Keavy Lynch of girlband B*Witched spoke to David Hennessy about Craic by the Creek, the reformed girlband lasting much longer in their new era than in their original run and why C’est la Vie is just ‘euphoria’.
Ireland’s best known girl band are set to rock Craic by the Creek this weekend.
B*Witched, made up of twin sisters Keavy and Edele Lynch (sisters of Boyzone’s Shane), Lindsay Armaou Sinéad Maria O’Carroll, burst onto the scene in 1998 with C’est la Vie.
Their debut single would go straight to number one in the UK and Ireland and also chart around the world.
The song would catapult them to stardom and remains one that they are remembered for.
They would follow this with more hits like Rollercoaster, To You I Belong and Blame it on the Weatherman, all going to the number one spot also.
They would also sell 3 million albums.
But the dream came to an end when the band were suddenly dropped by their record label in 2001.
The band had been preparing to release a third album but all of a sudden, they were unsigned. By 2002, B*Witched were no more.
Although at the time Keavy, Edele, Lindsay and Sinead may have thought their pop dream was over, but it would not be the end of the story.
In 2012, the four were approached to take part in The Big Reunion, an ITV series that reunited pop acts of the past for a reunion show. Five, Blue and Atomic Kitten also took part and the show was so successful, it led to a tour.
And it led to much more for B*Witched as 12 years later, they are still together and loving doing what they are doing.
We caught up with Keavy Lynch to chat ahead of the big festival this weekend.
Are you looking forward to Craic by the Creek?
“Absolutely. Any time to celebrate the Irish is always good by me.
“It’s going to be a brilliant Irish gathering to just celebrate all things Irish.
“We met Nathan (Carter), we did a gig with him a few weeks back so we were chatting about it and looking forward to it.”
I remember chatting to you years ago when you had just got back together for The Big Reunion.
And you’re still going 12 years later.
Does it feel good or strange that your new era has lasted so much longer than your original band days?
“It’s really strange. I think we’re coming up to probably almost four times’ it now.
“It’s really, really strange and the weird thing is the hard work was done way back then.
“I mean, how mad is that? How mad is that people still want to hear something we did 25 years ago and want to see us do it. It’s like we did all the groundwork then and something that we did that long ago is still making people smile and still paying our bills.
“It’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy.”
How weird is that C’est la Vie was 25 years old last year? “It does seem strange. That’s like a whole person ago.
“It does seem really strange.
“Sometimes I think, ‘How was it that long ago?’
“But then in other times I think, ‘How did it ever happen? Was it really real?’
“But obviously the difference now is that everyone already accepts who we are and what we’ve done.
“So when we’re working, it’s really fun. It’s nostalgic, it’s nice. We enjoy ourselves.
“Back in the day we were working 16, 17 hours a day.
“It was different.
“It was a slog and it was a fight to always kind of get the best chart position you could, and that’s not involved anymore, not for us at the moment anyway so there’s an ease to it, and we enjoy it, the audience enjoy it.
“We probably enjoy it a lot more in a way because there’s not as much pressure.
“The work for us tends to be working around our families, because we all have small chil- Well, Lindsay and I have small children, Edele and Sinead are still of school age.
“So the job is actually working around, ‘How do we work and deal with the children as well?’”
You mention words like slog and fight there in relation to your time in the band first time around. Was it the case that you didn’t really get to enjoy your early success then?
“It’s a good question.
“We did enjoy it but it was intense.
“Back then there wasn’t many laws in place to protect people for working as much as we worked.
“For example, some of the video shoots that we did were 24 hours long and I mean, you’re awake for 24 hours: Us, the crew, everybody.
“There was no duty of care back then but it’s different now.
“You can’t work someone that hard anymore so there’s relief in that.
“But did we enjoy it? We did enjoy it and I’ll tell you why we did, because we enjoyed our job.
“And we were very good (to each other). We really were. We were very good.
