Caroline Weeks
Interview Laura Martin
Photography Ben Rayner
We’re sitting high up in a garden in Plumstead, South London, watching one of those hazy, ethereal sunsets at the end of one of the first hot days of the year. Curled up on the bench next to this writer is singer-songwriter Caroline Weeks, who’s sipping tea out of a teacup while taking a break from her music rehearsal in the house behind us.
Caroline is a Brighton-based multi-instrumentalist who plays everything from the guitar to the flute, violin and cello. Coming from a long line of musicians, she was drawn to music from an early age and is self-taught in a huge range of instruments, as well as having a strong academic background in the subject. This innate talent gives her the diversity to play as part of a number of music groups and also as a solo artist.
Caroline has toured America with folk band Lewis & Clarke, but she’s arguably most famous for her part in fellow Brightonian Natasha Khan’s band Bat For Lashes. However, it’s the release of her solo album Songs for Edna (Manimal Vinyl Records, 2009) that should catapult her firmly into a spotlight of her own. The album is a collection of poems set to her signature dreamy, emotive, pastoral sound that creates a truly and unique sound.
Softly spoken and slight of figure, Caroline’s casually dressed for rehearsal in jeans and an orange jumper that almost matches the color of her curly hair. She seems to belie her strong on-stage presence and at some points, ’SUP struggles to hear her. Perhaps this is why she created her alter ego, Ginger Lee, for her early performances as a musician. But as we’re about to find out, Ginger Lee turned out to be a very naughty girl indeed.
You play a record amount of instruments. Which one did you get started on?
Well, the first instrument I played was a harmonium when I was about five years old. It was a family heirloom. We always had one in the house and I would sit down but I couldn’t quite reach the pedals! I used to play it and imagine I was making up a piece, and I would call it “The Sea”. I would start off playing slowly and then just get lost for a very long time. I think that was my first musical experience.
Were you the sort of child who was like, ‘Mum, Dad, listen to my tunes!’
No, it was definitely a personal thing, being five years old and not really knowing what it was I was doing and not really thinking it was something to share. But then when I got older I was always encouraged to learn, but I was never pushed. I learned the flute when I was 12 years old, and the recorder just before that. And then I had piano lessons, and then I wanted guitar lessons.
Is there any instrument you don’t play?
I can’t play brass, although I do have a little cornet that I can get a few notes out of.
Why’s that? Do you need big lungs or something?
I think it’s the embouchure (curls her lips up), the lip formation that I can’t get. I can play a little bit of the violin and the cello pretty badly, but I think I’ve always wanted to learn as many instruments as possible. My life ambition is to be an old lady with loads of instruments all over my wall, and just be able to sit back in my rocking chair and be like ‘Ah, I think I’ll play that trombone.’
Do you think your desire to learn so many instruments and to have all of those choices is so that you’re able to create a wider spectrum of music?
I think it’s so I don’t have to rely on anybody else to do it. It’s there at my fingertips. It’s like an artist having lots of different colors to paint with. You want to be able to have as many different shades and tones as possible. To have them all there yourself and to be able to do it is amazing. You can just do it all straight away without using MIDI.
How would you describe the kind of music you’re making at the moment?
I make lots of different music, but my solo music I would describe as minimal pastoral avant-garde folk.
Nice. Did you just come up with that on the spot?
No, that was off the cuff!
Your album Songs for Edna is a really interesting concept. You’ve set the poems of Pulitzer Prize winner Edna St. Vincent Millay to music. How did that come about? Were you a fan?
No. I stumbled across her work completely by accident. I was at home playing my guitar, and I put it down and I was just looking at all the books on the shelf. The one I chose to flick through was my boyfriend’s book, an American anthology of poetry. I was having a little read and I came across Edna’s poetry. The first one was called “I Shall Go Back” and the rhyming couplets they had just— (pauses). Reading them out loud, the words just danced off the page because they’re so rhythmic and they’re like songs anyway, that it just seemed right to make the music. It really resonated with me. It was so beautiful and I really enjoyed setting music to words that are already there. I did that a lot in my A-Levels, being given text and then arranging the music around it so it’s minor or major, using pauses to make it work.
