In Conversation with Carol Ades: Debut Album ‘Late Start’ coming September.
Getting to speak to one of your favourite artists? Nothing has made me get out of bed quicker. On a trip to Sweden with her girlfriend, Carol Ades thoughtfully made time for me and powered through our chat with a rough bout of strep throat. Her dog Disco is curled up next to her, and she is literally drowning under handfuls of packets of antibiotics. Through the pain, Carol is still just as gorgeous and gentle as any time I’ve been lucky enough to speak with her. She shared her thoughts around fame, headlining her first show in London and oh, a 14-track debut album? It’s a rare thing getting to chat with someone who is just as obsessed with forever as you are, and for that reason, I’m so excited to share our conversation, and I’m even more excited for the potentially dangerous introspection her new album is going to bring to our lives. We’re all just babies trying to figure it out right?
Carol:
Is it working?
Amy:
Yes, can you hear me okay? Yes? Great! How are you doing?
Carol:
Hey! I'm okay. I have strep throat…
Amy:
No!
Carol:
I know I've been so sick the last few days, so I've been a little bit like what's happening?
Amy:
Are you still okay to talk?
Carol:
Yes yes! It's like one of those things when you're sick, you just have no sense of reality.
Amy:
Totally, well thank you so much for speaking with me still. Maybe we could start by getting some context about you as an artist, I know that you write quite introspectively about this in a lot of your music. Is this where you thought you'd be when you were a teenager, at like 16? Is this what you wanted to do?
Carol:
No, not at all. I don't know - maybe at 16 I had more of a vision to go somewhere exciting, you know, like a small town to city vibe. To do something big, that kind of thing, but I didn't think my life would revolve around having my own ideas and breaking down my own feelings about things. I thought I would work in marketing or something.
Amy:
I never really thought about it like that, but that’s quite a lot to have what you're doing, being so contemplative, be your full career. It's quite psychological really?
Carol:
It is. I've been thinking so much about that recently because I think when I was younger of course a part of me was like, I want to be famous and I want attention and validation, and I want to feel like I'm special and all of these things, but the older I get I realise how crazy it is to do this as a career. Part of it is that outward-facing feeling that you always want to grow and get bigger and get more fans, but also the older I get I'm like, 'oh my God, I don't want to be famous, that sounds exhausting'. You know? What if I want to open a shop or something? I don't know.
Amy:
Do you like how it is at the moment? If you could get it to stay as it is now at your level of fame, but also then still be successful, is that the dream? I guess that's the unknown, you don't know what it would be like?
Carol:
Yeah, I don't know, I feel like maybe for the first time I'm kind of surrendering to that. I don't know what it would be like, and I don't know what the best case scenario is. I think I want to make a living off of it so that I can have a comfortable life and also feel connected and have community, but not to the point where I can't ever detach from it if I change my mind or if I am inspired to do something else with my life. Yeah I don't know sometimes.
Amy:
I guess it's good to not know sometimes, and just sit in the not knowing and just fully believe it will work itself out.
Carol:
Yeah I think that's all we can do is just be like, 'well I'm here right now and it feels really good, and we'll just see'.
Amy:
Can you tell me about when you started to release music, it was after lockdown?
Carol:
I released I Can't Wait To Be British in 2021, but before that I had moved to LA when I was 18 or 19 and had put out music. I had signed a record deal after I was on The Voice in high school. It was this very crazy time where I was just trying to figure out what that even means. Then I found songwriting for other people which felt a lot better with a lot less pressure, and that took off faster from 2016 to 2020. Then when everything shut down in 2020, it didn't feel like enough. I missed telling my own stories and now I know myself a little better, I can ask ‘what do I actually want to say?’. That’s when I started putting music out the next year.
Amy:
Which one of your releases has surprised you the most with the fan reception and the love for it?
Carol:
I think Brunette Caroline, honestly. It's not the highest streamed but it's my video with the most views. It's the song that any time I meet someone or another artist who says they've heard my music, they love that song. That's kind of cool, because that one was really just my first time experimenting with writing something as it is and not thinking too much about the song but just the feeling. I think coming from a songwriting background, I always felt really obliged to shape it in the best 'song' way - make the best pop song. It was the first time I really felt like it doesn't matter if it has no chorus, it doesn't matter if it's two minutes long, or seven minutes long. It's just what it is.
