By Kim Parnell

Meet one of Hervey Bay’s newest residents, heavy metal rocker Cody Hodges. Cody was born in Maryborough at the base hospital twenty-eight years ago. He spent most of his childhood in Aldershot and has just had a house built in Eli Waters. Cody and his partner Madelyn moved in three months ago.

His childhood was spent riding bikes around the bush as his family had five acres at Aldershot, he also rode BMX, played soccer, and was a boy scout for a bit. But Cody describes himself as a bit of a nerd preferring to spend time indoors playing Xbox and video games.

Although music wasn’t a family tradition, Cody’s interest sparked when his mom enrolled him in guitar lessons at the age of ten. Despite a lack of initial dedication, about five years later he bought a cheap hundred-dollar guitar and an amp from eBay and taught himself to play. As time passed, he was able to upgrade his gear.

Cody’s earliest album that he can remember liking was called American Idiot by pop-punk band Green Day. Cody was in grade five at the time but loved the fast-paced, distorted guitar sound.

In high school, Cody delved into the evolving metal scene, influenced by bands like Attack Attack, and The Amity Affliction, a band from Gympie. Currently, Cody is a part of two bands – Day of Content from Maryborough, characterized as deathcore genre, and WildAsh, a Brisbane-based hard rock band with metal influences.

Pre-covid, the band Day of Content was doing well and starting to gain some momentum playing gigs from Rockhampton to Brisbane, with a highlight being a sold-out show in Rockhampton alongside metalcore band Polaris who have now broken into the overseas market.

WildAsh, formed about a year ago. Already they have a notable achievement after competing in the heat of the Good Things Festival’s battle of the bands, in their first show, narrowly missing out on the opportunity to open the festival in front of twenty thousand people.

The band continues to gain momentum, with upcoming shows, including the Alternate Heavy Fusion Festival in Brisbane in February and a trip to Melbourne in April. The band would like to go all the way, take their music to North America and Europe, and make music their full-time profession.

Cody’s taste in music extends beyond metal. While he loves to play metal he listens to many other genres of music, including jazz.  

“Metal is fast and complex and can display raw emotion for all to see. If you are stressed out, get in the pit, and start throwing hands, you will come out of it a new person.

“It is about just getting lost in the chaos. The experience is like a baptism by fire that looks scary until you do it but once you do it you feel amazing”, Cody explains.  

2024 has already seen show offers pouring in. With a new song, “Dying with Me,” and an accompanying film clip released last month, featuring a robotic arm camera, Cody, and other members of WildAsh are poised for an exciting year ahead, and who knows…they may end up playing a gig on the Fraser Coast someday.

When Cody isn’t playing the guitar in a Heavy Metal band you will find him up a ladder with a screwdriver in hand fixing anything electrical as he is an electrician by trade. But Cody has big dreams that just might become a reality one day.

You can find both bands – Day Of Content and WildAsh on Facebook.

Cover photo – Wildash – Dying With Me – Matt Simpson, Jack Dowie, Jame Strezove, Cody Hodges