Sandra’s Wedding: ‘It was definitely a conscious decision that we wanted to expand the sound a lot’

Goole, East Yorkshire alt-rock band Sandra’s Wedding will release their most personal album yet, Arturus Rex, on 10 October 2025.

The band comprises Joe Hodgson (guitar and vocals), Jonny Hughes (guitar), Luke Harrison (drums) and Corey Jones (bass). They got together in Goole about 10 years ago and Hughes is from a town nearby (Castleford), having been introduced via a mutual friend. Of their name, Hodgson said: ‘It’s a bit of a deflating moment (laughs). I had an idea of us as a fictional band at a wedding. There isn’t a Sandra, sadly. We should come up with a better fake story!’

Arturus Rex – the band’s sixth album – is Hodgson’s love letter to his young son Arthur and family life. The 10 tracks are essentially a day in his life, from sunrise to the day ebbing away, each track offering a snapshot of a moment during the day in question. Hodgson, who has written movingly and unflinchingly in the past about industrial towns nearby, shows that he is not afraid to turn the magnifying glass on modern family life, shining a light on both his hopes and fears. With that comes a new expansive sound, thanks to the Up North Session Orchestra, who beautifully amplify Hodgson’s poetic, observational lyrics.

‘We kept saying all the way through that we wanted it to sound quite earthy’

‘It was definitely a conscious decision that we wanted to expand the sound a lot,’ Hodgson said. ‘We kept saying all the way through that we wanted it to sound quite earthy and obviously there’s some electric guitar on there but thinking about it, it’s not on every track. We wanted it to sound a bit more analogue and acoustic. Normally we’ll put some dubs on keyboards or synth pads but because the strings are on there, we didn’t need to embellish it. Moving away from the previous sound a bit keeps it interesting for ourselves as well, creatively. I wanted to make it a personal landmark as well, so in 10-20 years, the album will serve as a reminder of the period, from the back end of Daisy, my partner, being pregnant, to having Arthur, to him starting to grow up, so it was quite a long process.’

The theme of time passing on the album is something of a happy accident: ‘I’m a massive fan of Skylarking (1986) by XTC. It’s one of my favourite albums, so it’s a bit of a nod to that as an idea,’ Hodgson said enthusiastically. ‘There was some retrofitting in the sense that I didn’t have a defined title for the first track, which is ‘Sunrise’, but once I’d come around to the idea of doing it through a day, that meant that it made it easier to finish that song because I then had the context and it sounds very much like a morning song.’

Vinyl listeners will experience the shift from morning to afternoon more clearly because ‘there’s a definite morning and afternoon feel across the two sides’, according to Hodgson: ‘When you get the record, and you turn it, it’s like flipping from a.m. to p.m.,’ he said. ‘I’d say it gets slightly darker in the second half compared to the first. ‘Big Red Heart’ is the last song in the morning and ‘Mother’s Love’ is where the afternoon starts.’

‘Shuck The Pearl’, the second track, opens with an evocative scene of the milkman on his rounds whilst the blackbirds pipe up around him and the whole track feels as if the world is sleepily waking up as it unfolds: ‘I think it’s probably my favourite track on the album,’ he said. ‘When I listen to that song, it’s the kind of song where if I heard it and another band had written it, I’d have thought, “I wish I’d have written that”,’ he said laughing. ‘I had the chords knocking around for a while. It’s always the same for me. I’ll come up with a chord progression and I’ll have a bit of a melody knocking around and then I’ll play it until it feels like something fits into place with it, lyrically, and build it up around that. I always knew that it would have a morning-y vibe because it sounded quite bright. And, like you said, hopeful.’

‘I imagine it being a bit of a bird’s eye view, just going around in the early morning, the world waking up’

However, he admits that it took some time to shape the song into the version we now hear: ‘I started trying too hard with it and thought that maybe I should make it more like a nursery rhyme in terms of the observations,’ he said. ‘I imagine it being a bit of a bird’s eye view, just going around in the early morning, the world waking up kind of thing, almost like a children’s book. I really stripped it back where I thought the simplicity of it is what makes it interesting in a way. ‘Big Red Heart’, that’s definitely like that.’

