Dervish’s Cathy doesn’t dwell on Eurovision ‘blip’
DERVISH singer Cathy Jordan has never watched her performance in the 2007 Eurovision.
It’s not because the traditional band came last; she never likes to see herself on the television. Although Dervish fielded harsh criticism afterwards, Cathy says being in the contest did “far more good than harm”.
“Having 600m viewers watching can be terrifying,” she says, “and it would have been very easy for us to say no to it, but we said we’d give it a go. Life is full of every type of experience, and we had a fantastic time there — up until the last half hour.”
These experiences “strengthen you up. These days, we have some serious laughs about it all. To even say you were on it is such a great calling card.”
Cathy says most of the criticism came from Ireland, and Ireland isn’t their biggest market.
Dervish’s CV is more impressive than the ‘blip’ that a poor Eurovision entry would suggest. Shortly to celebrate a quarter of a century in the music business, the Sligo-based band has just launched its first studio album in five years, The Thrush in the Storm.
They don’t need to worry about Eurovision fans’ comments. Over their 24 years, they have played thousands of concerts in more than 30 countries.
Dervish have been on the same bill as Beck, James Brown, Sting, REM, Oasis, Neil Young and even Iron Maiden.
They have been invited to, and played, venues like the Great Wall of China, Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon and the Wailing Wall.
Their biggest live audience was a crowd of 240,000 at Rock in Rio — the world’s biggest music festival.
One of their biggest markets is Scandinavia, and they are hugely respected in global traditional music circles, being described by the BBC recently as an “icon” of Irish music.
Cathy has just come back from a tour of the US with her male bandmates, and is relaxing by painting her house in Sligo.
“It can be awful hard to make the transition from sitting in a van for eight hours a day to being a free agent again, especially on the first or second day of being back,” she says.
By the time Cathy settles into life at home, it will be time to hit the road again, this time in England.
With long periods spent in vans and hotels with her five male bandmates, Cathy has drawn on her upbringing to blend in. “I grew up with four brothers and I used to hang out with them anyway, so I was always considered ‘one of the lads’.
“Of course, sometimes you long for some female company for a chat, but we have Skype now and great ways of keeping in contact,” Cathy says.
Despite being grounded in Celtic music and a very ‘traditional’ look on stage, the band has embraced technology, with ipod and ipad apps launched recently.
They also have their own record label, and have signed a publishing deal with Bucks Music in London — whose clients include Brian Eno and Ed Sheeran — a deal which led to a contract to provide the music for the ITV series James Nesbitt’s Ireland.
And, later this year, they will feature on the soundtrack of the movie, Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson and Chris O’Dowd.
Gleeson, Cathy says, is a “great fiddle player himself” and has often joined sessions in the pubs of O’Dowd’s hometown Boyle, in Cathy’s native Roscommon.
Other “dream collaborations”, says Jordan, would include hook-ups with Mark Knopfler and Bono, and Cathy is currently writing with Brendan Graham. But she’s not too hung up on planning ahead, and just “loves to play the music and take the success that comes with it.”
The songs on Cathy’s CV come from a huge variety of sources — from other artists, from friends of the family, and, most often, from people she meets on her travels.
“But we have to remember that we are only here to mind the music — and make sure it’ll be there for someone else to pick up when we are gone.”
*Derivsh’s The Thrush in the Storm is out now. They will be in session on Cerys Matthews’ show on BBC Radio 6 on Sunday, May 26.
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