Is that how you like to work in general, starting with the music rather than the lyrics?
Oh, I’m definitely more about the music. I’m not very good with words really. I’m not very confident with writing my own lyrics, even though I have done it in the past. I think for the next album I’m going to write my own lyrics just to challenge myself.
Setting poetry to music is such a great idea. Are there a lot of other people who do this as well?
Oh it’s definitely not unique. Lots of classical composers have done it in the past, and a lot of folk musicians do as it’s a way of keeping words alive and passing them down generation after generation and breathing new life into them.
Do you prefer to perform solo or with a group?
I really enjoy performing in a group if the music is all written together or I’m given parts to play, but when it’s my own music I find it very difficult to find people to play with me as I think I’m a bit of a control freak (laughs)! I know exactly how I want it to be and I really like minimal music. [The Songs for Edna] project is very minimal, so it’s difficult finding people to play with who don’t want to play constantly. I want to say, ‘Can you not play for the first three minutes, then just play one note when I say that word?’ There aren’t that many people who want to do that! They feel like they’d be a bit of a lemon standing there on stage. The good thing about playing on my own is that I don’t have to worry about being in time or in tune with anyone else. I do really love playing with other people, but I think I get a better satisfaction from playing on my own.
You’ve got quite an eclectic group of bands you belong to: an all girl chamber quartet and a Bulgarian folk group. Any other ones of note?
I’ve got a few more! This one – we used to be called Pthhh, but we don’t play anymore as one of the members left – so we’ve just given ourselves a new name of Collectress. We’ve got a gig at the Roundhouse in Camden very soon. We’re playing music to film.
That sounds interesting. What’s it for?
I’m not sure, as we’ve just been given the gig. I think it’s a one-off. We haven’t decided what the film is going to be, so that’s what the rehearsal is for today, actually. We write the score and the film plays behind us. I really want to involve a choir with it as well.
Do you feel an affinity with one genre of music?
I suppose I do fit into different genres, as it’s really difficult to have one project that’s a fusion of everything you like. I hate the word fusion (laughs).
Like a bad pan-Asian fusion restaurant or something.
Yeah! I really like to have as many bands on the go as possible to fulfill every facet.
Tell us about your alter ego Ginger Lee.
That was the name I came up with when I first did my solo music because I didn’t want use my own name.
How come?
Just so I could have some kind of anonymity. I just thought it would be nice to have a different name. But then after doing gigs for about a year, I Googled myself and found out there was an American porn star with the same name! There were pages and pages of this woman with bleached blonde hair. She wasn’t even ginger!
Did you have strange, balding overweight men turn up at your gigs expecting something else?
(Laughing) No, I don’t think so, but there would always be the odd promoter that would be like ‘Hmmm.’
‘Seen your work before!’
(Laughing) I just thought ‘This is no good as if anyone’s interested in me they’re gonna think I’m a porn star!’ So I had to change it.
Are you doing any festivals over the summer?
Well I’m doing support for Bat For Lashes in Europe. I’m going to play autoharp and she’s got a new backing band. Me and Tash are really good friends. I think we’ll always do music together.
How did you meet?
Just in Brighton. It’s a really small town. I was going out with a guy called Tim and he used to play with Tash, and I used to put on gigs as well in a really small Victorian theater then. I put on Tash’s first gig at that theater.
Have you been surprised by her success?
Yeah I suppose if someone had said to me three years ago that she’d be where she is now, I’d be really surprised because it’s grown really quickly. It’s amazing. She really deserves it.
Where would you want to see yourself in three years? Is it your solo career or one of your bands that you’d really like to succeed?
I think I’d really like Collectress to do well. I really want to get into writing music for film and do art projects and site-specific performances. I still want to keep my own music on the go, but I don’t want it to become a really big thing.
