In Charge Of Her Destiny - Charlotte Hatherley

Stepping out of Oxford Circus tube station nothing seems different. London’s commuters look disgruntled at London’s Tourists, while London’s Tourists look equally as irritated as they struggle with their inappropriately sized sightseeing guides – essentially, it’s just the normal scene of instability on a damp, wintry day in England’s capital city. Half a mile up the road in Regent Street, and fifteen floors above the chaos, however, things are different – tranquil by comparison – and there’s good reason.

Sitting in a quiet corner of a restaurant which boasts panoramic views of the ‘hustle n’ bustle’ below, is Charlotte Hatherley, a singing, song writing guitarist – and nowadays, front woman - whose perspective on the future is now almost as infinite as the horizon she’s admiring in the distance - “Nice view, isn’t it?” 

It hasn’t always been this clear, however. Almost twelve months ago to the day that Gigwise catches up with her, Charlotte was contemplating one of those life-changing decisions that everyone has to tackle at some point in their life that will - regardless of what decision they settle on - alter their life’s direction. For Charlotte, the choice was whether she was going to stay with Ash, a band with whom she toured relentlessly for almost a decade and released four, enormously successful albums with; or leave that all behind to build on her solo reputation following her critically acclaimed solo debut album ‘Grey Will Fade.’

Of course, she went for the latter, and a year on it’s a decision she confidently stands by and candidly talks about, even if she is still a little confused by the whole outcome. “At the end of touring Meltdown, I was just not very happy at all; not very inspired to do anything, like musical, which obviously I took as a bad sign.”

Although Charlotte managed to record ‘Grey Will Fade’ during a two week window in Ash’s touring schedule in 2004 with the bands approval (“Tim in particularly was really encouraging about the song writing”), she admits that trying to manage both things “did have its moments when it became awkward.” Also, when Tim Wheeler (vocals/guitar) and Mark Hamilton (bass) relocated to New York to seek inspiration for the sixth Ash album, she was reluctant to follow suit. “We got together after a few months and discussed how I was going to do my album whilst doing the next Ash album and it became obvious that it was just going to be too difficult.” She confesses, “It was actually their suggestion. They just said well why don’t you just do it and we’ll do our own album and lets just split. I kind of welcomed that decision really. It was a weird one, because it’s not like I left, or they told me to ‘fuck off,’ it was just like this is going to be the best for all of us.”

While for Ash, Charlotte’s departure meant they ‘just’ lost their second guitarist (they were originally a three-piece until they plucked Charlotte out of her previous band Nightnurse, aged seventeen), for Charlotte, the separation left her with a lot less. Most notably, she no longer had the security she’d had since she was a teenager, “I guess it’s like arrested development when you join a band, you know? To come out of that ten years later at twenty-seven thinking, ‘fuck’ – reality hits quite hard.”

For Ms Hatherley, therefore, the last year’s been about a lot more than just recording another album, it’s been about taking on the responsibilities and accountability that she didn’t have to worry about being in a band. Taking the first steps as a solo performer has been such a burst of realism that she admits her new LP feels like it should be labelled her debut. “I was quite aware of that recording, thinking it’s not really my second album, it’s my first and I know it needed to be much better than anything I’d done before.”