INTERVIEW WITH B*WITCHED !

Why B*Witched?

Edele: The name was actually picked by our producer. When we first met him he thought we were very bewitching because we took him into our own little world that we make up. He kept saying, 'You're very bewitching,' and it just stuck. We thought B*Witched would be a great name.

But can you wriggle your nose like Elizabeth Montgomery did in the TV series of the same name?

Keavy: We can't, but Lindsay can. You can see her doing it in the video for 'C'est La Vie'.

'C'est La Vie' it's French for 'that's life', so can you speak any other languages?

Lindsay: Yes, but not French though. I speak Greek because I'm half Greek, my dad's Greek.
Keavy: The rest of us try to speak a bit of Irish, but we can't speak it very well.
Sinead: And I used to speak French quite fluently, but you just end up forgetting it.
Edele: (in a pixie voice) But we speak gibberish. Aie-va-gai, aie-va-gan, eev-a-gee, dev-a-gel, liv-a-gynch.

Which means what exactly?

Edele: 'I'm Edele'. (laughs)

'C'est La Vie', is it your motto?

Sinead: Yeah, kind of. Just take life as it comes and live it to the full. No matter what happens, you've just got to say, 'c'est la vie'. That's life.
Keavy: What happens happens.
Edele: Basically, the way that I look at things is that everything happens for a reason.

How come your music's so 'pop'? Ireland isn't really known for that type of music.

Edele: While we have bands like U2 and acts like that, as far as the pop and commercial worlds, nobody had been doing anything for years - I think the Nolan Sisters were the last Irish act to have a real pop sound. But then Boyzone came along and opened the doors for everybody. There's a fierce amount of talent all around the whole of Ireland and the world is just beginning to see it now.
Keavy: And we're part of it!

What's with the Irish dancing in the video?

Sinead: I used to do Irish dancing when I was a little wee one. I did it for six or seven years and I used to do all the competitions.
Edele: Myself and Keavy used to do Irish dancing when we were kids too, but only for a couple of weeks, like. So Sinead taught us the bit in the video.
Lindsay: I'd never done it before.
Edele: But she's very good.

So we can hold Sinead responsible!

Edele:Sort of.
Sinead: We were working with the choreographer and he thought it was appropriate to put the Irish dancing in the video as well, so I worked out some steps and showed him the steps' 'vocabulary' and he worked it in.

Were you a super competitive Irish dancer when you were a kid?
Sinead: No, I wasn't but I did do the all-Ireland competitions and went abroad with it as well. I wasn't a champion or anything because I didn't stay at it for long enough. Had it been really competitive, I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much. I've always been in it just because I wanted to do it.

How come you ended up in B*Witched and not in Riverdance?

Edele: Because we came and saved her!
Sinead: I wasn't a champion Irish dancer that's why. Riverdance is extremely hard: you start off doing soft-shoe dancing and as you go along you enter competitions and when you win that dance, you go on to a harder dance and harder, and harder ones. Then the hardest of them all are in hard shoes. And that's at the top level, and I didn't get to the top level.

Are you always going to keep that Irish sound in your music?

Edele: Yeah, as our music develops, the Irish music will always be with us because we wanted something with a bit of individuality, and also it tells everyone something about where we're from.
With all the girl groups around at the moment, everyone's going to say you're...
Keavy: Another one!

...And what do you say to that?

Edele: A lot of people have said they can't compare us to any other girl band out there.
Sinead: I think it's down to our music.
Edele: We do Irish hip-hop pop. We have the Irish music and then there's the pop music with the melodies and the lyrics. And then the hip-hop will be the back beat. (cheers) We are Irish hip hop poppers!
Lindsay: We play instruments as well: Sinead plays the bass guitar and the piano; I play the guitar and piano as well and Edele plays the flute. Keavy plays the sax and a bit of the drums and guitar as well.
Edele: At the end of the day, we are a girl band, but we're getting to be known as the first tomboy band ever. We had a write-up that said while the Spice Girls have sex, All Saints have coolness, we have spirit and energy.

You've already been on tour with boy bands Boyzone and 911 and done radio, nightclubs and school tours too - which was your favourite?

Sinead: The school tour was my favourite because we got to meet the kids who are gonna buy our music. And that was nice 'cause sometimes kids tend to think you're not real!
Keavy: It was nice to know how happy you're making kids feel. There was one particular boy who hadn't read or written in months and months. We went into the school and when he went back to the class, all the kids were writing letters to us saying, 'Oh, you were brilliant!' and he wrote about eight sentences in two minutes flat with perfect spellings and grammar. His teacher was on a high!
Edele: And our name was on the front of Wembley Arena already! When we supported 911.

Do people think you got the gig with Boyzone because Keavy and Edele are sisters to Shane in the group?

Sinead: We actually didn't get the gig like that! We decided we wouldn't be cheeky enough to ask, but we were on a TV show at home in Ireland and Boyzone's management happened to be on the same programme and they hadn't seen us before. They watched us performing on TV from their dressing room, then came down and said, 'That was absolutely amazing!' They asked us to support Boyzone live on national television - so it's there on tape! It was so much better to be asked than turning around and asking.

How was it for you supporting boy bands?

Edele: It was really good, like.
Lindsay: Amazing!
Edele: It was really exciting getting to know new bands, but it's quite sad in a way because you spend ten days with these people, get to know them, have a laugh and they become your friends and then you have to move on. And not see them for months afterwards.
Keavy: But we keep bumping into Ultra on the school tours and some television that we've done and on the road! Sinead:They were just walking along Kensington High Street in London.
Edele: And we were hanging out the car window! It was just after our launch and we were just so excited telling them everything. Then we got back in the car and you could see them looking at each other, thinking 'What the hell was that all about?'

Have any of Boyzone or 911's fans got all bitchy on you?

All: No, not at all.
Edele: We even had a few banners.
Keavy: Our first one was in Cardiff on the first night with 911. We were like, 'Look, look!' and by the end of the tour, I think we ended up with four banners.

What does Shane think of your success?

Keavy: He thinks it's great that we're doing what we always wanted to do, but at the same time he always warned us that we were gonna get tired and it was going to be hard work. But we knew that from watching him anyway, and it didn't put us off because this is all we ever wanted to do.

And is there a 'special' link between you and Boyzone?

Keavy: We wouldn't call them up or anything like that, but the boys are really nice and we chat away to them when we see them.
Edele: I don't think it actually hit us how big they are until we went to see them at Wembley last year and we just burst into tears. It only hit us then that Shane was in the biggest boy band around at the minute. But we don't look at him any differently, 'cause he's still our brother and at the end of the day we love him and he just happens to be doing a public job.