Baby girl! - 15/08/03
Cerys Matthews has had a baby daughter, her record company has announced.

The baby girl has not yet been named, but we do know that she weighed 6lbs 10oz.

Cerys married her American music producer boyfriend Seth Riddle in a chapel near her parents’ home in Trevine, Pembrokeshire, last February.

Cerys’ baby news - 30/04/03
Cardiff born singer Cerys Matthews is four months pregnant with her first child.

The ex-Catatonia star and her new husband music producer Seth Riddle are said to be delighted.

Cerys is now planning a summer solo tour which is scheduled to finish at the Glastonbury Festival on June 29, when Cerys will be six-and-a-half months pregnant.


Cerys gets hitched - 24/02/03
Ex-Catatonia singer Cerys Matthews has married record producer Seth Riddle at a small chapel in west Wales.

Cery’s arrived for the ceremony in Pembrokeshire, in a trailer pulled by an old tractor. Family and friends attended the service at the chapel near Trevine, in fancy dress.

More than 100 locals cheered the 33-year-old and her new American-born husband.

The Welsh indie wonders, led by the adorable Ms Cerys Matthews, Catatonia worked hard to secure their place in the pop pantheon.

It was a chance meeting between Cerys and guitarist Mark Roberts that led to the formation of the band.

Roberts had left a band he was in called Y Cryff (which translates as ’The Body’). Cerys was working in a pub, where she used to sing after hours, and had taken up busking in Cardiff. Roberts spotted her and was impressed by her singing. The two decided to form a band. They brought in bassist Paul Jones, who had also been in Y Cryff, drummer Dafydd Ieuan and keyboardist Clancy Pegg. Cerys says that the name Catatonia was taken from Aldous Huxley’s book ’The Doors Of Perception’. They recorded some songs for the Ankst label but eventually signed for Crai.

They released two EPs, ’For Tinkerbell’ and ’Hooked’, in September 1993 and May 1994 respectively and got them noticed in the music press. At that point, Ieuan, who was also playing with Super Furry Animals, left to join them permanently and Pegg followed him out of the door shortly after. She later formed Crac.

Before he left, Ieuan recommended his friend Aled Richards for the vacant drummer’s position, while Owen Powell (ex-Crumb Blowers) later joined on guitar, after a spell as their guitar technician. In August 1994, they released ’Whale’ as a one-off for the Rough Trade Singles Club and followed it with ’Bleed’ in February 1995 for Nursery.

By this time, there was a lot of record company interest, but Catatonia chose to sign with Warners subsidiary Blanco y Negro. Their first single was a limited Christmas gift for their mailing list, with their first single proper, ’Sweet Catatonia’, released in January 1996. It reached Number 61.

The follow-up, ’Lost Cat’, stalled just one place short of the Top 40 but the band were rewarded for their hard work when ’You’ve Got A Lot To Answer For’ hit Number 35. That was August 1996. Their debut album, ’Way Beyond Blue’, followed a month later. However, their next single, a reissue of ’Bleed’, stalled in the lower reaches of the charts.