“We were four people who kept each other’s feet on the ground. We didn’t drink much. We didn’t party much.
“We were aware, we were very sensible.
“We were aware that we were working 16, 17 hours and couldn’t actually kind of take life to the limit everywhere and so we actually got our rest, not a lot of rest but we got the rest that we could get.
“But we enjoyed travelling around the world and seeing different places.
“We probably didn’t enjoy it as much as we could have because of the lack of time because we were always aware of taking care of our sleep when we could so if we were in a country, we didn’t necessarily go out and enjoy it.
“If we had an hour off it’s like, ‘I’ve got to go to bed’.”
B*Witched were not manufactured like The Spice Girls or even Boyzone.
All four girls knew each other vaguely from around Dublin and formed the band themselves.
“Maybe that’s what made it easier. Maybe that’s what kept our feet on the ground.
“We got through it as human beings in that way because we were already friends, we already knew each other.
“Edele and Sinead had a very innocent, very young chat about, ‘how about we set up a band?’
“And then Edele was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got a twin sister, let’s ask her’.
“And I said yes, we recorded a couple of things together as a three and it just felt like somebody else was missing.
“And then Lindsay was introduced to us by a friend.
“He said, ‘Oh, I have this girl. She’s lovely. She sings, she dances’.
“And he introduced her and it was all incredibly innocent.
“She came into the studio and played us a demo tape of a song that she’d written and then we very innocently said, ‘Do you want to join our band? We’re on TV next Saturday’.
“And maybe that’s where it worked for us on a personal level, we were able to be there for each other as well because we really did build it from the ground up and we chose each other.”
And it was all about the music for you, wasn’t it? I mean you’re clearly from a very musical family, I bet you and your twin sister Edele never thought of anything other than music..
“It was always performing arts in some way, shape or form.
“We were dance teachers, and we had our singing classes, and we were always doing shows.
“So that was something that was very early on something we knew we wanted to do: Never thought it would go the way it did, but it did.”
When you were dropped by the label, it was very sudden and I’m sure a massive disappointment.
I’m sure it seemed then it was over, you never thought that there could be a reunion like this..
“No, we didn’t.
“Yeah, it is (magic).
“It was a very dramatic end because the industry was very different then.
“We were recording our third album and we just had the first single back, we knew what it was called, we were going to South Africa to record the video.
“And we were just waiting for the dates to go to South Africa and instead got a phone call that it was all over.
“It was very shocking, very dramatic.
“Felt very much like being dropped from a height and got a bit lost for a couple of years of thinking, ‘Hang on, what was that?’
“Because it went from one day every moment is filled with something to do until the next year to then suddenly going, ‘Oh no, it’s all over’.
“It genuinely took quite a while to get our head around the reality of it.
“You lose everything as you knew life was for a few years and lose everything and everyone that went with it.
“It was very hurtful, very shocking.
“It was very hard to get your head around.
“Sinead and Lindsay will tell you that they always thought we’d get back together and they always thought we’d do something but Edele and I were like, ‘Nope’.
“And when The Big Reunion came knocking Edele and I said no for ages.
“Me personally I said no because I was already in college starting a new career.
“I’m a counsellor now and I didn’t want to stop that and so they were like, ‘Oh, take a year out of college, come and do The Big Reunion, your life will change’.
“And I was like, ‘I don’t really want it to. I like the new path I’m on’.
“And so I said, ‘No, no, no,’ they badgered us for months and I eventually said, ‘Well, actually, I suppose it could pay for my new career’.
“So I ended up saying, ‘As long as you can work around my studies, I’ll do it’.
“And that is what they did.
“I did my dissertation on the tour bus.
“I was literally doing a 16, 000 word dissertation sat at the front of the tour bus while every other band member and other bands were down the back having a laugh, having a drink.”
That’s brilliant. Clearly once you did get back together, there was something there as you’ve remained together which was never the plan..
