Hodge on Hodge
The master of the torch song, punk pianist extraordinaire, and all round good egg, Carol Hodge is back. Her new album, The Crippling Space Between has been one of my go to listens over the last while since she gave early access to anyone who had signed up to her Patreon page.
The last time I spoke to Carol was in February of last year before all the shit hit the fan. At that point, I was hoping there would be a real-life Hodge meet up at that years Scotland Calling Punk Festival. She was due to be playing piano and keyboards playing Crass songs with Steve Ignorant. However, after a couple of rescheduling attempts, it’ll now be April 2022 before I finally meet my namesake.
Alas, the latest Hodge catch up was once again online…
Living Under Lockdown
Before we chatted about the new album and Carol’s music, I asked Carol how she’s coped over the last 18th months or so, being an independent artist who does lots of gigging.
Carol: Yeah, well obviously there’s been none of that! I’ve been very fortunate because I pay my bills through teaching online. I teach singing, piano, and song-writing, so when the first lockdown happened that got really busy. I thought, well, I can’t gig, I may as well take on extra students. I ended up doing quite a lot of that, but now it’s kind of eased off and my hours have reduced. That’s been a godsend really in terms of financial stability. I feel very fortunate that I’ve had that to fall back on.
I also did quite a lot of live streams.
Neil: I watched quite a few of them myself.
Carol: It’s just not the same though…
Neil: I remember watching them and thinking how weird it was when a song finished and it was just silence and a whole load of clapping icons on screen.
Carol: Yeah, it’s really weird performing. I mean I’m used to telling terrible jokes and nobody laughing on stage, but I usually get a least one pity laugh. The first couple I did I felt really paranoid, but you kind of get used to it.
I did my first solo gig since March 2020 the other weekend in Hebden Bridge. It was quite overwhelming, quite moving. I’d forgotten what it was like to just be in a room and to have an attentive audience with the energy that passes back and forth between you. It was quite overwhelming. I’ve missed that a lot. Actually being in a room with other people and being able to see them and feel what they’re doing as well.
Neil: From a fans perspective, I watched quite a lot of online gigs at the start of lockdown. Then I ended up watching less and less of them. It just wasn’t the same. Although I was experiencing artists playing live music, it was just like watching videos on YouTube or something. It really tailed off for me.
Carol: Yeah, I was much the same. At the start of lockdown it was kind of a novelty, and there was a gung ho attitude. My social media timeline was full of blokes with acoustic guitars. Fair play you know, it was people trying to maintain some sort of normality and keep spirits up. I got livestream fatigue though very quickly and in a way, I guess I kind of found it a bit triggering. It was almost like rubbing your nose in it. It was like the consolation prize. Not even a consolation prize, more like a booby prize – here’s someone playing – but you can’t interact with them!
Neil: And it’s not even a social occasion either, because you’re not with friends. Not having a drink at the bar.
Carol: You’re just sat a home in your living room with a cuppa feeling really sad…
New Album – The Crippling Space Between
Neil: Obviously the main reason for our chat is your new album, The Crippling Space Between, over lockdown I’ve become a member of your Patreon project (more of which later) which gave me early access to the new album. I hear a distinct progression from the last album Savage Purge, which itself was a progression from Hold on to That Flame. From your perspective, obviously it’s a conscious decision, tell me about your thought process regarding the progression in your music?
Carol: Yeah, I had a bit of a lightbulb moment, probably before Savage Purge, when I realised that what I wanted to do as a solo artists was to basically write music that I would want to listen to, and use musical styles that I like, instrumentation that I enjoy. I’ve kind of ended up with the approach that I’m not trying to appeal to anyone in particular, I’m genuinely just trying to write what I’m happy with and what I’m proud of. I’d like to be the kind of solo artist that people just want to go along with me, and wherever I take them, they’re happy to try it out as opposed to the whole “I’m a punk solo artist and everything I write is similar”.
