David Hodges’ Calling Card
Just who is David Hodges?
That’s a loaded question with no simple answer. Since his emergence 8 years ago, Hodges has dinned so many musical hats that one needs a scorecard just to keep up. He’s a singer, songwriter and frontman whose on-hiatus band, the Age of Information, reconciles contemporary pop and epic prog-rock. But the Arkansas native and multi-instrumentalist is also a budding solo artist whose debut recording “The Rising EP” was released in 2009.
Perhaps first and foremost, Hodges is one of the music industry’s most sought-after writers for hire, with three Grammy Awards to his credit. Most famously, he co-composed Kelly Clarkson’s 2005 hit “Because of You,” which Billboard ranked among its top 10 most successful singles of the 2000s. Hodges has since written tunes for Celine Dion, Daughtry, David Archuleta, Backstreet Boys and more. “I really do appreciate writing songs for other artists and trying to write songs that connect to their worldview and experience,” he says.
Curiously, one of Hodges’ biggest accomplishments is often overlooked. As co-composer of the breakthrough singles “Bring Me to Life” and “My Immortal,” Hodges played a crucial role in thrusting Evanescence from total obscurity to Grammy-winning world renown. Though creative differences prompted Hodges to leave Evanescence before the band’s 2003 debut album “Fallen” became an international hit, he harbors no regrets. “That record means a lot to me,” Hodges said. “I am in rare company to be somebody whose first album perpetuated good work for the future, but also made a good amount of money and is something I can be artistically proud of.”
Listening to Hodges’ work on “Fallen,” it becomes clear to attentive listeners that the singer/keyboardist is something of a frustrated film composer. His spidery piano flourishes and neo-classical melodies gave many Evanescence songs their cinematic heft. “There are always little movies going around in my head when we’re writing songs,” Hodges confesses.
Considering his affection for film music, it’s not surprising that Hodges nurses an itch to be a soundtrack composer. He recently made inroads towards that career path when his song “A Place for Us”—recorded by Carrie Underwood and featured in the film “Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”— earned a 2011 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture.
Hodges recently teamed with songwriter John Campbell to form AVOX, a duo whose 2010 all-instrumental debut album “The Fragile World” comes off like the soundtrack to an imaginary sci-fi drama. “I definitely see it as a calling card for the future,” Hodges says of the album. “I’d love for ‘The Fragile World’ to be something where a movie director listens to it and says, ‘OK, I see what he does with this, I wonder what he would do if I gave him a picture…”
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