Interview with Catherine McGrath

Catherine McGrath is one of the fastest rising names on the country scene and will next week make her debut appearance at the C2C festival. We were lucky enough to catch up with her last week and ask her all about her debut EP, the C2C appearance and her career so far!

Hi Catherine, we first featured you on Belles and Gals after I heard ‘Hell Would Have to Freeze Over’ for the first time, a song I called ‘a great debut’. Tell us all about the song?

Thanks! ‘Hell Would Have To Freeze Over’ is a song I wrote a few months after I moved to London to start writing songs. I wrote it about a guy who never really put in enough effort with me and he was never honest, and when I decided I was done with trying for him, he said he would do anything to get me back and the tables turned. So that’s what this song is about.

The song is the opening number on your excellent ‘One’ EP. How exciting was it to release your debut EP?

SO exciting. I get really excited about having written songs I love and the first thing I do is show them to my sisters, then I just want to show them to everyone to hear what they think, so to finally get to do that was so awesome.

It was announced that you’d be playing at the Country 2 Country Festival next week. How did you feel when you found out you’d be appearing?

I was so excited to even go to it because the lineup is amazing. It’s so cool to think I’m playing the same festival as Brad Paisley and Hunter Hayes and all these people whose music I love.

We love your slightly random social media posts like ‘Omg the handle on my bedroom door won’t turn and I can’t get out’ and ‘I just had a dream that I won £252 worth of free food at whole foods and then I woke up..’. Can you assure us that when you are a megastar, these tweets will continue?

I have the WEIRDEST dreams ever, so I will definitely continue to have a lot of those kind of tweets…

Tell us about how you got into country music in the first place?

I got into country music when I was twelve and I heard Taylor Swift talk about Nashville and country, as soon as I started listening to people like Rascal Flatts I fell completely in love with that music and never stopped loving it.

And which artists have influenced your music?

So many people have influenced my music, people like Taylor Swift, Kacey Musgraves, Carrie Underwood etc.

How big is the country music scene back home in Northern Ireland?

People go crazy at concerts back home, when people like Hunter Hayes come over, there are a group of people who make sure they’ll be there hours ahead of show time. There’s also people at home like Nathan Carter who could sell out Arenas. There are definitely people in Northern Ireland who love country like I do and who want lots more of it!

Tell us about your dream gig. Where would you be playing and which artist would join you for a duet?

I would love to play in the SSE arena in Belfast because that’s where I’ve been to see loads of concerts and I’d always imagine how it would feel to play there. Dream duet is 100% Taylor Swift.

To finish, tell us about your plans for the coming weeks and what you have in store for the rest of the year?

I’ll be playing a lot of live shows – Country 2 Country, then I’ll be touring with Canaan Smith! So this year is going to be still writing a lot but focusing on doing lots of shows so I hope I’ll meet lots of awesome people doing that!