“We managed to rekindle the group friendship that we had as well and here we are 12 years later.”
You have mentioned nostalgia and that is probably as big for you as those in the audience, do you still enjoy doing C’est la Vie as much as you ever did?
“Yeah, you can’t help but enjoy C’est la vie because honestly, it’s like euphoria for everybody who’s watching.
“The place just erupts every time.
“As soon as that little guitar riff starts, it’s like, ‘Aaah’.
“And then when we do our Irish dancing, double that: Just hits the roof.
“There’s just something about it.
“There’s just something about it that doesn’t leave people’s hearts and leave people’s spirits.
“And no matter how well the gig is going we usually end with C’est la Vie.
“It’s just double the loudness and enjoyment that the whole gig has been.
“It’s just one of those songs. We’re very lucky to have it.”
Keavy confesses about the Irish dancing..
“I’ll tell you what, when we play to the Irish, we’re a little embarrassed because we’re aware that our Irish dancing’s horrific.
“All around the world, everyone else appreciates it and thinks it’s brilliant but when we’re playing to the Irish it’s like, ‘We are aware we’re bad, people’.”
I’m sure that’s just your feeling.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure there are some Irish people who are better than us that are like, ‘They’re absolutely terrible and they’re running around the world showing people that that’s what Irish dancing is’.
“Luckily we have things like Riverdance to combat us.”
You mention that you are a counsellor now, that is something that you have found- outside of music and singing- that you also love, isn’t it?
“I love it. One job is very private, behind closed doors and the other job is the very opposite.
“They really balance each other out quite nicely.
“I love doing my counselling.
“It was counselling setting that helped me really save myself and I was just so empowered by that that I wanted to pass it on which is why I went and studied in the end.
“I love both my careers. I’m lucky.”
Keavy has been open about struggling with depression after the end of the band. As she says this led to her counselling.
How do you feel about being dropped by the label now all these years on, was it even perhaps a blessing in disguise?
“I don’t know if I would call it a blessing in disguise.
“I always think that things are meant to be.
“It’s just what was meant to be in life for whatever reason.”
Is there anything you would say to a younger you getting into the industry? If you could pull yourself aside as the band was taking off, what do you wish you had known?
“I think the thing that I wish I’d known is to check in with myself because we just had no time to think about self care, so what I would say is, ‘Really remember self care. Remember to check in’.
“Actually if I could rewind what I would ask for is that contract that we had with the record company came with weekly check in with a counsellor, just so you knew you were checking in on yourself and your needs and your self-care, because that’s the bit that went amiss just because things were so busy and so crazy.
“And we were so young, we wouldn’t have understood even how to do that.
“That’s the only thing I’d say.”
In the band’s very early days the girls moved to Surrey and Keavy has only recently moved out of the London area.
“I liked London.
“When I was young probably between being dropped and getting back together were the years I would have enjoyed London and gone and seen it and been there and worked in it and went out as a family, a mum with three children.
“I’d rather be somewhere a bit quieter but it served its purpose for me as kind of a late teen and young 20s and 30s.
“I really enjoyed London.”
The band released the new track Birthday last year to mark 25 years of the band and are now working on new music.
“We’re putting an EP together and you will hear of it this year.”
Big question, can we still expect to see you girls in double denim?
“Of course, we stopped and then it was like, ‘What’s the point? Everybody’s disappointed’.
“So it’s just like that riff: C’est la vie comes on, we’re wearing double denim: This reaction from people just goes up and then we Irish dance so we’re just giving everyone what they want.
“And we’re Like, ‘We have to give them what they want’.”
It was 25 years since C’est la Vie last year. Will you be around for 25 more?
“We’ll see.
“I’m not going to say no.
“I’m not going to say yes.
“We’ll see.”
B*Witched play Craic by the Creek this weekend.
Craic by the Creek runs 19- 21 July.
For more information, click here.
For more information about B*Witched, click here.