Beyond Nashville: CMAT

Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson, better known as CMAT, is causing a stir in the UK. It’s near impossible to get tickets to her live performances before they’re sold out, news stories about her confident style choices and outspoken nature abound and she was nominated (alongside the likes of Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus and Olivia Rodrigo) for International Artist of the Year at the 2024 Brit Awards. But she’s not a pop artist, she’s a country star.  

CMAT’s second album, ‘Crazymad, For Me’ was released in 2023. It went number one in her native Ireland and broke the top 25 in the UK charts. Before she broke through on her own, she was in a band; “The reason that band dissolved was because I was writing lyrics and making songs that were specific to me and my experiences, and were honest,” she said in 2022. “The feedback that I was getting was, like, ‘We can’t release joke music. Like, this isn’t a comedy act.’ And I was, like, ‘I’m not doing comedy music. I’m writing the way I talk to people.’ The way I communicate is exactly the way in speech and amongst friends as it is in music.” It’s an evident truth, CMAT’s writing sways between sarcastic, astute observation and, above all, honest. 

It was in 2018 that CMAT went to London for a songwriting workshop by pop superstar Charli XCX. It changed everything for her. She moved from Manchester back to her native Dublin and soon she was penning her first album, 2022’s ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’. It was lauded as a huge success, with critics noting that the album provided thought-provoking insights into loneliness, speckled with her trademark humour.  

The single ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’ is an indication of CMAT’s inspirations. She’s a country music fan who writes country music, even if she’s far from its original land. ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’ includes traditionally country instrumentation, featuring steel guitar, banjo and strings. It’s not every day that a country musician from Ireland reaches success, but with her patented blend of upbeat pop and country, CMAT is the crossover star that the country has been waiting for. Tracks like ‘Nashville’ seek to question her own place in country music, CMAT writes that she is ‘gonna tell everybody I know that I’m moving to Nashville’, just for the leaving party. It’s a song that takes on the traditional country ballad, the strings swell and an acoustic guitar comes in, ready to tell the story of leaving that emulates John Denver’s ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’, whilst maintaining her Irishness with the phrase ‘Who would want my ends’ (for those who are unaware, that’s the bits you leave behind’.  

Read the full feature in our free digital magazine here: https://bit.ly/3WUe56j

Never miss a story… Follow us on:
Instagram: @Maverick.mag
Twitter: @Maverick_mag
Facebook: Maverick Magazine

Media Contact
Hannah Larvin, Editor, Maverick Magazine
Tel: +44 (0) 1622 823 920
Email: editor@maverick-country.com