I recently interviewed The Courettes after their show in Glasgow, a duo often labelled as the hardest touring band on the circuit. Closer to home another artist who seems to be touring/playing live incessantly is friend (no relation…) to these pages, Carol Hodge, who must have mornings like “today its Yorkshire it must be Selenite Songs/Steve Ignorant/The Wildhearts/rare day off at home* (*delete as appropriate).
Within that busy touring schedule Carol managed to squeeze in some time for a chat about relentless touring, part two of the Selenite Songs tour with Julia Othmer, her new album EffortLess InSecurity and being an independent touring artist.
Ginger Quiff: What’s the last six months in Carol Hodge’s life been like?
Carol Hodge: The last six months? Pretty full on to be honest, I went to. I’ve done loads of stuff with Steve ignorant. We went to Mexico; we toured the West Coast of America, and we played No Values festival in Los Angeles. That was all amazing fun. And then, over June and July, I did the first leg of the Selenite Songs tour with Julia Othmer. I also did a few gigs with The Wildhearts, I’m playing keys for them now, we played Shepherds Bush Empire in London, which was pretty amazing. I played at Rebellion Festival so yes, it’s been busy… oh and I finished my new studio album…
GQ: I’m sure we might come back around talk about that! So, you’re officially part of The Wildhearts now. Who are The Wildhearts these days?
CH: Well, it’s obviously Ginger Wildheart. who is the chief songwriter, obviously he’s still the front man. John Poole on bass, he was a Wildheart for a very long time and also in The Cardiacs and Ben Marsden, who I’ve done a lot of touring with on guitar, and Pontus Snibb, from a band called Bonafide and also played in Jason and the Scorchers, we’ve already got a tour scheduled for next year. We’re doing Europe in December this year and then there’s a UK tour in March next year.
GQ: So, no break for you, obviously in the next couple of weeks you’re back out on the road with Julia Othmer for the second half of the Selenite Songs tour. What are your highlights from the first half of the tour and what can we expect from the second half.
CH: Well, the whole point of the project was that Julia and I wanted to tour together, but we wanted to do something a little bit unique and make it a bit special rather than just she does a set, I do a set. The setup is that we’re both on stage throughout, so we’ve got two pianos, and we introduced an element of chance to the proceedings. So, we nominated someone as our chief-tosser for the evening, who tossed a coin on various occasions for different decisions, who was going to go first and what songs we were going to play. We debuted the songs we’d written for the project, the rules were we both had to write songs based on a prompt. So, for example, if the prompt was growing old disgracefully, we’d both go away and write a song based on that and we had two hours maximum to write the song in. That was a nice challenge for both of us.
Then we shared those songs as part of the set and talked about our songwriting process. It’s kind of more like, I guess, a folk gig in the respect that every song we did had a story attached to it, we would tell the story and then play the song. That’s very much the vibe, club sized gig, very intimate but also really fun, there was a lot of laughter. Julia is such an incredible performer. She’s incredibly powerful and emotional, so there was a lot of lot of tears as well as the laughter, which was perfect. We wanted to take people on a bit of a rollercoaster.
And the other element of the gigs was that we did a live improvisation every night. We’re going to repeat that on this November tour. A lot of people were a little bit apprehensive about the idea of audience participation, but all it was people just writing anonymously on pieces of paper and putting them in different baskets, then we would pick them out and we would improvise a song based on the prompts that we pulled out. We weren’t spotlighting anyone in the audience. We were just taking people’s anonymous ideas and working them into a song live, which I found absolutely terrifying to start with, but the more we did it, the more we found a groove. Julia is American, so she’s more confident with that particular type of setup.
So that’s what to expect again in November. I’m going to be playing different songs from my back catalogue than I did in June & July, and we’ve got brand new songs as well to debut that we’ve written for the project.
GQ: You talked about your songwriting and writing new songs for that tour and only giving yourselves a maximum of two hours to write them. How did you find that? Was that difficult or do you find songs come to you quickly anyway?
CH: It really depends. There are sometimes songs that I had to keep coming back to. So, some songs were eight lots of 15 minutes. Some songs were just a half-hour session. The thing I struggle with as a songwriter is refining lyrics, I’m always trying to walk that tightrope between honouring the first thing that appears and to make them a bit more poetic and just a bit more eloquent. That’s still been the thing that I struggled with on this new batch of songs, but part of the point of doing the project was that we both wanted to push ourselves and to do something vulnerable and to share our vulnerability with an audience. That was a really important element of it. And we found that on the last leg of the tour it worked so well. We just gave all the people in the audience permission to be vulnerable as well, like some of the conversations we had afterwards were really profound and moving. We seemed to create this atmosphere of trust and openness, which was beautiful. We’re hoping for a reprise of that this time.
GQ: With you talking about that emotion there, obviously playing a gig is tiring anyway I would imagine. But was this sort of gig more emotionally tiring than physically tiring. How did you feel at the end of the tour?
