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Heathers: Winona Ryder, Self-Releasing & Breaking Into The UK

We catch up with twin sisters Ellie and Louise Macnamara to talk Winona Ryder, self-releasing and breaking into the UK.

Heathers are 20 year old twin sisters Ellie and Louise Macnamara.

Their debut album 'Here, Not There' was initially just released in their native Ireland, but now they're bringing it over here to the UK, following some successful shows supporting Kimya Dawson.

They've also recently played at CMJ festival in New York, Canadian Music Week in Toronto, and, a little closer to home than either of those, Oxegen.

We catch up with them to talk Winona Ryder, self-releasing and breaking into the UK.

Hello Heathers, how are you today?
Hello! We're great. It's the summer so we can't complain.

True, true. So, you're from Ireland - is it difficult for acts to get over to the UK from there? Musically it can often feel far further away than a short ferry ride.
Yeah, we find it kind of strange that we've toured the US twice but we still haven't really played much in the UK at all. I think though, if you know people in bands and you're motivated enough there shouldn't be a problem playing anywhere in the world.

Are there any other up-and-coming Irish bands should we be keeping an eye on?
The are so many great Irish bands playing music at the moment. Some of our favourites being Adebisi Shank, Enemies and RAN.

When we tried to Google you, we got lots of information about the 1989 film 'Heathers', starring Winona Ryder, which sounds amazing. Have you seen it?
Yes, it’s incredible! We named ourselves after this movie. Recently we discovered that one of the characters in the film is called Heather Macnamara which is pretty funny because our names are Ellie and Louise Macnamara. It seems it was meant to be.

Haha, it must be! Earlier in the year, your album 'Here, Not There' did pretty well in the iTunes charts but, we'll be honest, rather passed us by. Your MySpace says that was a re-release?
Yes our album was initially released by ourselves in 2008, but we didn’t really push it in any great way. But in late 2009, we started to notice a big increase in demand for the album, so we decided to set up our own label, Aunthill Records and re-release it. It came out in Ireland earlier this year and has done really well here. There seems to be a lot of interest from fans in the UK now too so we’re hoping it will generate a bit of a buzz and get we’ll get to play some UK shows later in the year and into 2011.

Lots of bands seem to be 'setting up their own labels' recently. Did you have much help with yours? How did you find the process of self-releasing?
Yes, we definitely had some help with this. We're both in University at the moment so some help was necessary. Especially with the business-y side of things. We're so happy to have our music released on our own label. It's something we've always wanted to do. So many of our friends have set up their own labels for their bands so there was no reason why we couldn't do it too.

Are you, for the time being, still concentrating on promoting this album, or are you moving on to work on new material?
We're doing a bit of both. We're beginning to release it in other countries now, as well as playing gigs here in Ireland, and planning some UK dates. At the same time we've been writing material for a new album which we're very excited about!

Kimya Dawson invited you to play one of her recent London dates, was that out of the blue, or did you know each other before then?
We met Kimya on the first of our US tours. We played with her at two shows and stayed with her in Washington. She invited us to play with her in London a few months later. We had such a great time. She is so unbelievably nice and so welcoming.

Heathers' album 'Here, Not There' will be released in the UK on 4th October.