CERYS MATTHEWS - MATTHEWS' AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

MATTHEWS' AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

Singer CERYS MATTHEWS was bemused by the locals when she temporarily moved to Nashville, Tennessee - because nobody could understand her Welsh accent. The former CATATONIA frontwoman left her native Wales during the 1990s when she was at the height of her spiralling alcohol and drug abuse. But her anxiety and paranoia were exacerbated when she realised no one knew what she was talking about thanks to her vocal lilt. She says, "I found it very difficult to make myself understood in the shops. "I used to get people screaming: 'Where's she from?' "In the end I had to alter my accent just to get by."