I've been a fan of Charlotte Carpenter’s honest, engaging and absolutely beautiful music for some time now, and I recently had the pleasure of, finally, seeing her perform live. It was a full band show at Firebug in Leicester, and did not disappoint.
She creates poetic, intense, beautifully dramatic music and words; and she invests fully, putting her whole self into that art. She’s also fully independent, and very proud of it. And that's how I described her in my write up of the gig which you can find over at Music in Leicester.
Charlotte kindly spared some time to talk to me in the green room before she went on stage. She spoke frankly, and with a disarming directness. I started by asking her about her new album, ‘A Modern Rage’, and what it all means.
Is it really, as some have written, all about a bad experience with a former producer?
It’s not really about that … More importantly to me, ‘A Modern Rage’ is 11 songs about my own journey into womanhood. That does involve some of those experiences with a former producer, but largely it’s about learning my way into adulthood as a woman. And realising that the experiences that I’ve felt or am feeling are no different to the experiences that my nan or my mum felt in a different generation. Now, we have more space and vocabulary to talk about it. That’s why it’s called ‘A Modern Rage’ because none of it is new; as a title it’s quite ironic, but it’s me realising that, number one, these aren’t new problems, and, number two, being rudely awoken to some of those things — to confusion, to frustration, toxic relationships, gender inequality.
So it’s more about my awakening to it, and it fills me with a modern rage: anger and pain that I’ve never really felt before.
It’s kind of depressing that things haven’t changed …
It’s changing though; there is some hope. Even though the topics of the album are quite heavy, there are moments of hope in there. I absolutely believe it’s going to improve, but the only way is if people like me and other artists keep talking about it.
I definitely hear hope in it! With that kind of theme, you’re saying important stuff, but you’re saying it so beautifully through the music.
Do you know what? I’m not very good at expressing anger. My anger comes out in more delicate, sensitive ways, and that’s actually something personally I want to work on because I don’t want to feel like I’m not allowed to be angry.
There’s definitely been some work done there… Why don’t I comfortably express anger? Why do I feel like I can’t shout or raise my voice? I think that’s a massive part of the patriarchy anyway — women’s anger being suppressed, and that’s definitely happened to me. So I think my go-to with anger is to feel sadness and write about it in less of an up-front way. Even two of the most up-front songs on the album are not that angry sounding really … I’m on my own journey with anger!
I had maybe six or seven songs - no, eight songs - that I felt were really coherent. They really represented a time of life I was at. So I went in it with “I’m making an album and these eight songs are on it.” I didn’t really do the thing with writing loads and loads of songs and then picking. I had those eight songs and I thought, “Right, what else do I want to say?”
From that point onwards I did some demos of the eight songs on GarageBand and eventually Logic, having something that I could take to the studio and say, “This is what I’ve got, let’s build from that.”
I put myself into some co-writes just to see what would happen — and I’ve never co-written before. The guy I produced the album with, Matthew Daly, we wrote ‘Not Good Enough’ and ‘Dolores’ together, which actually are incredibly poignant moments on the album now. Then I went into a co-write with another Leicestershire musician, CJ Pandit, and we did ‘Secret Second’ together.
So that’s how the album came to be. Me and Matt had a conversation about it — we’ve known each other for years and I wanted to write with someone I really trusted and felt comfortable with, and that was him. I got some funding from Help Musicians UK to make the record. We set up at his house in Leicester for a year, arranging, producing, writing and recording, and I also worked at a studio in Nottingham and another in Leicester.
How did that co-writing work for you, given it was the first time for you to try that?
I realised you’ve got to be so open. You’ve got to go into the room with an idea, even if it’s small: something you can all bounce off. With Matt, he showed me the guitar part for ‘Not Good Enough’ and we moved on from there, and I went in with the guitar part for ‘Dolores’ and we worked from there. Then with CJ, it was almost more like we were in this joint therapy session together.
That’s what I’ve come to realise: a lot of co-writing sessions are going in with a story or feeling and you really talk through it with the other person because you want to convey the right message.
With the tour, you’re presenting the album live, and with a band. How did that all come together?
This is the first tour I’ve done with a band for seven years. It was a very long time coming.
It was a case of putting feelers out and seeing who’s doing good stuff. You end up following lots of other musicians on Instagram over the years, and they follow you and you have mutual friends … With these guys, it was friends of friends. I showed them the album and asked if it was the sort of thing they’d like to play.
It’s been so exciting to hear it come to life and to be able to share this music with other people. As a solo artist you’re so insular — you’re in your own head all of the time, in your own bedroom, in your house — so it’s been really good to get outside of that box.
I think musically it’s been quite challenging for me to go from playing predominantly on my own to then having to be mindful of my parts for other parts to exist, and creating more space for that. It’s a challenge but I think it’s a good challenge.
What’s been your approach to translating all that work in the studio, and the co-writing, on to the stage?
You have to look at every song and think about its primary colours, and that's what I've done: my guitar, another guitar, bass, drums, they're the main things that are in every single song on the record. And there's stuff on the record that I would have loved to have put on, like all the keys parts, strings ... but I haven't got the budget for that yet. This is totally DIY. I'm 100% independent in every sense of the word. So you have to think about: What can I pull off? What can I afford? That's the reality of it.
And how important has 'the scene' in cities like Leicester and Nottingham been for you?
When I first started doing music professionally and I'd just finished Uni, Leicester was the place that I chose to start. There was a lot of effort put in to being part of a scene. But the older you get, the harder that is to cling on to, because people change and grow and move. So even though the local scene in Leicester is brilliant, I'd actually never say that I'm heavily a part of any scene, mostly because of those changes I've made in life. There are some incredible people doing things here, and I keep in the loop with who's playing and who's doing what, but I'm 32 now, and the scene has changed. When I started being on the local scene I was 20, so it's really shape-shifted, and I'm sure there are communities out there that I don't know about and that are doing incredible things.
When you get older, it changes, and you stay in touch with people in different ways, and people do things a little differently, I've found. People stay at home more, or travel more. Certain promoters stop working, venues close - the scene always moves.
There are encouraging things: venues like this (Firebug), and older ones still being around, and so on, but then you've got the bad news stories too, like venues closing. And it's hard to get people out and engaged, isn't it?
It is. But Firebug are doing great things. It's amazing to have those people who have a bit of a weight behind them, like Matt at Firebug. He's a real hero. It's just as much about the people in power in these situations as it is about the people on the ground, like me and other musicians creating communities.
Find out more about Charlotte Carpenter on her website, and listen to her music below.