CH: I’d say it was equal parts of both because I did all the driving, and it was very much a DIY affair. It was me and Julia and that was it. We were the people lugging all our gear around and setting up the merch, we just did everything ourselves, so that itself can be quite tiring. It’s a funny thing gigging, obviously you get a real buzz when you perform, you get a lot of adrenaline and, by the end of the night you’re on a real high and you’re very energised. But then you get like a slump after that, usually if you’re driving home a couple of hours after a gig, it was very enjoyable and definitely not the most tiring tour I’ve done.
GQ: Did you get any surprises from the ideas that came in the audiences? Anything that came from a bit left field or surprising?
CH: The last gig we did in London, which we recorded for the live album, was like a few nights that felt very serendipitous, sometimes they just really knitted together, really, beautifully. And other times the clash between the ideas was very amusing. What we were struck by was the continuity of responses all around the UK, favourite smells are remarkably similar and wherever we went, people’s greatest fears were also very similar and the theme of a lot of people’s favourite quotes was the same. That was quite poignant too, to discover the similarities that we all have, even though maybe we’re not aware of it.
GQ: The next leg starts on 1st of November, is that right?
NH: Yes, we start on the 1st of November in South Sea and then we go through straight through with only one day off and we end the tour on the 12th of November in Liverpool. So, no sleep ‘til Liverpool.
GQ: You said you’re touring with The Wildhearts in December; do you get a break from touring at all?
CH: I’ve got a few more gigs with Steve as well. We’re playing, Nottingham, we’re doing The 100 Club in London, we’re playing Brighton. I’ve got a few gigs with Ginger and Ben doing Wildhearts acoustic gigs and towards the end of November and December, I go to Europe with The Wildhearts, so full on until Christmas.
GQ: And in between times you’ve been recording your new album Effortless Insecurity, another fantastic album title I can totally relate for album #5. Obviously, you’ve already treated us to Manoeuvres with one of the most disturbing music videos I’ve seen, and then more recent single The Queen of Fitting In.
Being a patron, I’ve been reading your stuff on online, and you’ve said it’s much darker than the last album. Tell me about these songs and the themes on it. What makes this album so dark?
CH: You know, it wasn’t intentional. I was chatting to Ginger about this the other day, he was excited cause he’s heard the final mix of the new Wildhearts album, and we were talking about that weird thing that happens like when you’re working on an album. It’s all very fragmented and it’s only when you get the final mixes, and you listen to the entire thing in order that you properly understand what it is. My feeling about this album is like it knocked the wind out of me. By the time I got to the end of listening to it, I was like, it’s really heavy. It is quite musically heavy, but also emotionally heavy. I wasn’t really anticipating feeling that way because usually I’m careful to shape my albums to have a lot of light and shade. It feels like it’s more of the darker shades on this one, but there are moments of brightness and there are more poppy moments. The title sums up what a lot of the lyrical things are about, my realisation that I’m neurodivergent and that I have anxious attachment. So that’s some things I’ve been working through mentally during the time I was writing the album and so a lot of it is about that, insecurity and the sensation of being stuck in a loop. Having a level of awareness of how your brain is functioning and how the there’s an error there in the computation, your ability to change the path that your thoughts are going down is very impaired and there’s a frustration within that as well, knowing what should be happening and isn’t, seeing the gap and just not being able to do much about it.
GQ: I had wondered if it was to do with the entire world being a bit dark at the moment or it was personal, it seems like it’s quite a personal thing. I think I’ve asked you a similar type of question before, but was the writing of songs a cathartic process, realising the things you mentioned and then putting them down on paper and writing about it, does it help you?
CH: Oh yes, always. I’m not the kind of songwriter that sits down and thinks “right. I’m going to write a song about this.” Go… I just start playing and then things just appear. A lot of the time when I start writing a song, I don’t know what it’s about but by the end of the process, I’m like “Oh it’s that.” The catharsis that I get, it’s on a very deep unconscious level that then comes up and reveals itself. I feel that my strength as a songwriter is to be honest about what happens in in my world and my interior world and try to externalise it in a way that other people can relate to. I know I’m not the only one who has a weird brain.
GQ: I think, from a personal perspective, that’s one of the things that I really get from your music is, obviously everyone’s different, but there are commonalities that I see there and the way I deal with things in life as well. And I think, sometimes, although you might be going to dark places and through tough times, it’s actually quite good to know that you’re not isolated, you’re not alone and you’re sharing that experience in a way.
CH: Absolutely. If there’s one takeaway that people get from any music I create, I want it to be that people realise they’re not alone and they’re not the only one. I think that’s quite a noble pursuit, and it’s one that’s always at the forefront of everything I do as an artist.
GQ: You talked about the way you write songs; you don’t necessarily sit down and think about what you’re going to write. The themes of the songs are heavy on the new album and you’ve said the music’s quite heavy as well, does that come as a direct result of the theme of the songs or is it sometimes you just write a tune and think it would sound better full band and heavy?
GQ: I’m just trying to think of the process on this album. Manoeuvres I wrote after the riff came first and then the lyrics came. I’d decided that I wanted this album to be like a stoner rock album. It was quite nice having that as a template in my head from the from the outset. Previously I’ve been a bit more experimental in the studio, like when I’ve been working with Dave Draper and producing the album, we’ve played around more with stylistic ideas, but this time I wanted it to feel a bit more cohesive and feel like it was all recorded in the same room and with the same people. It feels like more of a band album.
