We’re still rivals …but now it’s in a good way!
TDea Matrona
heir name is derived from Celtic mythology and means ‘divine mother goddess’ so it’s appropriate that Dea Matrona make a heavenly racket. Mollie McGinn and Orláith Forsythe make up the Northern Irish duo. They have just released their debut album, For Your Sins. In support of it, they are doing an Irish and UK tour – and they’ll be a must-see at this year’s intimate and beautifully appointed Night & Day Festival in Boyle, Co. Roscommon, at the end of June, where other acts taking the stages in Lough Key Forest Park include Ash, Bell X1, Damien Dempsey, Gemma Hayes and The Undertones.
It is more than seven years since Mollie and Orláith began busking in Belfast. They met while attending Assumption Grammar School in Ballynahinch, Co. Down.
‘We actually started as enemies at school,’ Orláith laughs. ‘We competed in Scór na nÓg in two
‘Our parents were sick of us playing music in the house so we went busking’
different clubs against each other. Then there was a school talent competition and we wanted to compete as solo singers but there was only one slot left so the teachers said, “Either you both get together and play or neither of you are doing it”.’
A teenage friendship developed after they discovered a mutual appreciation of Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac. Videos of them playing covers of hits such as Whole Lotta Love and Oh Well on the streets of Belfast went viral. ‘We went busking because our parents were sick of us playing music in the house all the time when we were teenagers,’ Mollie continues. ‘We went in to play, made a bit of pocket money so we never had to work at jobs. My little sister Mamie could play drums. She joined us when she was 14. [Then] we started thinking we could make something out of this – we haven’t stopped since.’
Mamie stopped playing with Orláith and her big sister but moved into design and has created the artwork for the duo’s last three singles. Different session players have played drums live and on their debut album. Mollie and Orláith, both 24, have written, arranged and produced each of the songs. Tracks such as the blues rocker Wilderness, socio-politically aware Stuck On You and laid-back loved-up Every Night I Want You display notable musicianship, songwriting chops and a diversity of musical styles.
‘Our biggest inspirations were The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin can go from The Immigrant Song to Tangerine. Then you look at Fleetwood Mac who went from Oh Well to Everywhere. We thought Every Night I Want You was a bit like our Christine McVie song.’
This is the second generation of musicians in the McGinn household to make a pitch for the big time. Mollie’s father played in early Nineties band Tiberius Minnows. ‘So I grew up always knowing the realities of the music industry,’ she says. ‘I definitely got a wee bit of push-back,’ Orláith says, commenting on her own family’s attitude to her ambitions.
‘When my parents realised I wasn’t going to get a real job, they didn’t have a choice but to be supportive and they always have been.’
The band are each equally adept
at guitar and bass and swap instruments on stage. The best friends who began as rivals say that healthy competition between them still drives them onwards.
‘That’s how our band started. Mollie would come into school and play the whole of the solo from [Led Zeppelin’s] Black Dog for me. So I’d think, “I better go home and learn something now”,’ Orláith says.
‘We started in friendly competition and that’s what spurred us on,’ Mollie says in closing. ‘There is still a little of that now, particularly with songwriting. If one of us comes in with a really good idea the other one will be thinking, “I need to brush up my own ideas a wee bit”. That’s definitely a good thing.’