Amy:
It's personal as well, so was it one of the tracks that led you down being able to write more freely about your own feelings?
Carol:
Yeah, all of the songs that I have put out already I'd collected over the last five years. During my songwriting career, I was collecting songs that I would write out of frustration in breaks from writing from other people, and then I would keep those songs in my back pocket. Some of them got cut by people, and some of them I kept for myself. I think all of my songs are really written for me and about my real feelings, but Brunette Caroline was just a special one, I don't know why.
Amy:
I was listening to 26 the other day, and I know you're 28 now. Is there anything you'd say to your 26 year old self? How different are you now after the past two years, and how different would that song be if it was written now and it was called 28?
Carol:
Oh my gosh. I'm so different. I'm more calm and I'm not trying to find the answer to every little thing. I'm glad that I wrote it at 26 in a way, because I think 28 year old me wouldn't worry so much about getting it into a song. Sometimes I think about that - the better I get at handling my own emotions and growing into the person that I want to be who can handle things, I realise that I don't need songwriting as desperately as my only outlet to hearing my own thoughts. I guess it's a good thing, but it's also scary because I'm like, well, what else do I do? I think that's just a new journey and we'll have to see what songs come out of that thought. So yeah, I don't know if 26 would exist as 28. It would be a very boring song.
Amy:
It’s such an important song, and also and I've literally just written in my notes here 'JUSTICE FOR 'UNLEARN ME' AND 'CRYING DURING SEX'’. I don't even know what I specifically wanted to ask. I think I found Unlearn Me first and I remember thinking that those first four lines were the saddest thing I'd ever heard (I was going through some really confusing situationships haha). I think it's really meaningful to hear someone writing so honestly about sex, and especially from a female's perspective. I know it was important to a lot of your other fans as well. Was it easy to be so candid when writing those lyrics, or did it take some confidence and did it feel like a big leap in your music?
Carol:
No I think it was easy only because that's what I was going through at that time too. I think sex is one of my favourite things to write about because I don't understand it. It's taken me so long to realise there's no such thing as normal sex. If you have a body you have thoughts around that stuff. I think that's been a big part of my journey over the last few years, dismantling my 'stuff' around sex and my trauma and so I think I needed to talk about it. When I did start writing about it, it just felt so much like 'finally, let's just get this out of our system'. I wouldn't have known what else to write about.
Amy:
It's just an extension of all your other feelings?
Carol:
Yeah. It is, it totally is.
Amy:
On your latest Instagram posts about 'Late Start', you talk about how long it took you to realise you're exactly what you're supposed to be. Now, we're halfway through this year, where would you say you are today?
Carol:
Oh my gosh. Well, I'm sick as hell... Gosh. I don't know. I'm in a really free place. I'm just trying to do things and make things that give me excitement. I want to feel inspired. I think it's been a little bit hard promoting all of these new songs and not writing anything for the last year. The last song that I wrote was Late Start, but I haven't really written anything I'm truly obsessed with in a year because I haven't had time. I've been trying to figure out what it looks like to put out music and then tour music, and that's been really weird. I feel like I am in a place where I'm just trying to focus on the three biggest pieces of my life. My relationship, my inspiration/creativity and my happiness. I'm a bit of a control freak and I'm trying to let go of that and just be like that's fun, that speaks to me, whatever. Trying to be chill. I'm trying hahaha.
Amy:
It's hard! I think one of the reasons that I love you as an artist is that you're so honest and you're so open, it's so easy to see that there's a real human behind your music. I think that's why a lot of people connect with you straight away. Finding your music and seeing you were a bit older than a lot of up and coming artists, I think a lot of people relate to the feelings you write about on Late Start as it's so uplifting.
Carol:
Yeah honestly I didn't used to think about getting older. I always wanted to be older, but it's just so nice to talk to someone who's 27 and listens to my music because sometimes I'm like, they're all 19 years old and I don't know how to keep up. It's been such an interesting shift getting that little bit older and being like, omg I don't understand what they're saying. I haven't had that generational thing yet, I've always been the baby!