GQ: I remember when manoeuvres first came out being impressed by it because it was. It was very Carol Hodge, but it was also different for you as well. And then when I saw the video to go along with it, I thought, wow, where’s Carol going with this! Where did the idea of the video come from?
CH: I had this bag of child resuscitation doll masks that I found when I was clearing out some stuff and I thought they were really creepy, maybe we could use them in a video. I worked with Rob Heilig. He was the videographer. Originally, we wanted just to do something completely surreal, where there’s no narrative to it at all and it’s just really weird images. We were inspired by The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson video and the videography on that.
GQ: I was going to say before this, the last time I felt as, for want of a better word, disturbed by watching music video was that very video.
CH: That’s a good thing. Then we came up with more of a narrative, we decided that it would be slightly more cohesive If there was a theme to it, so the idea was there’s a bit of a bit of conjuring & witchcraft involved, I animate the baby faces and they started growing and like spreading.
GQ: Excellent, it was great stuff. And then the video for The Queen of Fitting In is quite different, it’s at the opposite end of the scale sort of thing…
CH: I can’t remember where the idea came from, but I really wanted to do it in the laundrette, and I really wanted to have some synchronised pedestrian movement in the in the choruses. I think it’s difficult to make a video without a narrative if you’re trying to do something that’s not just people playing live. I have a couple of friends who are who are professional actors, I persuaded them to get involved and we shot the whole thing in one day, which was an incredibly stressful situation.
GQ: Are you due to receive your new album soon?
CH: In the next week, hopefully they’ll be on there. The official release date is the 13th of December. But I’m very much in the mindset of, if I’ve got them with me, then I’m going to send them out… My living room’s going to be full of them. I hope that this CD’s are going to arrive in the next week or so as well, so there’s every chance that I will have some copies to sell on this tour with Julia in starting on the 1st of November.
GQ: Any special editions?
CH: There are two different colours for the vinyl. One is the eco mix, which is the more environmentally friendly version where they use up leftover pellets of vinyl from other pressings. So, it can be a completely random chance as to what you might get. I’ve done that for two albums, and it’s always been gorgeous. The other one is it’s like a black and white kind of swirl. I’m humming and hawing about doing a demo CD because I did that last time, so I don’t know whether I’ll do it again. It’s a budgetary question. I might just do a DIY demo CD, like just burn it myself and handwrite it, we shall see. I’ve done quite a lot of T-shirts recently, so I’m not planning to do an album T-shirt, to be honest.
GQ: As well as your new stuff, you’ve also obviously been looking back and re-releasing older material and doing some covers of songs that inspired you when you were younger, like your cover of Therapy?’s Nowhere, as you had a tape with Offspring one side and Therapy? On the other and you’ve done Offspring’s Smash before. How’s that been for you? Looking back on the stuff you’ve recorded in the past?
CH: It’s on my To Do List is to upload the Bad Taste Barbies back catalogue, which is the next one. Yeah, I’m just trying to give my patrons as much value for money as possible. Really. I want to just keep putting out content because if people are supporting me, I’ll whack it up there for people to enjoy.
GQ: And how does it feel from you listening back to the stuff you’ve recorded in in those days as well? Does it bring back memories, or do you? Do you listen to it now and have different thoughts about it?
CH: A lot of the time I’m just think it’s so badly produced. That’s my first thought was we didn’t spend enough time or money on this to make it sound as good as it could have done. But I have very fond memories of all the projects that I’ve worked on. I want to get Bad Taste Barbies out there, that’ll be a fun one, very different to what I do now.
Carol Hodge | creating Music | Patreon
GQ: You’ve got a lout of touring going on, are you planning a full band tour for the new album?
CH: I’d love to do that. I just applied for some funding a couple of weeks ago with a view to being able to do that. I’m hoping next year I might be able to get a few gigs with the Hodge Band. That’s what I’d love to do. I’d love to tour that album with the full band. It’s just a case of trying to get all the ducks lined up to make that happen.
It’s difficult when you do everything yourself. Doing solo gigs where it’s just me in my car, I just have to pay myself and cover my costs. Whereas, when it’s the band. If we are bringing all our gear, I have to hire a van and then I’m paying three musicians every gig so. That’s a completely different budget to deal with, especially if you’re looking at doing a tour or whatever over a week or a couple of weeks I wouldn’t expect anyone to play for free and we’re all too long in the tooth for that business now, you know we’re not teenagers anymore. Obviously, I’m playing other bands as well and I get paid for doing that. It’s just a case of balancing time and finances and work as well. It’s a lot of effort booking a tour, promoting it, and trying to get people to come and make it work financially, it’s increasingly difficult so.
We all know how difficult it is for touring bands and artists these days, I’m sure we’ve all experienced gigs having to be cancelled for low ticket sales… so to ensure you aren’t disappointed, click on the link below to get your tickets for the November Selenite Songs Tour (and more).