SCAD Radio Content Director Ian Dziura sat down with British singer/songwriter Charlie Hole.

You just released a new single, “Find Someone Who Cares”. I understand you wrote this song for a wedding?

Actually, I wrote it for my father’s wedding, which was in Venice a few years ago. He asked me to play a song before the ceremony starts, and we couldn’t decide on a song to sing, we were going through lots of covers of Bob Marley songs. They just couldn’t decide on what they wanted. In the end, [my father and his fiancé] said “would you like to write a song?” That’s kind of how the song came about.

Would you say most of your song ideas are conceived by real experiences?

Yeah, I think to some degree, you have to get everything from something real. I’m not particularly good at imagining entire scenarios…writing something from a real perspective is a lot easier.

You’ve been acknowledged by Rod Stewart?

Yeah, that came about a few years ago in a radio interview. It’s obviously amazing to get credited by someone so successful and someone that I admire so much… I was working with somebody who used to work with him. There was a lot of back and forth, sometimes we’d turn stuff over to get a critique, or just to see what he thought. There was one thing in particular he really liked and mentioned it.

We’ve been interviewing other musicians from your label recently. Do you all collaborate much with others on your label, or do you tend to stick to your own stuff?

There’s a little bit of collaboration, I think probably more with the guys that are based in the Netherlands. The label (TCBYML) is based in Amsterdam. I’m based in London, but when I’m in Amsterdam, I’ve done a little bit of collaboration with some writers and some recording work as well. They like to put you with people, it’s not something they do everyday, but they like to help out when they can.

What’s the best advice you could give for someone looking to start a music career?

I’d say that as long as you’re doing it for the right reasons and you’re not expecting to be instantly famous or successful… You need to be doing it for yourself. As long as that’s in place and you’re doing it for the right reasons, you can’t go wrong because you’re not expecting much from the world. You can’t expect people to give you things right away, so as long as you’re doing it for your own enjoyment, you should be okay.

Is this single for an upcoming album?

Yes, the album is called Beautiful Decay and it’s gonna be out in the new year sometime. We’re just working on the details of the release at the moment. Essentially, we’re just releasing singles from the album one by one and seeing what the reaction is. It’s going well.

What should we expect from the album? Is it going to be like “Find Someone Who Cares”, slow melodies and the “wedding song” style of songwriting?

That’s going to be the only wedding-style song that’s gonna be out. The entire album is varied to some degree, but it was all played by the same musicians in the same room over about four days. There’s a lot of character to the album that is like a thread running through. There’s the same vibe, same musicians, same kind of ethos running through. The sound is going to be of a particular thread. It’ll sound familiar, but the songwriting is varied in terms of tempo and dynamics and subject matter.

To check out the single and more from Charlie Hole and TCBYML, click here.