THE GOOD, THE BAD AND KEEPING IT COUNTRY
I‘I had a bit of a break from reality. I’m not going to list all the crazy stuff I did’
f you are well-disposed to a type of pop strongly seasoned with country, marked by smart, funny, self-deprecating lyrics, then get the debut album by CMAT now. The 12 songs on If My Wife Knew I’d Be Dead – which include such earworms as Nashville; Every Bottle Is A Boyfriend; I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby! and No More Virgos – showcase Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson as having talent enough to back her tongue-in-cheek claim of being the ‘biggest pop star in Ireland’ and a ‘global teen pop sensation’.
‘CMAT is a character. It is a character that is based on me but there’s a delineation between the two,’ she tells me on a Zoom call, while leaning against some plumped up pillows on her bed. ‘I wrote this entire first album on my own. The songs are a snapshot of a very specific period and a very specific set of feelings at that time.’
Ciara, who is originally from Finglas, is actually 25. She learned valuable lessons about the music industry as part of indie duo Bad Sea when she really was a teenager. Dissatisfied with that as a vehicle and having dropped out of Trinity College Dublin after six months studying Irish culture and language, her musical ambitions seemingly stifled, she had, she says, a ‘Menty B,’ the name she gives to a mental breakdown.
‘I had a bit of a break from reality. For about two years I did things that I thought would be fun and they would turn out to be not fun at all,’ she says. ‘I’m not going to list all the crazy stuff I did, but things like waking up outdoors and having no idea how I got there.’
She bursts out laughing saying, ‘I’d be like, “What part of town am I in? How do I get home? Do I have any money on me? Do I have my phone?” When I was doing all these
self-destructive things, I would be funny. Oh, I would say the funniest things. Everybody thought, “She’s just having the craic”, but really, I didn’t know what was up and what was down.’ Ciara decamped to Manchester, virtually on a whim, where she thought she had a better chance of making some kind of impact ‘but it didn’t work out’. She came back to Ireland. As a fan of Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Patsy Cline, the idea for a CMAT, a camp, confident country pop creation began to germinate.
‘The songs allowed me to poke fun at myself and move on. I was able to say, “Yeah, you were f***ing mental. You were pathetic but it’s fine, you are going to move on”. I think that is the point of the album for me. I’m not saying, “I’m never going to do anything wrong again because I’m sober”. My good friend Josh loves to describe it as ‘a wobbler’.
Josh is Josh McClorey, formerly of Cavan band The Strypes, now solo artist and frequent Paul Weller collaborator. He will play guitar on the next CMAT project. Ciara reveals no specifics but does tell me they are not an item.
‘I’ll have a month of drinking and doing stupid things and Josh’ll be like, “It’s alright. You had a little wobbler. You’re done now. Get back to normal and pick up the pieces”. I’m never going to be [adopts mock sincere tone], “I’m better. I’m perfect now. I’m never going to do anything wrong in my life again”. That’s never going to happen. Even if I never touched a drop of alcohol or took a drug for the rest of my life, it’s not going to matter because I’m still going to go mental for some reason. Bad things happen. Good things happen. Too much of either of them makes you go mental. You just have to forgive yourself and move on.’
Ciara has moved on and up, and CMAT is where it’s at.
■ If My Wife Knew I’d Be Dead is out now. CMAT plays the 3Olympia, Dublin, on Friday, December 9.