Interestingly, ‘Shuck The Pearl’ was inspired by The Divine Comedy’s ‘Tonight We Fly’: ‘I love that song,’ he said. ‘It’s very much just swooping around. Observationally, it’s painfully simple but I wanted to get the vibe of that across. With the title, I’m a big fan of tweaking what already exists (laughs), like the idea that the world is your oyster. I remember getting in a bit of an existential crisis with it because I thought: “Would you shuck a pearl?” You shuck an oyster. Sometimes I’m a terrible artist in the sense that you shouldn’t worry about stuff like this but I get really worried that it’s not right. Then I thought, well, if the process is shucking, if you’re taking the pearl out, then that’s what you’re effectively doing, isn’t it?! And I like the idea of someone hearing the title and thinking they’ve never heard that term before.’

As the track goes: “The milkman sighs: “What a life is this?” Blackbirds weave their magic through the morning mist. Little baby stirs, for mother’s milk. Last night’s bathroom spider spins a web of silk.”

The string arrangements for the album were written by Tim Crooks, who has done a lot of work across different genres, groups and orchestras, including working with Reverend & The Makers and Paul Heaton. ‘I wouldn’t describe myself as a musician,’ Hodgson said. ‘When you speak to someone like Tim, you know, to me, those people are geniuses. They can write, they can sight read, they’re writing parts for four instruments which work together, there’s such a skill to it.’

‘The strings helped me get a handle on the song and feel like I could finally see it for what it was’

For me, the standout track on the album is ‘Sail Away’, a beautifully evocative track essentially about drifting off to sleep but with the kind of magical lyricism you rarely hear, pulling the listener in from the line “The spider’s in the pint glass” to “the night shift ties its laces” and I tell him that it’s genuinely my favourite track of the year and he seems delighted: ‘That’s really nice to hear because that was the song that I struggled with the most on the record, I’d say. For a long time, it didn’t have any strings on it, just acoustic guitar. The strings helped me get a handle on the song and feel like I could finally see it for what it was. That song was called, I swear, ‘Fuck Me, It’s Love’ for months and months! Then it went to ‘Trust Me, It’s Love’ because I thought it would be a bit too sweary, even for us (laughs). As the album developed and I needed that end of the day, dreamy song, I made that last change for it to be ‘Sail Away’,’ he said.

I say that the context of it being just before bedtime, sailing into a dream or someplace else gives the song a real sense of movement and direction, with the strings carrying it along in a way that is profoundly moving. It’s very soothing to listen to, as if you’re sailing away yourself as the listener and reminds me of Courteeners circa 2020: “Oh, that’s really nice,’ he said. ‘I’m glad of that because mechanically and creatively, that was probably the song that was always in biggest danger of getting dropped. Another thing that changed it for me – and I’d like to mention her just so that she’s in here, because she always does an amazing job – is when Hannah (Bungard ) put those backing vocals on the chorus. She did some backing vocals on this album and our last one (The Hopeful Boy Replacement Service, 2023). We met Hannah purely because Jonny, who records the sessions, he’s really good friends with her and she lives two doors away from the studio! She made a big difference.’

Why did the song almost not make the cut? ‘I knew it had a lot of potential as a song and I was worried that we were not going to do it justice,’ he said. ‘My thinking was, I’d rather not make it a sacrificial lamb, for the sake of it if I couldn’t do it as well as it should be done, which you do get sometimes. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing (laughs) but to be honest, there’s probably quite a few songs that we’ve put out on records where I thought afterwards that I wish we’d done something different with them. As soon as you go down that rabbit hole, you send yourself crazy because you would always change stuff.’

