Charlotte's web

Plucked from the obscurity of minor league bands like Sister George and Night Nurse, West Londoner Charlotte Hatherley found herself, still a teenager, thrust into the spotlight in 1997 as Tim Wheeler’s guitar-playing and visual foil in Ash. It was quite the fiery baptism: nine years of relentless touring and three full albums (Nu-Clear Sounds, Free All Angels and Meltdown).

Crucially though, Hatherley also found time to develop her songwriting skills, the fruits of which made up her debut solo album Grey Will Fade (2004), a respectable collection of power-pop nuggets that included the singles ‘Kim Wilde’, ‘Bastardo’ and ‘Summer’, conceived with the help of Eric Drew Feldman, formerly a member of Beefheart’s Magic Band, and PJ Harvey drummer Rob Ellis.
A little over a year ago, Hatherley handed in her Ash cards and decided to go it alone. This month sees the release of The Deep Blue, a quantum leap on from the debut in terms of songwriting and sonic ambition, a sprawling aquatic soundscape, stitched with mythic and elemental imagery that suggests Hatherley may in time reach the dizzy artistic heights achieved by her idols Kate Bush and David Bowie.
“I think the biggest influences were records like Mercury Rev’s Deserter’s Songs, The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips, Hounds Of Love by Kate Bush,” she says, sipping a hot toddy in the bar of her Wexford Street hotel prior to a Dublin date in The Village. “Todd Rundgren is another inspiration, we were listening to him a lot. I absolutely wanted to do something that was a record from start to finish. With Grey Will Fade, there were a few songs that I’m really proud of, but as a whole this had to be a much more consistent, much more thoughtful piece of work.”
Presumably it focuses the mind at the demo stage to know she’s going to have to present the material to musicians the calibre of Feldman and Ellis?
“Yeah, what I did, same as Grey Will Fade, was do everything at home with Pro-Tools, I wrote all the guitar parts and most of the backing vocals. And then I went to Eric and we arranged it together. Basically we took out most of my guitar parts and he wrote keyboard parts.
“And Rob Ellis, not only is he an amazing drummer, but he’s also a classical musician, who writes string arrangements and piano parts. They’re both complete geniuses. And they work with women a lot as well, which I think at that stage I actually really needed (laughs). They’re a lot older than me, so it was very much a big brother thing with Rob and Eric.”
Can she remember the point where she first felt like a bona fide songwriter?
“It was definitely ‘Grey Will Fade’, which was a b-side for the Ash single ‘There’s A Star’. It was the first song that I’d been left to do in a studio alone, basically me and Rick (McMurray), and after Rick did the drums, I did all the guitars and vocals and bass. I was quite proud of that song. It was voted one of the fans’ favourite b-sides, and that’s when I thought, ‘Maybe I should do a bit more of this sort of thing’. That gave me loads of confidence. The thing about Grey Will Fade was, most of the songs I’d written when I was 18, 19, and it wasn’t until I got to about 25 that I actually recorded them. That’s why it sounds like a big leap to The Deep Blue now.”
Despite Ash’s occasional foray into metal fetishism, Tim Wheeler is very much the classic songwriter, an Ivor Novello winner as enthralled by Brian Wilson as Iron Maiden. Did she learn much from him?
“When I joined Ash, it was exactly like joining the circus, It really wasn’t until I turned 25 that I started paying attention to the actual musical process, and started writing and playing with Tim a lot. I was really shy and quite naïve and unsure of myself, and it took me quite a while to get the confidence to sit down with Tim and say, ‘I’ve written a song – what do you think?’ And he was completely encouraging about it.
“There’s a lot of stuff that Tim is into that I wouldn’t necessarily be into. Like, he’s a massive Bob Dylan fan and he’ll sit with the acoustic and play great, classic songs. I’m partly into the pop element but I’m also into being obscure and listening to Yes and prog rock and Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, songs the Ash boys just wouldn’t really be into. Except for Tim, who’s got pretty eclectic tastes.
“I remember bringing a Kate Bush album on the tour bus and it just being dismissed as ‘crazy woman’s music’! As soon as I started writing songs, I realised it wasn’t compatible with taking it to the rehearsal room; it wasn’t their kind of thing. That difference made it quite easy for me to do it myself. I don’t want to be the person who foists songs upon people; that would be a little bit embarrassing.”
Tunes like ‘Love’s Young Dream’ off the new record, which deals quite explicitly with Charlotte’s parents’ break-up, are markedly more confessional than before.
“On this record I kind of took to the idea that if it was going to make me slightly uncomfortable and a bit nervous, then it’s probably a good idea,” she admits. “‘Roll Over (Let It Go)’, is the first time I’ve sung a song and it’s made me want to cry; the first time I’ve actually been quite emotionally involved in the recording process. I did have a bit of a shit time of it before going into the studio, I was a little bit all over the shop in general.”
How come?
“Just leaving the band and turning 27. I felt really displaced and didn’t know what was going on, hadn’t really seen my boyfriend in several months. I felt like everything was changing and there was nothing I could do about it. Now that I’ve come through it, I look back on the last year as being one of the most important of my life. But at the time I was very confused. I suppose that’s why there’s all those watery references, that kind of vulnerable lost at sea feeling. ‘Dawn Treader’ is all about terrible things around the corner. There is a lot of darkness to it.”
It’s also the only songwriting collaboration on the record, co-written with longtime hero Andy Partridge of XTC.
“Andy was quite friendly with me throughout this record, which was brilliant,” she says. “I just went to his house and it was basically me sitting with a guitar, and him coming up with all this stuff, and then I took the tape away and changed it into something. He’s been another big brother really, and he’s been quite unfairly treated by the music industry, so he’s a little bit, ‘Fuck ’em all – they’re all cunts out there!’ That’s been Andy’s advice! But he sees everything in colours, he was the first person who said, listening to the demos, that it sounds really water-y, very aquatic, and I kind of took that and ran with it.”
Charlotte’s aforementioned boyfriend is of course Edgar Wright, director of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz (and the videos for ‘Summer’ and ‘Bastardo’). Ask her what it’s like to be in a relationship with another creative individual and Charlotte says this:
“Edgar is much more driven than I am, and I’m pretty fuckin’ driven! He’s very ambitious. He’s been great for me, absolutely amazing to have, not just as a partner, but I trust his opinion more than anyone else’s. I mean, if Edgar doesn’t like a song or a lyric or a video, it’s important to me. He’s got incredibly high standards. And so have I.”
Certainly, their creative cycles seem to have aligned.
“Tell me about it! When I was doing Grey Will Fade, he was doing Shaun Of The Dead, and this time he was doing Hot Fuzz, and it seems that each time we do something it gets bigger and that means a longer time apart. He’s going to be in America most of next year, making another film, and I’ll be on tour. So it’s difficult. But me and Edgar will be five years together at Glastonbury this year. We’ve come this far. It’s interesting when two very determined people live together and keep pushing each other. He wouldn’t let me get away with anything less than goodness… I hesitate to say ‘greatness’. I’m the worst person to talk myself up!”
The Deep Blue is out now on Little Sister/Vital.
Photos: Mick Quinn