You can't beat the buzz of performing at one of the Arthur's Day venues

Arthur's Day was our last work commitment for the year so from next week it is full steam ahead for our new album.

We have already written 16 songs so we can't wait to get into the studio to start recording.

We don't have anything hanging over our heads – no tours and no TV shows.

I made the decision to leave the Voice UK after two seasons to concentrate on the band – it's nice to have my Saturday nights free for a change.

CONCENTRATE

So I definitely won't be looking for a spot on the Voice of Ireland judging panel.

We took a step back from the TV side of things because we want to concentrate our music.

As women know, men can only really concentrate on one thing at a time.

And the freedom we have now when we finish up this week is that at any minute we can walk into a studio and say: "Let's put something down."

Anyone who is creative, I dare you to come to Dublin and not get inspired, whether it be painting or writing poem or a song.

There are a few studios around that we have been looking at but we're not sold on one yet.

There seems to be a whole different level of professionalism now with different recording schools in Dublin.

So musically it's really on a par with London and LA in terms of studios and the expertise that is here.

We don't have any big names lined up yet for our new album but it has worked out great for us in the past so we will wait and see.

What we usually do is that we write a song and if the song calls for it then we'll look into that.

At the moment we have written 16 songs for the new album.

Normally we write ten songs and that's the album.

LUXURY

But we just said: "You know what – let's hold off for a little while and lets just buy ourselves some time."

That's a luxury we have now that we didn't have before.

We had to scrape to get stuff out in the past because you are always afraid that it's going to stop.

This week was all about Arthur's Day for us so it was full of rehearsals and then the main event, which we have always supported and will continue to do so.

It is not just one day, but a complete festival and gives a support base to music acts who could struggle otherwise.

We didn't invite many of our friends or family to the gigs as we couldn't say where we would be and when we are working we prefer to just concentrate on the gig in hand.

But we got to catch up with some of the other acts taking part, including Kodaline, who are our favourite Dublin lads.

What a buzz you get from performing and seeing people's faces light up when they see who comes on stage at the surprise venues.

You can't beat it.

Source: Heraldie