That’s been my foundation with this new album in that I wanted to experiment and try different things out but I also want to honour the songs and do what I think every individual song should sound like. In terms of a musical progression, it’s been an attitudinal progression that has led to more sort of polished poppy songs, I’ve been have a lot of fun layering up tonnes of backing vocals and lots of synths and of beds of atmospheric sound. Just making things sound as big and full as possible. It was really exciting, I know when a song had worked, I’d worked all day in a studio, adding other instruments. Playing it back, when it got to the chorus if I did an air punch, I knew it was in the right sort of area. I just wanted that sort of uplift “HERES THE CHORUS!”
Neil: Your latest single This! is many layered beast, and it works so well when all the elements come together.
Carol: Yeah, in This, the verses are basically Flash Gordon by Queen, and the verses are a bit more poppy, a bit more melodic, and there’s a weird mid-section as well.
Neil: Loving it, its brilliant.
The “Live” Band
Obviously, the new album has songs that, when played live, will need a full band. Tell me about the “Carol Hodge Band”
Carol: The album itself is me and Dave Draper on the recording, but I’ve been rehearsing a lot with my new band. I’d always toyed with the idea of having a band. But to be honest it was a lot of effort and it’s so much easier to do things on my own. But as has happened quite a lot over the last couple of years I’ve gone along with opportunities when people have presented them, and people have asked to be involved with what I do, or have asked me to go and play somewhere or whatever.
Piper, the guitarist, she is a friend of Matt, who is the bassist who I live with, he’d said “Piper really likes your songs”, she’d bought the album and then she sent this really positive message saying “your music’s amazing, if you ever want a guitarist…”, and I was like hmmmm, interesting. Then Matt’s boss at the time, who was a drummer, he’d also heard the album and said, if I ever needed a drummer…then Matt said, well if she’s playing guitar and he’s playing drums, then I’m gonna play bass. So, I was like, OK, so we’ve got a band then!
It came about quite organically, and now we’ve got another drummer, Tom who interestingly plays bass in a covers band with the drummer from Terrorvision – which is quite bizarre. It’s all coming together nicely with the actual band, so I’m just really hoping we can get some gigs under our belt before everything falls apart again.
Recording the Album
Neil: Recording the album then, the band weren’t involved, but how did you deal with the recording of the album under a variety of lockdown restrictions?
Carol: I record vocals and midi piano from home, all my demos start out like that, then I usually, at home, add on various ideas for drums, guitar and bass, other synths etc. Then I just went to Dave Drapers studio, we were both tested, and sensible. I was fortunate that Air BNB was still operating. If you were staying somewhere for work purposes, as it’s a two and a half hour drive, so I just holed myself up in an Air BNB and went to the studio every day. We did it in 2 sessions, we did a week in October then another week in February.
It was quite nice having the gap in between. I’ve not done it that way before. You go away and come up with all kinds of other ideas, you hear some vocals you want to tweak. Once everything else comes together, it changes the dynamic of the vocals, so it was good to have that gap in between.
Neil: Talking of gaps, the new album’s title is the Crippling Space Between, tell me a bit more about that.
Carol: Well, I’m a fan of ambiguity, and its basically the idea of everybody experiencing distance from the people they love and the things they love to do and obviously that space has felt quite devastating for a lot of people. And then I did this photo shoot (see the cover of the new single This!) (pauses to laugh), I had a fake hand, so I was playing around with that, just the idea of you know the crippling space and the idea of having a hand difference. It just kind of made sense and it sounded quite poetic, The Crippling Space Between. So, it’s a nod to my disability, but its also a general thing that I think everybody would be able to relate to after the last year and a half.
Neil: You talked about rehearsing with your full band, but when you were pulling together the songs and tracklist for this album, how did you decide which songs would be Carol Hodge and a piano and which ones would be like full band songs. Did you have some tunes or lyrics that lent themselves to the solo approach?