Amy:
I always think that at gigs, I feel like it was me ten minutes ago! However, there's something nice, as you said, about being older and knowing yourself more and it just all being a bit more chill.
Carol:
Yeah, yeah totally agreed.
Amy:
Let's move on to your upcoming music. What can you tell us about upcoming Carol Ades music? What have you got in store?
Carol:
I have an album coming out! I'm so excited. It's just these 14 songs that have been on my computer forever and I'm just ready to give them to someone else. They've done what they needed to for me. Kind of like what you were saying, you were 16 and in the crowd like ten minutes ago, I feel like I was 20 and trying to figure out what the fuck my own thoughts even sounded like two minutes ago. It's so special to have these songs that, for me, are little markers of each hard thing that I have gone through over the last five years (as well as each good thing). They've been little how-to’s for me, that's always what my music has been for me. Getting to hear my own voice say something back to me, because I know that I know the right thing to do, and the right thing to say, but sometimes you have to hear it back to trust that voice is right, and to trust yourself. These songs are just so fun and special and are me growing up in the last five years, growing as an artist, and also fucking up everything in my life and then putting it all back together. Yeah, I'm really excited about it.
Amy:
At what point do you think about how the listener is going to interpret your music? Is that something you think about when you're writing, or do you just not think about that at all? Obviously everyone listens to music and puts their own storyline into whatever the song's written about. Is that a weird thing, or is it nice?
Carol:
No, it's kind of nice. I never really think about that when I'm writing it, at that point it's really for me. Then when I'm producing it, it's easier to get in my head - what are they going to hear when they don't have context? Sometimes it's better that they don't have the context.
Amy:
How would you say the creative process has been different with this album as opposed to your last EP? Has there been anything that you've done differently?
Carol:
Oh my gosh, I just it took so much fucking longer. I'll be honest, I have no idea what I'm doing. I just make something and think ‘I guess we're doing that’. It's an interesting time in my life. There's so much pressure, no matter where you are, to box yourself into what you're doing and what the purpose of what you're doing is, but I think I'm just meant to live as far away from that as possible. The purpose behind doing it is just that I felt it and it needs to come out. I don't need all these things from it. I don't need it to blow up or be the biggest thing in the world, I don't need it to double my followers, I don't have a lot of markers that I want to hit.
I feel like when I was putting out my first EP, that's what the rollout process was built around. How can we double this and grow this? It's a business. My manager and I talked about the fact that in the industry there's this real energy around your debut album. You almost want to save it so you can have the biggest moment. I think that was a big moment when I realised I could be waiting for fucking ever. I have these songs, this is the story that I want to tell, and that's the kind of artist that I want to be. When I want to make it, and when I want to put it out, that's when I put it out. I think that's the difference. I just have less attachment to what's going to come after it and I'm more focused on being proud to have made this big thing - to have finished it, from start to end. Once it’s out, then I'll figure out what I want to do next.
Amy:
It's so interesting to hear you talk about it like that. I think it can easily get boring if you're conforming to the industry standards and what everyone expects from you. There's also some kind of magic in just being able to release it when you want, and it’s likely it will do better that way because you're being more vulnerable, you're being more honest, and it removes the pressure. With a choice from the 14 tracks, do you think you have a favourite song from this album?
Carol:
I have so many. I think my favourites right now are the songs called 'The Place You Can Meet Me', and a song called 'Everything Else Is Just Noise'. Those are my favourites right now, but I'm sure it'll change. I’ve been listening to those non-stop.
Amy:
How often do you listen to your demos or music?
Carol:
That's why I've missed writing things, because that's all I would fucking listen to. I'd listen to these new ideas that made me feel really, really excited about life and my brain and thoughts and progress, and because I've just been working on production and just finishing the album, I haven't gotten that feeling. I feel like I don't want to listen to anything right now because it's not fun if it's not new! So I've been purposefully trying to take space from it because otherwise I'll be like, I hate it all, cancel everything!
Amy:
Then when it comes out, you can listen to it again like new, and like we all do when you stalk your on Instagram and pretend to be someone viewing it from their perspective.
Carol:
Exactly like that!
Amy:
For anyone who's lucky enough to be going to see you on tour in November, what can they expect? Are you excited?
