Since hightailing it to Nashville five years ago to escape her turbulent past, Cerys Matthews has been a very busy girl. Leaving all thoughts of Catatonia firmly in the past, our pretty Welsh heroine decided to head for the hills to find some new sounds, forge new friendships and try something a little bit different. Now she's back with a new album, a new husband, two new babies and a new-found sparkle and effervescence…
How's life treating you these days?
It's treating me very well at the minute. I managed to finish this album which was a long ordeal so I'm very, very satisfied now it's done and I'm looking forward to playing the stuff live.
How long did it actually take to produce?
Specifically to record, only a couple of months, but the whole pre-production was an ordeal because I was trying to get a different-sounding album so getting the right people together was quite difficult. I played with 20 different drummers until I found Myson Neery who's played on most of the tracks on the album. He's coming on tour with me as well. He's just brilliant, and a very different-sounding drummer.
What's life like, living in America?
On a personal level it's really good, like I live pretty simply. I can drive around and listen to the radio and play with my kids and go shopping etc. And then on a bigger scale, you've got the whole thing of living in America at the moment which is a different kettle of fish altogether. That's why we've brought our two babies back to Wales for a few months – to get a bit of Welsh culture and try and get the balance there somehow.
Where is it you're living now – is it South Carolina?
No, we did live there - that's where Seth's family is from and we lived there for a year, then we moved to Nashville, which is where I met Seth and where we both moved back for friends and stuff.
Would you ever move back to Wales?
We're not sure at the minute - we're a bit like a troop of gypsies. I've been moving a lot since 1991 and Seth has too, so we've both got to get our acts together soon and figure out where exactly where we're going to stay for the most part. But we've got a year and a half before Glenys Pearl goes to school, so we're going to have to figure out where we're going to be.
You've travelled quite a lot of the US, what made you settle in Nashville?
I like the sun – it's blazing hot in summer, and it's full of studios, and it's full of amazing talented musicians and songwriters, so you can pretty much meet anybody there and they'd be involved in some aspect of the music business. I guess I found it quite comforting to be a tiny fish in this huge pond.
Is that why you travelled there, so you could escape?
I did go there to escape, but I didn't know much about Nashville at all. I had the greatest country and western hits on a cassette tape my parents gave to me and played to us in the car when we were younger. It was more by accident and just a romantic whim because Catatonia had come to an end and I wanted to do something completely different. I'd also been collecting these old, old songs for many years and I fancied recording them - but I didn't want to have a folk music kind of sound on them or have any people dancing round maypoles or anything. So, I had a fancy to follow the songs over the Atlantic to where the people emigrated to and started off the Bluegrass thing, so this idea sprouted one day and I just did it.
Do you have any regrets about leaving Catatonia behind?
No! Because I've got the best band in the world arriving on Wednesday and I get to ask them to do the songs that I absolutely love to do. It's all a good thing and I can't imagine why I'd want to go back to Catatonia or why I wouldn't want to leave.
Were they an awkward bunch?
Yeah! But being in a band is like being in a marriage and you all have to have equal say and so, yeah, it's really, really difficult. Do that for 10 years, over and over again and it's really hard. Add to that you've got an ex-partner in there, and you've got to spend 24 hours together in a sticky van, and a load of attention – it's not ideal, is it?
How's motherhood treating you?
It's totally brilliant. Having two is chaotic and messy – I have the messiest house in the world, but it's brilliant. It does make you have to squash a lot of things in the time that you do have free, but then doing that makes you really appreciate what you love doing - so what I'm doing musically now is a lot more focused and I get a hell of a lot more enjoyment out of it.
How did you manage to write and produce an album with two small children around?
It's hard. I did it with the help of my mum and my mother-in-law because you have to really focus with chunks of time, and the kids can't really come and have fun. We did set up a microphone and an amp in the studio at one point, and Johnny Jones was crawling through these cables that have an immense amount of electricity going through them, so it wasn't really that practical. It's do-able but it was with a lot of help from other people.
Would you say becoming a mother has changed you at all?
I don't know. Does it change you as a person? I mean, your time is suddenly halved when you have children and then when they're looked after by somebody else, you have all this time again. It's a really strange concept. It's quite frantic, even if you're trying not to do anything it's a frantic exercise. That's the worst thing, you just can't up and leave – by the time you're ready to, somebody's hungry or needs to be changed.
Would you have any more?
I'd love to have more! But my husband is more concerned by the population of the world.
