 2006 by her own admission was an momentous year for Ash’s former guitarist Charlotte Hatherley. Following the release of Meltdown, the band’s last album and after ten years in the multi-platinum selling rock group, she decided that it was time to leave and go it alone. After months travelling the world, stopping at San Francisco and Australia, Charlotte started work on her second album, The Deep Blue which is the follow up to Grey Will Fade.
“At the end of Meltdown we had toured America relentlessly. I was f*cked, everyone was f*cked. I wanted some time off. Tim, he had a massive change of life when he moved to New York, Mark moved to New York, and Rick moved to Edinburgh. It just felt like people were changing, we weren’t like early twenties anymore -we’re coming up to thirty. It just felt like the right thing to do. It was like OK, something needs to change and it was quite radical,” she explains. “There’s no way I would have been able to make this record and an Ash album. I realise that now. I was going to do another Ash album, I was going to do another Ash album but I realised that it never would have worked”.
The Deep Blue was recorded in Italy with Rob Ellis and Eric Drew Feldman, producers of Charlotte’s debut album once again on board.
"When I left Ash, it wasn’t like it was something I planned, so I was just like right, lets f*cking get on with making another album and just went straight into it, called up Eric, called Rob and was like Lets do it,” Charlotte recalls. “Bless them, they’re absolutely brilliant. I needed them to be with me at that time because it was quite a lot of pressure doing a first proper solo album”.
The Deep Blue is a progression from the pop punk effort of Grey Will Fade and much more ambitious.
“It’s not really a guitar punk record. I don’t think you can call it that. Guitars have really taken a back seat to pianos, strings, brass a lot more interesting arrangements and stuff,” she says. “Things couldn’t be more different when I made this album. A lot happened last year, and that album was not being as confident as I was with Grey Will Fade. Grey Will Fade, it was great, but I didn’t have that pressure of being on my own because I was like OK well I’ll do this as a side project and I didn’t really take it too seriously, whereas with this album I knew it had to be really f*cking good because I was out there on my own. There’s a lot more uncertainty on this record”.
Charlotte was fifteen when she joined her first band, Nightnurse after meeting singer Ellyot Dragon. For a young teenager playing established venues such as Dingwalls and Electric Ballroom, and hanging out with people a lot older and in their thirties, it was the “coolest thing in the world”. Two years later she joined Ash and made her debut at V Festival 1997, a no doubt daunting experience for the shy youngster.
“I’d never really played outside London. The whole thing was very strange experience,” says Charlotte of the experience. And of her time in the band she has only kind words to say for her former band mates.
“I travelled the world, came away ten years later a completely different person to when I joined the band. It’s a testament to how cool the guys were, very, very nice, not arrogant at all, no egos. You’re not just touring with the band. You’re touring with the crew, tour managers, guitar techs, bass techs, sound engineers. It’s a whole group of people and I will really, really miss that”.
Would she rule out rejoining the band?
“I have absolutely no idea,” she ponders. “I think they want to remain a three-piece, I don’t think they’re getting another guitarist in. So maybe, I don’t know”.
What about a one-off performance as a special guest?
“Maybe in twenty years”.
The forthcoming album, due out in March, will be released on Little Sister Records, the label Charlotte set up with her manager.
“I paid for the album myself, made the album myself, it was kind of like giving a record label a finished product and it was just like, well I’ve come this far on my own. I’ve always been interested in the idea of doing it completely independently,” she explains. “If that’s chance is there I think most musicians would do it. It’s the way forward. I don’t think people need major labels anymore”.
Unlike Preston of the Ordinary Boys or Tower Of London’s Donny Tourette, Charlotte won’t be playing the reality TV game or doing time in the Celebrity Big Brother house.
“I’d be completely rubbish. I’d be absolutely terrified. I’d be quiet as a mouse. I would never ever think of myself as part of that, which is good, because I think there’s something to be said about making stuff too available. People like Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, they’re not f*cking everywhere. They do what they want in their own time,” she states. “That’s more interesting, that’s an artist I’d like to get to know. Whereas someone like Preston who’s in OK magazine, it’s like yeah, what is there to find out about that person? There’s not much left. I’d much rather be revered in fifty years time than people getting bored straight away”.
But she’ll be tuning in right?
“Yeah”, she laughs.” Don’t get me wrong I do like my Heat magazine and trash culture!”
Behave is out now and Charlotte will release her next single I want You To Know on 26th February.
For more info: www.charlottehatherley.com
Words: Helen Duong
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