// Who now?
Carron are a 4 piece acoustic folk pop group from Dublin. Sisters Meabh and Mella on vocals with Darragh on fiddle and Enda on guitar.
// Listen How?
Website
Soundcloud
Facebook
Twitter
// Being sisters, did you always sing and perform together growing up? What made you decide to form Carron?
To keep us off the streets our parents signed us up to a local stage school. We fell in love with being onstage and got cast in Annie the musical at The Tivoli Theatre, playing Annie and Molly alongside each other. So technically we’ve been singing together for 15 years, which is a crazy thought!
Later we studied classical singing in The Royal Irish Academy of Music and started singing together for weddings, calling ourselves ‘Carron Sisters’. On the side, we always messed around arranging harmonies for our favourite songs. Then last year we approached Denis Kilty, who is now our producer, and asked if he would be interested in recording us singing some cover songs.
After a few months we decided to drop the ‘sisters’ part of our name and we’ve just continued as Carron. We also met our musicians Enda Roche and Darragh McGrath who have helped us find our Celtic/Folk sound.
// You guys have been gigging like crazy the past while, any favourite moments?
We used to actively look for gigs but at some point we decided to pull back a bit on the gigging and concentrate on just writing for a while. The exact opposite of that has happened. We haven’t stopped performing all summer and we love it!
One of our favourite moments gigging was just recently actually. We were invited to play at a small festival somewhere down the country. After we had been driving for about 2 hours we decided to take a pit stop in some little town. Enda jokingly said, “imagine if you guys forgot my guitar” and our faces just fell when we opened the boot and realise the guitar wasn’t there. That wouldn’t have been a major issue as we could have just borrowed a guitar from someone else, but actually Enda is a left-handed guitarist so we knew it wouldn’t be that simple.
In the end, 5 minuets before our set, Enda grabbed a right-handed guitar, flipped it over and played the entire set upside down with no sweat. Serious respect for Enda since then. There’s been other hilarious moments performing as you can imagine. Meabh falling off stage in slow motion while sitting on a high bar stool, Darragh dropping his violin bow during a gig that was being filmed, but Enda forgetting his guitar altogether is our favourite!
// Who are your favourite Irish artists at the moment?
Since we are obsessed with harmonies we have to say Mongoose. They’ve just nailed it, whatever ‘it’ is. Their lyrics are also amazing and we get inspired to write when we see them play.
// Any pre-gig rituals that you guys indulge in? Weird chanting/lucky pants/etc?
Watching Darragh eat a three in one backstage without fail every time usually calms us all down.
// You’ve quite a bit of original material now, any plans for an album or EP soon?
We have almost enough original tracks now to release an album but we are still discovering our sound and because everything happened quite quickly over such a short space of time we are in no major rush to release a full album just yet. We are, however, hoping to launch our debut EP at the beginning of the New Year so keep an eye out for us!
// The last text message you sent is your next album title. What is it?
“A little wet :(“
// Send us a photo and explain…
Meabh bought Mella a selfie stick before rehearsals one sunny afternoon. We all sat ‘rehearsing’ in the back garden. Most unproductive rehearsal ever but a lot of fun was had. After we all ordered three in ones.
// You can only hear one song for the rest of your life – what is it?
‘What’s This’ from The Nightmare before Christmas
// The one song that you always bust out at a house party?
‘No Diggity’ by Blackstreet. It makes us look cool.