Carol: Yeah, its funny, when I get the songs in my head, sometimes it feels like they almost appear in a certain way. Like, Moan of a Thousand Years, straight away I could hear all the different parts of that, I could hear the guitar & the bass, the synth line and the drums and everything. Sometimes they just appear as a whole thing and that’s like it should be. Other times, you get ones that are a bit more tricky, like So Much for Summertime was one that I kind of got and I knew it needed to be something more than just piano but I couldn’t decide what the groove would be or what the vibe would be so that was a bit of an experiment in the studio.
Other ones like Curtain to Fall, lyrically that’s quite poignant, and that came through like, this has got to stay sort of stripped back to work on the emotional level that the lyrics are delivering. To be honest, at this point having been writing songs for over 20 years, it very much feels like instinct, it’s just kind of like I get a feel for how it should be.
The thing about a lot of songs is, and especially from my own experience as I perform some of these songs as just me and a piano when I’m doing solo gigs, I think a good song works no matter what you do with it. So, if you strip it back you can still make it work. You might have to tweak things a little bit, change the dynamics, the tempo, the level of emotion that you’re investing vocally, but there’s always a way to make a good song work I think.
Emotion
Neil: Seeing as how you’ve mentioned emotions, I’ve been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster lately, I’ve had really high highs in the last few weeks, but I’ve also had really low lows. I was listening to your album, and being the soppy old git I am, I was welling up when I was listening to Best Thing In Town. I’ve also been reading Sinead O’Connor’s book Rememberings recently and in that she talks about songs that made her cry when she was singing them. Scarlet Ribbons being one, because of memories that came to mind when singing. Do you have any songs that have that effect on you when you try to perform them, you come over emotional because of memories or feelings from when you wrote them?
Carol: Best Thing in This Town, that’s one of them. I really love doing that one, I’ve been doing a lot of live EPs over the last 6 months and I’ve performed that on quite a few of them. With that one I can usually keep it together, but there are moments when I’m on the edge. Another one I struggle with is Waving Not Drowning, from Savage Purge… there’s a couple that, yeah, that’s a good question actually… weirdly, I’ve been doing Stopped Believing in You acoustically and I find that quite a moving one. Yeah definitely that one actually, there’s a line in it – “and I’m filled with the gratitude that keeps me alive”,
I’m struggling even to say that line now without getting a bit of a lump in my throat. That’s not a sadness, it’s just an emotional thing. In Case of Emergency, I find that one a bit of a struggle sometimes. Sometimes, Bear With Me, from the first album. When I tend to do that live it’s a bit more tongue in cheek than it is on the album. Its very sad and very raw on the album. Live I kind of make light of it a little more but there are still certain bits in that I struggle with.
It’s actually something I’ve been trying to address recently. I sing with an acapella group as well and we’ve been doing a few garden gigs over the last few weeks . There’s a song that we sing called The Luddite. It’s about the Luddite Rebellion. Basically where I live is where it started. So its about the history of the local area and we’re singing it in nature outdoors in the area where 13 men were walked from Huddersfield to York to be hanged because they broke some machinery and they tried to incite the Luddite Rebellion. With that there are certain bits I can’t even sing because I’m so overcome with emotion.
You’ve got four-part harmony going on, it just sounds beautiful and really moving. And somebody in the acapella group said, oh whenever I get overwhelmed, I just imagine a massive heap of camel dung. It was so surreal, but I started doing it “think of Sally’s pile of dung”, so I’ve been trying to apply that when I’m performing. If I get really overwhelmed, I think look out there and imagine there’s a big pile of camel dung. So, yeah, that seems to be working quite well.
Neil: Just staying with Sinead O’Connor’s book for a second, do you see yourself ever writing any memoirs?
Carol: I’d like to think so, I’d like to write one, but I don’t think many people would be interested in reading it. Maybe in another 20 years. I do like writing prose but yeah maybe not just now, it would be a bit erroneously egotistical just now (laughs)
Album Inspirations
Neil: Is there a theme running through the songs for this album?
Carol: Yes, with the exception of Saviour Ship and Everything Here is a Joke, which have been around for a couple of years but all of a sudden felt really relevant after what happened over the last year and a half, they were all songs I wrote during 2020. I think most of the songs are a purging or a catharsis or a processing of what’s going on in my head. Mana of a Thousand Years is a just a deal with it and stop feeling sorry for yourself message. Twenty Miles Up is about, even though it feels like life is stagnating at the moment, if you pause and look back at certain things, you’ll see progress has been made.
Curtain to Fall is about the live events industry and how the rug had been pulled out from under us. And with that I really wanted to make the point that live music is a hell of a lot more than people just clapping at you. That really angered me. That there was a dismissal of like, oh you used to do a job where people clapped you and massaged your ego, but you’ve got to get on with something else now. It’s not about that, it’s a lot more than just being lauded by a crowds.
So Much for Summertime is a lockdown one, Best Thing in this Town, the chorus I had a while ago but it never really made sense. It’s inspired by a couple of specific events in my life but I decided to make it generally about loss. I wanted to make it quite vague, This! is obviously about 2020. Scream of the Sea is about finding the things that just help you to just deal with life. I heard an interview with Bob Mould from Husker Du, he said he had really bad tinnitus and the only thing that gave him relief was going to the sea, something about the frequency of the waves cancels out whatever frequencies are in his head, I kind of took that and ran with it, a message of just finding the things that save you.
Along For The Ride and An Eye For An Eye are just about dealing with life at the moment, accepting it is an experience and all experiences are worth having even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.
Neil: Going back to Curtain to Fall you mentioned its about more than just being clapped at, there is everything else that needs to be considered – venues, people who work there, backline crews, independent artists and so on. Do you think the music industry has been ignored by the government over this period?
Carol: I think there has been some consideration for The Arts, but if you are from a very privileged upper middle-class background, your experience of the arts is a lot different from someone from a working-class background. It’s not going to be the same as if you were taken to the ballet as a child or you’ve been to the Royal Opera House. I’m not saying that these forms of art aren’t valid and shouldn’t be saved of course they are and they’re worth funding. The thing that made me really angry was Its just the whole neglecting of the grass roots, the lack of understanding. You don’t just suddenly put a band together and play an arena.
You have to start somewhere, you have to put your chops somewhere, like you said there is a whole industry around that, that lower level, grassroots whatever you want to call it. That was just completely forgotten about and discarded. It’s not so much the musicians’, they are resourceful and if you have a bit of a following you can find other ways of engaging people and making a bit of income without gigging, but if you’re a guitar tech or if you’re a venue or a live sound engineer, you’re screwed without live events. And that’s really what the song is about as well, it’s about everyone that’s involved in that world not just the people who get up and get clapped at.
Neil: We’ve all seen venues already which aren’t going to open again, they’re gone forever, and on top of that when you’ve got Brexit as well preventing artists from touring other countries because of restrictions. It’s just one thing on top of another.
Carol: It’s like a whole big pile of camel dung!
Neil: You’ve talked about a lot of the songs from the album, are there any favourites from your perspective?
Carol: I really like Best Thing in Town. I’m really pleased with how it turned out. It’s really ambient and exactly what I wanted. Moan of a Thousand Years is a good opener, I can’t wait to play that live with my band. A couple of surprises, Twenty Miles Up felt like quite a throwaway song but now that I’ve been doing it live and the way to was produced on the album it feels like quire a strong track now. I mean, it’s like being asked to choose between your babies, there’s always ones you like more than the others, whether you like it or not. This! I had to do, it felt pertinent at the time, I really like the energy of it, I liked the angle of what I was doing.
Neil: I think my emotions have already told me what my favourite song on the album is!
Patreon
Neil: I said I’d come back to Patreon, this allows people to sign up to different membership levels with a variety of different benefits like early access to new songs, private gigs and so on, why did you choose that route and how has it worked out for you?
Carol: I actually created a Patreon page about 3 years ago but didn’t do anything with it, I felt a bit insecure about trying it. I thought, if I do and nobody signs up it’ll be a real blow to my self-confidence. I chatted to a few people who did it, and they said just try it, give it a go, even if you just get 10 people it gives you an incentive to keep creating during lockdown, and keep going during lockdown. So I did it partly because people were saying “just try it”, but also because I support other people through Patreon and I thought about my motivations for doing it. A lot of the time its kind of an act of altruism, its not about, “right I’m paying my £5 a month I better get my value for money”.
I get e-mails every time someone I support posts, and sometimes I don’t even look at the post, so I get it when people do that with me. I get it that people say, “oh they’re still ticking away doing their thing and I’m glad to support it, but I also wanted to just create more content for people who were interested. A lot of the time I feel I’m just screaming into the void, I’ve released an album, and that’s it done. But, sometimes I’ve done a cover version of something or I’ve got this new song, or a different version of a song that I just want people to hear if they’re interested, but I don’t really want to release it properly, so it’s quite nice to do that. For me it’s a secure “safe space” where I can try things out, talk to people and be vulnerable.
I think it’s important to have that as an artist, especially when you’re a solo artist, a lot of the time it can feel quite lonely, its your ideas and your music with not many people to bounce off. Its great for that, it feels like a nice wee community I can be honest with.
Neil: When you’ve shared songs there, like when you’ve put two or three out and asked for feedback, have you been surprised, have the opinions been what you’ve expected, you’ve maybe had a favourite and the people have picked a different song than you had thought?
Carol: Yeah, a little bit surprised at some of the responses. That’s another thing, I’ll maybe think, well clearly everybody will say that one and they don’t, and one of the ones you maybe thought wasn’t as strong you realise that it resonates with a lot of people. It’s really important to do that, to test the water ‘cos once you release a song, it stops being about me, its about who listens to it. I’d rather release a song that’s one of my songs that I feel happy and proud of, but the one that a lot of people can connect with than maybe the one I connect most with. It’s good to find that out really.
Neil: It’s like when you go to a gig and everyone wants to hear that one song, and the band say they’re not playing it because they don’t like it, and they audience are like, right we’re off then.
Carol: I’d love to be in a position where I had a song that everyone wanted to hear, that would be amazing, I’d love that. I get it when bands are like, oh we’re not playing that, but its part of your heritage, its part of why people are there.
What’s Next?
Neil: You’ve been rehearsing with your band and you’ve played some gigs recently, what’s next?
Carol: I’ve got a few solo gigs, I keep getting offered them and I’m not going to turn them down (Carol recently played the acoustic stage at Hits 25 one day festival n Blackpool’s Winter Gardens and also supported Beans on Toast in Huddersfield) also coming up is Fudstock Festival in Barrow in Furness, which is where I went to school, then on 17th September I’m booked to play Roots Rock, that’ll be my first full band gig.
Neil: What are your hopes for the rest of 2021 into 2022?
Carol: Stability and consistency, both on a wider basis and on a very personal level with me, I feel quite good at the moment, I’m getting better at being consistent, I feel like I’m working harder at doing what I love and that’s a really good feeling. Obviously, generally in what’s happening in the world and the UK, it would be really nice for things just to be consistent whatever form that takes. Whether it’s a consistent lockdown (no!!!!) or a consistency in maybe everybody just keep wearing your masks and keeping your distance please and we all agree that’s a good idea, or whether it’s a consistent drop in COVID numbers. Just having some sort of predictability is what I crave.
Neil: Do you think normality as we saw it will ever return?
Carol: That’s another huge debate isn’t it – what is normal? Its really interesting, I remember when the 1st lockdown happened, there was a real change in the air and everyone felt that this was something quite monumental that was happening, There was a feeling that things aren’t going to be the same after, everything’s going to be different, and there was optimism and positivity about what that change could be. I think some of that has lingered but I also think a lot of it has been smashed and people are just like wanting to get back to “normal”.
But what does that mean? As a massive stereotype, it seems to be, people just want to get back to being hammered in pubs and having no restrictions upon that. That could be a completely misjudged tabloid skewed view, I don’t begrudge people that though. Things will be a combination of both depressingly and reassuringly the same as they used to be…
Neil: One last throwaway question – what was the last record you bought?
Carol: I don’t actually have a record player, but it was the latest album by Birds and Beasts, it was actually gifted to me. It’s called Cosmic Disco, I played with them the other week. Highly recommended.
Once again, it was a pleasure to speak to Carol (and not just because she’s a fellow Hodge). Maybe the next time we talk it will be in real life. You know face to face like the old days…
The album is due out in a couple of weeks, but if you want a sneak preview, you can always become a Patreon HERE.
The Crippling Space Between – review
Boisterous
As I mentioned in the interview, Carol’s latest album, The Crippling Space Between, see’s another step in the progression of her sound. Don’t get me wrong, this is very much a Carol Hodge album, it screams Carol Hodge form the rooftops. The balance is perfect. There are still the torch song ballads that I first fell in love with from her album Hold on to That Flame, yes the ones that make me weep. Her voice is as affecting and effective as ever. An instrument in it’s own right, Add to that the big boisterous noise created by the full “band” songs and you’ve got a song for every occasion.
The album bursts into life with with the crunching guitar and synth majesty of Moan of a Thousand Years, keeping me rapt lyrically with effective storytelling and rhyming couplets as you’d expect from a songwriter of the calibre of Carol, the potency of her vocal matching the powerhouse sound she has created.
Both the lyrics and the uplifting melody of Twenty Miles Up are packed with optimism while Curtain to Fall entirely expresses the emotion I’m sure a great many have felt over the course of eighteen months without live music, possibly expressing more power and passion in being sung just by Carol at her piano than it would have been if it had been a full blooded band song.
Guitar, bass and drums are back for Everything Here is a Joke. Adding a different edge to the sound, like the single THIS, the song is complex and multi-layered, switching the pace up and down to great effect. One of my personal favourites on the album, So Much for Summertime, expresses so much in the verses regarding the longing and melancholy many felt during the barren months of lockdown and restrictions, countering that feeling with an epic assurgent chorus.
Affecting
While I love the full band songs, for me the most affecting and stirring of Carol’s songs are the one’s where it is her voice and her piano that are the stars. Without really thinking about it, my emotional state when I first heard Best Thing in This Town tells a story in itself about just what the tender impassioned expression in the delivery of a song can do to a person. What is the point music if it doesn’t move you?
Thankfully, THIS follows on, a song which has so many nooks and crannies it is so much fun listen to, it soon raises the spirits and brings a huge smile to my face.
Saviour Ship is another of those songs packed with emotional sentiment, one of those where the gutsy performance of Carol’s vocal punches the air and rather than bringing a tear to the eye, gives you a boost of adrenaline and the temerity and fearlessness to battle through as demonstrated perfectly by “don’t give up, don’t back down, just hold on, ’til your ship turns around.” The lyrics of Along for the Ride give a similar adrenaline rush, but adding the layers of extra instrumentation to great effect.
Scream of the Sea precedes this, one of the poppiest songs on the album, with synths and drum machines that have got more akin with the likes of 80s synth pop bands and the vast sound created by the likes of Chvrches than anything else. And believe me that’s not a bad thing. I love it.
Where Moan of a Thousand Years burst into life to open up the album, throwing guitars and synths into the mix, An Eye for an Eye closes proceedings in an entirely different manner, but no less grand or compelling for that. A crystal clear infallibly poignant vocal delivered in a way only Carol can, This could bring a tear to a glass eye. The addition of a lamentful seemingly weeping guitar two thirds of the way through and the long fade out is genius.
Another masterpiece from the Yorkshire lass. Maybe by the this time next year, I’ll have ticked a Carol Hodge gig off my bucket list…
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