Music & Media (1998)
Submitted to Ultimate B*Witched by Nate
Archived from Music & Media (11 July 1998)
B*WITCHED PUT SPELL ON RADIO
by Sally Stratton
Having conquered the U.K., New Zealand and their Irish home market with the chart-topping debut single C'est La Vie (Epic), B*Witched are casting their spell over Europe.
Their first promotional tour of Germany, Italy, France and Sweden has coincided with significantly increased airplay for the single, including record of the week at CHR station NRJ in Sweden and a number 7 airplay hit in Norway.
"My objective is to make C'est La Vie the smash hit single of this summer," says Jon Fowler, director of international marketing at Sony Music. "We've also promoted the single and mixes to major European holiday resorts - hopefully holidaymakers going to the Costa Del Sol will be hearing it a fair few times."
B*Witched have created a catchy hybrid of pop and traditional Irish music, with a fiddle player featured prominently in their stage show.
"You don't know whether Irish music is going to fit in properly with pop music until you try it,"
explains B*Witched member Sinead O'Carroll, who adds that the traditional element was introduced when experimenting in the studio. "It was a team decision between the producer, manager, choreographer and us."
Sisters Edele and Keavy Lynch already know something about the ups and downs of pop stardom as their brother Shane is in Boyzone. Like her brother, Keavy used to work as a mechanic and she and the group's youngest member, 17 year-old . Lindsay Armaou, met at kick-boxing classes.
"We have actually been named the first 'tomboy' band," says O'Carroll, because of that and the way we dress very casually. We just want to be comfortable and appeal to young children. We have loads of energy and we're very positive as well."
Earlier this year, the girls toured about 50 British schools, organised around a support slot with Virgin Record's teen trio 911. "When we did C'est La Vie and the Irish music would come on, they would all start jumping around," says O'Carroll. "It's nice to see you have that effect on people."
In April, B*Witched took on an entirely different crowd at a London showcase for European media. It worked so well that they will repeat the four-track, 20-minute show at Sony conventions in France and Spain this August.
"You need to see these girls and meet them," says Fowler, "and they'll be spending a lot of time in European territories this summer. We're very lucky-the girls and their management lend themselves to doing this kind of hard promotion."
For manager Tommy Jay Smith, this seemingly swift success follows 18 months of careful preparation. "I went to see them performing in Dublin and saw a lot of fire, a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of talent, so I signed them up. We did quite a lot of work with the girls up front signed to Epic about eight months ago."
Now based in England, B*Witched are in the final stages of recording an album with producer Ray Hedges for a fourth quarter release, with a second single, Rollercoaster, due out across Europe at the beginning of September.
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