‘I remember having this imagery of everyone in their own box at home’

One line in the song that stuck with me was “it’s the hope that kills, from these windowsills” and I ask him what he means: ‘That was quite a late addition,’ he said. ‘Thinking about it now, actually, the vocals on that song were the last thing that I recorded. I remember being in the studio and Hannah was there because we were trying to get it all done quite quickly, so I was writing some lines as we were in there. I remember having this imagery of everyone in their own box at home, you know, that families very much behind closed doors thing? Everyone at their own respective windows looking out. I think you always have that nagging thought “Am I doing the right thing? Have I made the most of my life?” I mean it sounds quite deep, doesn’t it? I think these things keep you up at night sometimes, don’t they?’

As the song goes: “The rabbit’s in the headlights. And the moon pulls out the tide. The night shift ties its laces as the bride she splits the G. The milkman packs his cases as you’re drifting out to sea.” Spiders and milkmen pop up on several songs on the album and when I mention this he grins: ‘I liked the idea of using them as a bit of a bookend so you can tie yourself into the time element of the record,’ he said. ‘There’s also a bit of a thinking about the milkman being symbolic of some kind of bringer of life, the mother being a more literal example of that.’

Unlike earlier records that have tapped into kitchen sink dramas in post-industrial towns, highlighting the struggles of ordinary people facing layoffs and poverty, this album is more hopeful and upbeat: ‘There aren’t many references to class on this record but there’s one line that leans into aspirations in the place where we’re from,’ he said. ‘That line is: “It’s the hope that kills from these windowsills, as we stare up to the stars”. There’s a quote from a trade unionist in Glasgow looking at a tower block in a low-income area and he says: “There could be a champion jockey living on this council estate but we’ll never know as he’ll never get on a horse.” That’s stuck with me.’

Hodgson is conscious that a lot of the songs on the album could be difficult to replicate live but he is a man with a plan: ‘One thing I really want to do, and I’m going to try and get it organised for next year, is find the money and do at least one gig with the strings live,’ he said enthusistically. ‘I definitely think that’d be a good way to round this chapter off! The fun thing is, and I said this to Jonny, is that what I’m looking forward to is making the tracks sound different live. I’m obviously not changing them root and branch but just giving them a different lease of life. When we’ve played some of the new ones, the one that’s probably felt the best playing it and it’s come across well is ‘Mother’s Love’. It’s been interesting that it feels like it has that natural build-up and then you get that release at the end of it where it kicks off a little bit!’

‘Anything I’d consider to be poetry gets kidnapped and turned into lyrics very quickly’

Like on previous albums, Hodgson’s love of poetry shines through, something he was into before he even started the band. He has spent some time writing poetry and is a big fan of Philip Larkin and Don Paterson, a Scottish poet, telling me previously that he likes things having a punchline, like poetry, for ‘a bit of extra depth’. Today, writing poetry has taken a back seat but their songs are reaping the rewards of that: ‘Anything I’d consider to be poetry gets kidnapped and turned into lyrics very quickly but then I think that where a lot of the song ideas come from is a line or a title or a turn of phrase. I’d like to do some poetry again in a collection or something at some point,’ he said to me in an earlier interview.

Interestingly, his parents are not huge music fans, although his mum is an Elvis fan: ‘My dad had one CD when I was growing up and that was Rod Stewart’s Greatest Hits. He’s not really into music at all as a pastime. They were both always very supportive.’ He feels like the fact they aren’t musical meant that he was more inclined to pursue it, imagining having people ‘in the know’ would lead to a bit of pushing back or unsolicited advice.

As a band, they have many influences, including The Smiths, R.E.M, Flaming Lips, Deacon Blue, Talking Heads, Chumbawamba, Squeeze and Modest Mouse. Hodgson has also become a big fan of Hull rock band Ketamine Kow, describing them to me once as ‘a bit of post-punk sort of anarchist stuff, it’s fluid, in your face’. He’s also a big fan of a guy called Peter Cat in Scotland, who he describes as ‘The Divine Comedy in space.’

