Le Monde de Titus

La Terre-Neuvienne Damhnait Doyle (prononcer Davnet : prénom gaélique) venait tout juste de fêter ses 21 ans, en 1996, lorsqu'elle a publié son premier album, intitulé "Shadows wake me", qui eut un retentissement tel au Canada qu'elle fut nominée aux Juno Awards. Cette même année, le 12 juin 1996, nous la recevions à l'antenne de CINN FM, dans Calypso. L'occasion de revenir sur la façon dont elle a signé son premier contrat avec une maison de disques. Cette interview ayant été réalisée en anglais, je la restitue telle quelle.

Après l'album "Shadows wake me" , et le tube "A list of things" (vidéo-clip à suivre), Damhnait Doyle a publié "Hyperdramatic" en 2000, dont l'extrait "Tattooed" a été particulièrement bien reçu par le public (clip ci-après). Son troisième album, "Davnet" sorti en 2003, comporte le succès "Traffic" (dont le clip tourné à Toronto vous est proposé également ci-après).

Visionner "Traffic", extrait du troisième album de Damhnait Doyle, "Davnet" (2003) :


Titus - Hello Damhnait Doyle, first of all, just a word about your name... It has to be gaelic with such an interesting spelling ?

Damhnait Doyle - Yes, my mother came from Cork, in Ireland, and it means "baby deer".

Titus - I would like you to tell us how you were discovered... If what I read is true, it does sound a bit like a fairy tale, doesn't it ?

Damhnait Doyle - It is a very interesting story. I was working, in Saint-John's Newfoundland, that's where I'm from, at a place called Travelquest, which was distributing east coast music. I was working there, just sort of answering the phone, in between semesters at the university. I was overheard singing in the office by the man who has my record company. He happened to be visiting from Toronto for a week and went to tell my boss at the time : "You know that girl in the office; she has a really nice voice !" I had done a demo tape a couple of months before and my boss gave him a copy. That day, after work, he said he had put it into the car stereo; he claims he got halfway around the block and came back and said : "hey, we've got our first artist !" So that's how it happened...

Listen to Damhnait Doyle's answer on CINN FM :




Titus - Is it true that your first goal was to enroll in the National Theatre school ?

D. D. - Eversince I was a child, I've had an immense love for music and theater. At the time, I was doing a lot of theater, just around here in the city. But I didn't get in the national school. They did not agree with me, but I'm glad.

Titus - I think that you developed your vocal skills in the renowned Holy Heart of Mary Chamber Choir... Did you sing with them for a long time ?

D. D. - Yes, I did for about four years. It started off as a high school choir and it developed into a community choir. The choir, actually now as it stands, is going to represent Canada in Vienna for a world conference. It's a really wonderful choir and I'm really happy for them. Unfortunately, I had lo leave them when I started my own career.

Titus - How did your first solo album come into being, starting from the point when you left the choir ?

D. D. - When I was, sort of "discovered", by this record company, after a period of months while we were negociating a contract, I moved to Toronto and started working with different musicians. Last year (1995), we went into a studio north of Toronto, Orchard Studios, and recorded the album...

Visionner le clip "Tattooed" extrait du deuxième album de Damhnait Doyle, "Hyperdramatic" :

Titus - For this album, you worked with many great canadian songwriters like Ken Myrh or Anne Bourne. I guess it must have helped shape up the sound of "Shadows wake me", but I think that you still wanted to stay in control in terms of direction ?

D. D. - It would have been very easy for me to take twelve songs written by other people without my input; that would have been very easy for me to do, but I'm not that type of person. It wasn't worth it to me to do an album that was as much of myself as I could give at the time.

Titus - How did you share the work, then, with the musicians who took part in the project ?

D.D. - Basically, we just got together and either one of us had an idea, usually they had either musical idea or lyrical idea, and it just worked out. Sometimes, the songs took months to write, and sometimes just an afternoon.

Titus - Since the album was put out, you've been touring throughout Canada to promote the album... What do you think of the response, so far ?

D. D. - I'm very happily surprised. It's wonderful to actually do an album and people are responding well to it, because there's so much wonderful music out there not really being heard. So I'm glad that mine is being heard.

Titus - Since we're going to listen to your song "A list of things" next, could you tell us, Damhnait, what the background to this song was ? Is it a list of things that you've always cherished ?

D. D. - Well, "List of things" almost did not happen. We were in the studio recording backtracks, which is bass and drums basically for the album, and Tim Welch (guitar player) said he had a great idea for a new song. I said, " Tim, I'm in the studio already, I can't go writing any more songs". So he played me this riff which is actually the music behind "List of things" and I really liked it so we ended up recording it. I brought the tape of the music home that week-end, and I felt really inspired to write the lyrics that I did. Basically, it was a summation for me, of what's important to me.

Visionner le clip "A list of things", premier extrait de l'album Shadows wake me, en 1996. Le clip a été tourné à Toronto en décembre 1995:


L'année 2003, qui a vu la sortie de l'album "Davnet", est aussi marquée par la création du trio Shaye que Damhnait Doyle crée avec deux autres chanteuses canadiennes Tara McLean et Kim Stockwood. Leur album compte quelques morceaux bien chaloupés, comme cette chanson intitulée "Happy baby", qui fut le premier single de la formation.