With their second and latest album recently released in the US, Irish twins and musical duo, Heathers have been busy between Ireland and America, playing SXSW amongst other live shows, and are now knuckling down to write some new material.
Set to play Live at Leopardstown this Summer, we caught up with Ellie and Louise to chat about how things are looking for them.
Your second album ‘Kingdom’ was recently released in the US I believe? How has the reaction been to that?
Louise: It’s been great so far! We just released it back in April and it’s something we’ve always wanted to do with the new album. We spent a lot of time over there in 2008 and 2009 when we started Heathers just touring around very much DIY style. So now to go back over and play bigger venues and tour on a slightly bigger scale is so nice. After we went to Malaysia and Asia in February or March we played SXSW which is something we’ve always wanted to do. A lot of our friends have played SXSW and always come home saying how amazing it is. But this year felt right for us ’cause we were releasing the album so it was something to back up us going over. And basically over the last few months we’ve been back and forth and it’s been good.
Yeah, to have such a fan base to play festivals like SXSW and get a positive reaction to that and the album so far from home is amazing. Do you find it’s different playing live shows over in the US as opposed to in Ireland?
Ellie: To be honest, we’ve found the audiences in America are quite similar to the audiences over here, which is nice. They have the same energy and they’re up for fun and they’re really into music so it’s cool ’cause when we play over there we kind of feel like we’re at home. It’s been really fun so far anyway.
You guys are set to play Live At Leopardstown this year. Are you looking forward to that?
Louise: Yeah, can’t wait! We were talking about this yesterday – I’ve never been to a race in my life so I’m looking forward to that! And our band are coming over from London. Really excited. It’s been a while since we played in Dublin. Ellie goes to the gym in Leopardstown so who knows, she might do a little run on the treadmill and then come down and play!
I covered the Live at Leopardstown series last year and they’re an incredible set of gigs.
Louise: Yeah, I saw Republic of Loose in Leopardstown once and it was amazing so I’m looking forward to us being up on stage.
Have you guys get any other festival type things planned for the Summer?
Ellie: Not really. We’re playing Wavemasters festival in Clare and we’re doing a few dotted gigs around Ireland but we’re kind of focusing on the release in the States at the moment so we’re kind of between here and there. And we’ve started to write some new music as well so we’re pretty focused on that as well.
Talk to me about your involvement in the whole Cycle Against Suicide campaign ’cause that was really successful and a really lovely thing.
Ellie: Yeah absolutely. Jim Breen who founded Cycle Against Suicide contacted us about two years ago and told us what he was thinking of doing. He had heard our song ‘Forget Me Knots’ and asked if we wanted to be involved ’cause he really loved the song. So we immediately said we wanted to be involved; it’s something that means an awful lot to us – we wrote ‘Forget Me Knots’ for a friend of ours who took her own life. So we took part in the cycle and ‘Forget Me Knots’ was sort of the anthem for it. So then last year we were involved with an album that Bressie organised called ‘Simple Things’ in aid of suicide and mental health. There was about 12 bands working on that. And we did a stripped back version of ‘Forget Me Knots’ with the Dublin Gospel Choir singing on it. So that was really cool to be involved with.
Lastly, you mentioned spending a lot of time writing songs at the moment. Have you guys got a new release planned or what’s next on the horizon?
Louise: Yeah, I think it’s early days yet. We’re starting to work on new music but it is very early days. In the next year or so we’ll be coming out with something new though, definitely.
Great! Well thank you both so much for that interview.
Louise: No, thank you!
Ellie: Lovely talking to you Wynona!
You can catch Heathers play Bulmers Live At Leopardstown on June 19th.
Watch the Official Music Video for ‘Forget Me Knots’: