As I write these words, it is International Women’s Day, what better way to celebrate than to listen to one of this countries best singer songwriters, Carol Hodge, and her latest long player Vertiginous Drops (best album title I’ve heard in ages too), quite possibly her most accomplished and varied work to date, as she takes her music and songs in different directions and calls upon some well known guests on a few tracks.
I also had the opportunity to talk to my namesake ahead of the official release of the album across streaming sites this week (the physical copies – CDs and vinyl – have been available direct from Carol since the end of last year) where we chatted about taking the plunge into being a full time musician, the new album and song-writing.
I started off asking Carol what sort of feelings she gets prior to the release a a new album. “Apprehension, abject terror, anticipation, excitement and just complete ennui in general. Its one of these things, I keep flop-flopping between being really excited about it and just, “what’s the point!””
If you’ve heard Carol’s music before, and have had the opportunity to get your hands on a physical copy of Vertiginous Drops, you’ll know already any feelings of self doubt Carol had in the run up to the release, while obviously understandable from a human emotions perspective, are entirely unfounded as the album opens with the soaring epic musical arrangement and heartfelt personal lyrics of Best Will in the World, with a verse that sums up perfectly Carol’s change in perspective in the last year.
“You won’t fall behind if you don’t succeed,
It’s so overrated to achieve
Better sometimes to just sink in
Get comfortable in your own skin
Cause there’s always time to work nine ’til five
Forty years of your Plan B
Or a temporary state of true potency”
“Almost a year ago, I quit my teaching job. Up until then I was teaching around 3 days a week online. It certainly really helped during the pandemic as I couldn’t get out and gig and I had about 40 students during that time. It was turning 40 that really motivated it. I had a realisation that, I was nearly 40 years old, I’d been touring and playing in bands since I was 15 and I’d always had a day job alongside, I’d never given myself 100% to just doing music, so I thought, why don’t I just give it a go, I can always get another day job if I need to, so I took the plunge. I was helped massively by an Arts Council grant, which I didn’t think I’d get but I did, and it gave me a financial buffer for 6 months or so, it paid for vocal coaching, performance coaching, piano lessons, loads of things to allow me to kick start what I was doing, so thank you Arts Council England for that!“
Best Will in the World gives way to the vibrant electronic synth intro of The Price, before the song opens up into its assurgent and hugely emotional chorus with guest vocals from Ginger Wildheart, in what is a highly impassioned and enlightening song about addiction and the realisation that you don’t have to struggle alone.
It really feels that there has been another progression in Carol’s sound between The Crippling Space Between and Vertiginous Drops, this time with 80s synths, alongside huge rock anthems and her emotional torch songs “This time I deliberately left a longer gap between sessions. The way I work is, I’ll write the songs I’ll demo them at home, and when I’ve got them ready to go to the studio, I’ll record the piano and a really good vocal take at home and from there, Dave Draper and I will build the other instrumentation around the basic skeleton. This time, I had four days booked in with him in January and we did about 7 songs, ridiculously good going. I hadn’t booked in again until August. My thinking was if I’ve got 6 months before I go in again, I’ve have loads of time to think about the album as a whole, thinking wholistically, you know, do I want any extra instrumental bits in there or whatever, so them I went in again in August and got the album finished. This time I had some guests, Ginger Wildheart sings on one of the songs I’ve got Kavus Turabi from Gong and the Cardiacs, he plays guitar on one track, Chris Catalyst from Eureka Machines who now plays in Ghost plays bass and guitar on one track and Kirsty McGhee who I was put in touch with through a friend, she added musical saw and bass flute to Silhouettes. That was different for me having other people involved and in all four cases, what each of them brought to the tracks really elevates each of the songs. I think this album sounds more mature. I know its a bit of a cliche but I think I’ve evolved in what I do, it feels more confident, like I’ve take a few more risks…“
I would have to agree with Carol’s summation of the guests she has involved in this recording. Without initially being prejudiced by looking to see which songs had guests involved, I let the songs themselves do the talking and interestingly the ones which have become firm favourites, the ones that have become embedded in my brain, are the likes of The Price, Clean the Slate and Silhouettes, all very different and certainly the contributions from Carol’s carefully chosen guests have bolstered and brought another level to the sound. The aforementioned The Price is an earworm of epic proportions, its chorus embedding itself in your brain for days. Clean The Slate builds to an extraordinary crescendo, immense crashing guitars assisting in creating a thunderous outro.
“The hardest route to climb
On the way to the top
Is the meandering twisted line with
The Vertiginous Drops
The bitterest battle won
Is never with lances and guns but the
Interior inferior
Lies to overcome”
And in the case of Silhouettes, Kirsty McGee’s extraordinary and powerfully expressive musical saw one addition which really brings another uniquely poignant level of emotion to the song, with its plaintive melancholy refrain sung beautifully and soulfully by Carol, the chorus bringing to my mind the haunting images of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. “Clean the Slate – where the album title comes from is fun to play live, its got a big riff, playing it live we all play the riff which is really fun. That’s one of the songs I feel I took a risk on, chord changes, the big outro, the stuff Chris added… its got a real edgy but ethereal quality to it. Something I’ve not done before. On Silhouettes the musical saw makes it so gorgeous These are my favourites, And we’ve just been rehearsing Giving it Up Now, its got like a 2 and a half minute outro. This album is about taking chances, making changes and moving on so that song ticks all the boxes“.
Carol shared how the songs come together, what ones need to remain more stripped back and the ones which have huge bombastic guitar riffs…
“I usually have an idea at home, and take the ideas as a reference point into the studio. I know what will be a rock banger, what’s going to be acoustic, and what’s going to be really poppy and polished. But some songs, The Price, which Ginger Wildheart sings on is a good example of when things can go in literally any direction, the demo is nothing like the end product. I think that’s the most fun part, I sometimes don’t know what the song is going to be like, and think, lets just play around with it. That’s the good thing about working with a producer when you hit that wall, or you’re like, this’ll be more fun if we come up with something together“
As usual with Carol’s songwriting, lyrically many of the songs feel quite personal, I wondered if that made a difference in how they were arranged “That’s a good question. I don’t really think about it in terms of the lyrics as to how the arrangements go. I just know the vibe that it needs to have. It’s instinctive. Like, this song needs this particular feel and vibe. I don’t really need to think about it. It feels natural.”
“Lyrically and in performing the songs I often talk about catharsis, when I play solo gigs, even more so. People are paying to come and see my catharsis! Someone said to me, not everyone gets that release so in a way you’re doing that for them and I found that kind of mind blowing. I’d never thought about it that way before, not everyone writes songs and expresses themselves in that way. As a music lover, when I hear a song, it often says something I didn’t realise I wanted to say, oh god that thing, they’ve said it way better than me…“
Interestingly what Carol mentions about songs speaking for you, I often feel that with her songs she has somehow got into my head and expressed my thoughts and feelings more accurately than I could relate them to others. Take songs like the gloriously overblown 80s synth pop pomp of Never Run Out of Things to Worry About and its second verse, speaks of feelings I have constantly far more eloquently that I ever could…
“Always a fear in me
The swirls and swells incessantly
Now its got to the top
and its stuck behind my teeth
Its flavour rushes in my mouth
Accountability, sweet doubt
Clings to the surface, within and without”
Similarly the baring of the soul that is Giving it Up Now, its swooping soaring verses paired with an ecstatically rhapsodic chorus signalling a pushing on regardless in the face of endings with its closing repeated couplet “All I can say with certainty, is there will be uncertainty” in recognition that starting again will not come without its challenges….
There is a lot of humour on the album too, slightly dark and always making a point. Take Bitch, Don’t Break My Serenity as an example, a melody serene and calm beneath as Carol spits out the refrain with more that an hint of venom, underlining the songs message about building up resilience in the face of others trying to bring you down. “It’s very tongue in cheek, I’ve achieved serenity so don’t fuck it up for me. Quite a few people have said they like that one. It’s one of the songs that feels a bit more throwaway than others, Oh Amanda too some people say they really like, it’s interesting, you never know what will resonate with listeners”
As I’ve come to expect from a Carol Hodge album, there are songs, like Grayson (Things Could Always Be Worse) and Silhouettes that lyrically and musically really hit you in the feels, at certain moments you realise they are having an impact and think “what is this wet stuff coming from my eyes”. I always think that is the sign of a good song. Do some songs impact Carol in the same way? “Oh yea, totally, there are some parts of songs I know I need to steel myself for when I’m singing them live and it’s amplified in solo gigs as its often a quiet attentive audience who are giving me a certain energy you don’t get at a rock gig, a level of emotional energy that is really different that really effects me as a performer. There are songs I know I have to hold myself together for. Sometimes there are bits that catch me unaware, like when you catch someone’s eye in the audience and it hits you like a brick.”
Now that the album is out there for all to hear, what’s ahead for Carol Hodge in 2023?
“I feel as if I’m just getting organised for the year ahead and what I want to do. Loads of supports with Ginger which I’m looking forward to. Ben Marsden and I will be on stage together at these dates and doing something a bit different … I’ll just leave it at that. I’m playing some festivals with my band that I haven’t done before, were doing Strummercamp, and we’re playing Bearded Theory which we’ve never played before. We’re doing Rebellion again, the Crass stuff and hopefully going to America with the Crass songs too. Yeah, there’s still a lot up in the air and I’m trying to plan things. I did over 100 gigs last year. I made a conscious decision to say yes to everything after having two years not doing anything at all. This is all I do to exist now, I need to be more discerning about how to make a living. I’d like to do a tour of independent record shop in-stores. I’m going to work on that and try to pull that together, and also playing slightly different venues that aren’t usually venues. I do house gigs sometimes and they’re fun. You never know what the dynamic will be like and its always interesting. I’d like to do some more unusual venues, that’s on my peripheries just now…“
What is different for you for each of these…
“I always think its easier when you’re part of a band, it feels more, even with Crass stuff when it is intense musically and lyrically. It is like a gang, it feels like us against the world and you’re sharing the burden, you’ve got each others backs and you’re sharing the emotional investment. With my own music, the main difference is that it’s way more dynamic with my band, there’s a lot more going on: shifts, changes, stops, drama, a lot more excitement. Solo is the most intense emotionally, its just me and I’m kind of exposed. That can also be the most rewarding. It’s just you, there’s no-one to hide behind, when it goes well, it’s even better as its just you that did it.”
How does people talking impact you at solo acoustic gigs?
“Weirdly, people are strangely attentive at punk gigs if its just me and a piano. But it does happen all the time, it is frustrating but I don’t take it personally. I try to see the funny side of it. I did a gig in a venue in Wolverhampton, and just because of the shape of the room, even though people were at the back and round the corner, but because of the acoustics, it was so loud, all the people at the front kept telling people to shut up. People were trying to be respectful and speak as far away from the stage as possible but it was so loud anyway. I always give people the benefit of the doubt, but it does piss me off.“
If you don’t want to piss Carol off, buy yourself a copy of this exceptional new album, believe me you’ll thank yourself as you get drawn into the emotional rollercoaster that is Vertiginous Drops as it replenishes your weary soul.
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