“We’ve been doing a tonne of writing sessions and we’ve got loads of songs,” Catrin out of Dusky Grey says when we call her for a chat. “Now it’s just a question of releasing them.”
She and Gethin are off to a good start today with the release of new single Joy Ride which, in common with a lot of Dusky Grey’s tunes, is “about being young, having fun and growing up, and all the tribulations that come with it”.
In the song’s video the band race around a carpark in shopping trolleys, which has clear health and safety ramifications that Catrin doesn’t seem to have fully considered. “We are running around quite quickly,” she admits.
“We wrote the song about being at a house party growing up," she adds, "and the way everyone tries to fit in, and tries to conform to peer pressure and do things they normally wouldn’t want to do, to look cooler than they are.” And this is why, you see, the video shows people being competitive (with shopping trolleys) then realising they have a lot more fun when they just do their own thing.
“You should always be yourself even if it’s difficult,” Catrin says. “And sometimes it is difficult. But if you’re the best version of yourself life is much more fun.”
Very nice but let’s go back to those shopping trolleys. Has Catrin ever nicked one in real life? “I’ve borrowed one,” she begins. “But I put it back.” Further prodding reveals that when Catrin 'borrowed' the shopping trolley she didn’t even leave the carpark, but perhaps the most tragic part of the whole sorry tale is that she hadn’t even been drinking. One evening she simply thought it would be fun to push a friend round a carpark. “You know what it’s like when you live in the countryside,” is Catrin's defence. “All you can do is hang out in parks and carparks.”
She can’t choose a favourite between parks and carparks: each has its own set of dangers. It’s swings and roundabouts, we say. QUITE LITERALLY! Because you get swings in parks and, very often, roundabouts in carparks. It’s a great joke, and we both laugh. And then the phone call is over, but the power of Catrin’s words and the message in Dusky Grey's lyrics will surely live on forever.