B*Witched’s Lindsay Armaou has opened up about the pressure the band was under to replicate their early success when it came to making their second album. The Irish girlband, comprised of Lindsay and twin sisters Edele and Keavy Lynch and Sinéad O’Carroll, topped the charts with their first four singles and their eponymous debut album went to number three.
Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk in advance of this weekend’s Superboxx Festival at Rochester Castle, Kent, Lindsay admits this put a huge strain on the group when it came to recording new material. “It was a pressure, even though it was probably kind of a kind of conscious pressure,” she ruminates.
“Obviously, with the first one [single] going to number one, then it would have been acceptable for the second not to do that. You don’t get number one every time you release a single, do you? So that would have been okay.
“But then when the second one went in at number one, it was like, ‘Oh, wow, we’re kind of setting a bit of a standard here’. And then the third one, and then the fourth one, it was like, how are we going to maintain this? And there was an awful lot of pressure to then go away and record the second album.
“And what happened was while we were recording the second album, we were also trying to break America. So we were on tour in America, literally months on end, touring, and at the same time trying to write songs and do bits of recording.
“Our producer would fly out and meet us, and it was all a bit bitty. So it was kind of like: ‘We’ve got a deadline. We’ve got to get the second album out within six months of the last one otherwise you’ll lose momentum,’ and all the rest of it.
“And so there was so much pressure at that point because we have deadlines and we have this pressure to deliver hit songs.
“I think in hindsight, it would have been nice to have a little bit more leeway and have an extra few months to actually really be a little bit more creative, and just have that pressure lift a little bit.
“But we went with it, and we still had hits on the second album and in hindsight, the album actually sold really well – it just didn’t sell as much as much as the first one,” she pondered.
The group’s second album was called Awake and Breathe was released in 1999 and spawned three singles, none of which topped the charts. The girls remained together for another three years before calling it a day in 2002.
However, ITV intervened and brought them back together for The Big Reunion in 2012 and they are still going strong recording and touring. This weekend they will take to the stage at the Superboxx festival alongside artists such as Phats and Smalls, Eternal, and Rozalla.
“It was quite a big decision [to do The Big Reunion]. But ultimately we decided to get back together as a group, and we’re still [going]. We’re longer together this time than we were the first time, which is bizarre, which is mad,” she laughed.
B*Witched play Superboxx Festival on Saturday 6th July at Rochester Castle, Kent as part of a nostalgic day of pop and dance on the banks of the River Medway. Tickets are available from their website. Superboxx is part of a 3-day event at Rochester Castle Live which includes performances from UB40 Feat Ali Campbell and The Kaiser Chiefs across the weekend.
NEWS CREDIT
