Let nobody kid you that the music business is a walk in the park. Being in a band is bloody hard work. Just ask Donegal s Screaming Orphans.

Their debut single, Little Affair is released on October 27th, and is the result of years of blood, sweat and many tears on the music industry treadmill. The Diver sisters from Bundoran have been playing music their whole life. Grainne, Joan, Marie-Therese and Angela were practically weaned with instruments in their hands and tunes in their hearts.
Spotted by Luka Bloom playing at a songwriters night some years ago, the multi-instrumentalist sisters were invited by Luka to play at Feile Bride in Kildare town, alongside himself, the brother, Siniad O Connor and Maire Brennan, amongst others. The girls sparked up a friendship with Siniad, which ended up with Screaming Orphans opening for Siniad and supplying backing vocals on her Gospel Oak world tour, as well as appearing with her on the likes of Top of the Pops and The David Letterman Show. The increased exposure, in turn, led to a publishing deal with Blue Mountain Music, a vital part in their success.
Since then, Screaming Orphans have contributed vocals to Baaba Maal s album, Nomad Soul, and even played with the world music star at his homecoming concert in Senegal. They can also be heard on The Chieftains Tears Of Stone, performing on the Joni Mitchell track, Magdalene Laundries . Still, they found it difficult to sign a record deal of their own.
Because we didn t fit in with the riot grrrrl or the polished, pop image, record companies wouldn t look at us, says Joan, without a hint of malice. But we were lucky because of the people who believed in us, like Sinead, Alastair Norbury [of Blue Mountain Music] and Mike Hedges.
A party at Alastair Norbury s led to a chance meeting with legendary producer Hedges, whose many credits include The Manic Street Preachers, Travis and The Wannadies. They hit it off and the encounter soon turned into a personal and creative relationship, which saw the Orphans travelling to Hedges studio in France to work on demos.
Mike told us that he didn t just want us to be good, he wanted us to be the best, recalls Joan with a smile. He sent us back home to work on our songs and our music. We sat for months in a cold, damp room in Donegal, where we worked and practiced for eight hours a day.
The long hours paid off, with the sisters music getting stronger all the time. They finally aroused more than passing interest from record companies. Screaming Orphans signed a deal last year with WEA Records, and when it came time to record their debut album, they didn t have to look far for a producer.
We built up such a relationship with Mike, Joan avows, to the point where it wasn t like a producer and a band we were considered as part of the family.
Mike gave us a great idea as to where songs could go, Grainne adds. Working with Mike and Ian Grimble [co-producer] was such a learning experience for us because we had never actually worked with somebody who was so professional.
The album in question, Listen And Learn, hits record stores early in 2001. It features the Divers trying their hands at a plethora of instruments (43 at the last count), including xylophone, mandolin and flute. In fact, they played everything except the strings, which were recorded at Abbey Road, no less.
Tiding us over until the release of Listen And Learn is the soaring pop of the single, Little Affair , which is the most polished song on the album, Grainne observes. It does tie in with the rest of the songs but it is the poppiest song there.
They are wary of being pigeonholed by the single alone.
I am sometimes a little bit precious about our music, Joan admits. I don t want someone just to hear one song and judge us. I want people to hear all our songs before they make a judgement.
But we are still delighted that people are hearing our music, Grainne stresses. You could spend your whole life as backing singers and musicians but when you try it yourself, people start to see you in a whole new light.
It is our album, every one of the 13 songs is ours, Joan concludes. We ve always known we have the ability, but we have waited so long for this and we are really ready for it.

Little Affair is released on October 27 on WEA and Screaming Orphans are playing in-store in Dublin Virgin Megastore on Thursday, November 2nd.