‘By doing this album with the strings, it’s quite bucolic and very soft’

Hodgson has told me in the past that the last track on each album is an indication of where they’re going next. ‘Lay It On Me’, the closer, is a proper old school love letter to his wife, asking her to lean on him emotionally, so he can take some of the burden. I ask him if we should expect more of that on the next record and he laughs: ‘I’ve got ideas for a few different albums and in each one I’ve got a good handful of songs but they’re all very different,’ he said. ‘Me and Jonny have been talking about what we want to do for the next album, it’s like chess, we’re thinking a few moves ahead. By doing this album with the strings, it’s quite bucolic and very soft and, as you say, positive – it’s quite a bright album which, in my opinion, creatively earns you the right to move on to something completely different. We’ve been toying with the idea of doing something almost like punk-like in its ethos. Not necessarily the style but in terms of how we approach it. We’ve talked about recording everything in one day and trying to do it live. I think I’m going to look at getting an electric guitar (laughs). I’ve only ever played acoustic on the records but I might be a Judas-like Bob Dylan and go electric!’

It’s clear from previous interviews I’ve done with him that Hodgson pays great attention to detail and composition. On the closing track on their last album, ‘The Berlin Wall & Other Stories’ the song ends with waves lapping at the shore and on ‘Sail Away’ he references drifting out to sea and being lost at sea and I say that I assume this isn’t a coincidence and he laughs. ‘I know that you’re right and it is something that I do consciously try and do but I think I’m going to have to say that that one was a bit of a happy accident, to be honest. Although I’ve thought about it in the sense that it’s weird because the last track on the last album ended up being our favourite track.’ I tell him that it’s my favourite on the album as well: ‘It’s weird because it’s a bit like childbirth. Well, I’m saying this as a man, so forgive me, but in terms of the analogous element of it, people say that with childbirth, as soon as it’s done, you kind of forget about it because otherwise nobody would ever have more than one than one child, would they?! In the same sort of way, I can’t really remember even writing or recording ‘Berlin Wall’! When I listen to it now, it’s probably some of my favourite lyrics that we’ve done. In terms of the bridge between the two albums, what I would say is that the new songs opened it up from being too focused on a certain genre or a certain lyrical theme. I’m glad that they’ve removed the albatross of “they only sing about this or that”.’

One singer he’d love to have a chat with is Aztec Camera frontman Roddy Frame: ‘I’d like to know about ‘Somewhere In My Heart’, it’s very interesting lyrically. I’d probably like to just have a chat with Roddy Frame more generally. He’s a brilliant songwriter!’

‘I’m a big believer in the shock of the new and trying different stuff!’

It’s endearing and heartening to see just how much the new album is galvanising him and spurring him on to try new ideas: ‘Not that I don’t think that we’ve ever done the same thing but I think that it’s definitely moved into an area where I think that people will go: “Alright, so they can actually make good music”, he said. ‘I’ve really enjoyed making this one. Obviously you do it for yourself and you do it to enjoy it but I think sometimes you’ve got to have a bit of a motivator like wanting to prove people wrong. I’m a big believer in the shock of the new and trying different stuff! I’m a massive fan of Arctic Monkeys and I think that they deserve a lot of credit in the sense that they don’t really give a shit, they just make the music that they want to make and, let’s be honest, there’s a hell of a lot of people who absolutely can’t stand them now who are just obsessed with the first album and the second album (laughs). I always say to Jonny I think having a bit of bitterness and feeling like you’ve got something to prove is a good thing, it’s a good driver.’

I tell him that ‘Sail Away’ is going to blow people away: ‘I keep forgetting it’s on there and it’s a great song, I’m looking forward to people getting to hear the whole thing, I’m a big fan of the record, he said proudly. ‘It’s a bit of a new thing for me being explicitly proud of stuff. I’m glad that you enjoyed it and it’s nice when you’re at this point because there’s been some really nice reviews and people have been quite kind about it but I also like the fact that some people might say it’s not their cup of tea. I think you need that sometimes!’