Carol:
Oh my gosh, I'm so excited but I'm scared. I've never done my own tour, so I feel like a part of me feels I could just be an opener forever and I would be totally fine with that, but another part of me wants to know what it's like. I felt it in London, that was the first headline show I'd ever done, and it was SO fucking cool. Oh my God, I didn't even need to sing, they were doing everything for me. It was unreal and it was so special. This tour is a lot of dates, it's my first tour, and there's this vulnerability that comes with being a smaller artist and going on tour because some cities might sell out, some cities might have ten people there, but I have a really good feeling that even if it's ten people, or if it's three hundred people, they're all there because they really connect to the music, and it's real for them. I'm really excited to give them a special experience and it doesn't matter how big the room is. Yeah I'm really excited and I'm nervous. I have no idea, I literally have no idea.
Amy:
Is there anything you're doing to prepare for it? What are you going to pack?
Carol:
I'm going to spend all of October figuring out what the set looks like, figuring out what the staging looks like, getting the bus, getting a tour manager, doing all these things that I haven't done before. I think that opening for other people has really prepared me. I've been on shitty tours, and I've been on really amazing tours, and it's just I’m open to whatever it's going to be. I know that I need to work on my health and not get so sick all the time!
Amy:
Bless you - well I know I could literally talk to you all day, but seeing as you're ill, I promise I won't take up much more of your time. Are you up for a quick fire round?
Carol:
Yes sure! Okay, okay.
Amy:
Which songs of yours would you recommend to a lonely girl, a control freak and a sneaky bitch?
Carol:
Oh my God. Oh my gosh. I need to look at my music... okay, I'm going to look at my Spotify. That is so funny. Okay, so for a lonely girl - Hope Is A Scary Thing, for a control freak - Late Start and a sneaky bitch... oh, man, a sneaky bitch... maybe... I mean probably Better Than You Found Me? Or maybe Free? Like, she needs to chill, you know what I mean?
Amy:
Yeah I can agree on all of those - amazing. So how does it feel to finally be British now you've done your first headline show in London and toured with Holly Humberstone?
Carol:
It's a dream come true. I know it would happen, and it makes sense. I know I'm only going to get more British from here. There's no way I can get less British. It's looking like an upward trajectory. I’m thrilled.
Amy:
We're very happy to hear that from this side of the pond. Okay, on a scale of 1 to 10, how scary is it to feel hope?
Carol:
I think the thought of it is scarier than the actual thing. To actually feel it is not that scary, because when you're really in yourself and really want something to happen, there's peace there, because there's nothing you can do in the end. I was just talking about this with a friend who really wants this special thing to work out for him. I think the thought of it working out and the thought of hoping - and I'm getting kinda meta here - that's like a ten out of ten, twelve out of ten, so fucking scary. The actual thing is like a two.
Amy:
Okay oooh good answer. I feel like that's the same with every thought process?
Carol:
Exactly, we're prisoners of our own noggin.
Amy:
And then lastly, a question I'm sure everyone wants to know, and I'm going to use American slang here but I don't know if this is right. How many blue jumpers are there really? We call them pinafores haha... But how many do you have, like really?
Carol:
Oh my God, I think I have six. Honestly, it was totally a mistake. One of my best friends now, her name is Sadie, but I met her on the Brunette Caroline video, she was a choreographer that this girl I knew recommended, and we became best friends. She sent me this Japanese photographer who used to take pictures of Japanese schoolgirls in different formations and with a lot of uniformity. I was like, oh my God I’m obsessed with uniformity and I didn't even know. I bought the six outfits for everyone, but now there's about three that I rotate. I hemmed one for me because I was like 'oh, make it short, make it slutty!', but then I was like no let it go, let it be long - it's better.
Amy:
That is such an exclusive… So when is your album out? Can you tell us?
Carol:
It's out September 20th, I am announcing it on Friday!
Amy:
Best of luck with the announcement! People are going to be so excited.
Carol:
Oh thank you, I'm so excited. Thanks for asking me to do this, your questions were so good!
Amy:
It’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you, one of my favourite artists. Please rest up and get better soon!
Carol:
Ah thank you. Yeah I'm gonna go to go back to bed haha
Carol’s debut album ‘Late Start’ is out on 20th September.