it!’ So that’s why I’ve always got half a hair style. I just take off when I get bored. Same with make-up artists, they always take too long. So I’m downgrading, I am. But then, maybe the choice of having all those things will be taken away from me anyway, if nobody buys the album.”

Somehow, I think that Cerys Matthews will be impatiently batting away hairdressers, make-up artists and clothes stylists for quite some time to come. Equally cursed, blessed and only half-dressed…