Charlie is an emerging artist on the music scene. He is a Bournemouth born singer-songwriter who’s passion lays in acoustic guitar and meaningful lyrics. With compliments from big names like Rod Steward, and award winning Andy Hill, the three-time Ivor Novello award winning song-writer praised Charlie for the quality of his songs. I spoke to Charlie about what it is like to break into the music industry as a young artist.
We all know the stereotype; its hard. Being a musician is perceived as unrealistic in the modern world. Charlie didn’t disagree, “When you’re starting out you don’t know how hard it is but as you go along the way, you realise how hard it can be”. He continued, “along the way you do get down time and beaten back and rejected from things; and at that point along the way people give up in those moments. The difference between those who do make it and those who don’t, are the ones that carry on”. However, Charlie did say that starting in the industry is “really exciting”.
But, this was the path Charlie wanted, despite the potential no’s and naysayers. “I was always one track minded”, Charlie said. “I think when I first decided I wanted to play guitar, I saw The Who at the Isle of Wight festival when I was really young – I was too young to understand it but I knew I wanted to be Pete Townsend or something. That’s when I knew I really wanted to be a musician.” Yet, it is still difficult to commit to that decision to pursue music, “there were a few times along the way, such as the defining moments in your life like whether you want to go to university and I had to decide that I was going to become a musician.”
There looks like no regrets in this decision as Charlie’s career is only going up. Taking on the Bournemouth Sofar Sounds gigs and just rounding up his own ‘Living Room Tour’ to promote his new single The City. “It has been such a great response. I didn’t really expect it. I’ve been putting out music for a while and you don’t know how things are going to go down. When you get messages from friends who would normally take the piss who say ‘actually you’ve done really well there’ I think that’s quite nice.”
Charlie has been up and down the country performing at intimate gigs in fans and friends houses on his ‘Living Room Tour’. After several of his musical friends did the same, Charlie said that doing smaller gigs in houses was the “obvious thing” to do. Charlie said the intimate gigs have more power for a developing artist as you can connect with people, not only just on the stage but afterwards as well, “you take away all of the barriers of a normal gig”.
Being an up and coming artist doesn’t seem easy, but if you have the passion and drive, it seems like a fulfilling life to live.
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