With her debut album Talk of this Town just around the corner (July 27th) Catherine McGrath has been busy playing festivals such as Cornbury, British Summer Time – Hyde Park and many more, as well as teasing fans with exciting social media posts about her debut release.

Catherine has been a huge part of the UK country fan base for a few years now and has toured with the likes of Kelsea Ballerini, Dan + Shay, Una Healy and many more. A regular now at Country 2 Country Festival, Catherine has also been playing festivals all over including her second time in a row at BST Hyde Park. 

We caught up with Catherine just before her performance at BST where she was playing on The Barclaycard Stage to discuss her show, her new album, working with Hunter Hayes and more.

Enjoy!

Hi Catherine – How are you?

I am good thanks.

How does it feel to be back at British Summer Time in Hyde Park and this time the barclaycard stage?

It’s exciting. Last year I saw Ward Thomas on this stage so it is going to be a lot of fun.

Last time we spoke was actually at BST last year, how was that first performance?

It was really fun. The good thing about festivals is that people are introduced to your music that may never have heard of you or listened to you if you weren’t at that festival, especially when it’s a festival of all genres. My memory of last year is having new people listening to my music and of course seeing Tom Petty perform.

How would you say you have developed as an artist and a performer since your first BST performance?

Well my band has got bigger which is exciting, where as last year it was a lot more acoustic. I have written a lot more music since and have played to a lot more people so I have been learning as I have gone along and now, with an album coming out, I have a lot more new songs to play.

So let’s talk about the fact you have your debut album out, no big deal huh? Ha!

Ha ha, Yeah, it is so weird because I have been writing for it for two and a half years and I never really knew that it was going to happen – I was just writing songs with no particular goal. It’s crazy now to know that 13 of those songs from the last two years up till now will be on there and the whole world will be able to hear them. I love it when people come up to me after shows and say “Starting From Now, I am going through that exact same situation and it has really helped me”. It’s really nice to know that the music so far has been connecting with people so I hope the new music will do that too.

Well this is it, you have been known to the UK country community for quite a while now and your fan base has built dramatically so it’s exciting for the fans just as much as it is for you in a way?

It is really cool because I have been playing certain songs from the album that haven’t been released and there are people in the crowd that know all the words to those songs already.

We will have some fan favs on the album, but is there a song you can’t wait for people to hear?

I am really excited for people to hear Dodged a Bullet. That is one that I haven’t played live yet and it was the last song that I wrote for the album so it is the most recent one for me. It feels new, a lot of the songs I have had for years so Dodged a Bullet is a fresh one for me.

So…Working with Hunter Hayes..pinch me moment?

Yeah, it was amazing! I met Hunter at Country 2 Country Festival. When I wrote Don’t Let Me Forget, it was never intended as a duet and then I really wanted to put it on the album and it was like “Oh wow, this sounds like a duet”. I sent the song over to Hunter because I love his music. He loved it so much that he plays the guitar and sings on it.

He is such a nice guy too isn’t he?

He is so nice, he is just so talented. I have been listening to his music since 2011 so I am super excited that he is a part of it.

What was it like shooting the video?

So we actually shot it over in Nashville which was really cool. We filmed it in an old abandoned house which had no electricity or anything, so all the lights in the video were set up through a generator. The whole process was fun and we got to hang out on set and perform the song for the first time together. I hadn’t seen him in person since before we recorded it because we recorded it separately so it was nice to be able to do it together then.

Will we ever get to see you and Hunter perform it together in the UK?

I would love to. We got to perform it together at his Fan Club Party during CMA Festival which was a lot of fun so I would love to do that over here.

How was the response at the Fan party for the song and your music?

Well I haven’t actually played live in Nashville apart from singing with Hunter. It was really good on that day, I had people coming up to me and telling me they had heard my songs which was crazy for me because I hadn’t performed there or released anything there for people to know my songs. It was a real surprise and I would love to be able to go back and do more stuff.

You are off to Australia soon with Morgan Evans which is amazing.

Yeah, I am so excited. Australia will be amazing and also I love Morgan’s music and I am excited to get to watch him play and hear new songs of his so yeah, that’s going to be so much fun.

What will you do to celebrate album release day?

I am going to be at home back in Ireland so I will be with my whole family so I am not sure yet – maybe just play the album and have everyone listen to it. I don’t really know how to celebrate it as it’s my first one, I haven’t experienced this before haha.

Will you be frantically refreshing social media to see the fan responses?

Oh yeah definitely haha, can’t wait to see what people’s favourite songs are.

Well we very much look forward to it. Thanks so much for speaking today and good luck with the album release, not that you need it.

Thank you

Pre Save Talk of This Town here

Pre Order Talk of This Town Here

See Catherine on her Headline tour this September- details below