We interview We Are Charlie to chat about Beyonce, staring at the sun and when we can expect their next EP; The Sad Kind Of Happy.
Lourens Smit
For those that have never heard of We Are Charlie; explain your sound in 5 words:
Noises from your parent’s bedroom.
It’s safe to say your sound has become your own, but like all great bands inspiration has to come from somewhere. Who were your main influences while writing the The Sad Kind Of Happy?
We don’t really listen to other bands for inspiration or influence. We rather just play what we play and hope for the best. I’m sure individually and subconsciously we have developed our own styles and play what our ears like, but we can’t really pin point where it comes from. We have our favourite bands and albums and all but we usually stop ourselves from writing a song if we go ‘that sounds a lot like Beyoncé’.
Let’s stare at the sun sounds like real bad advice, where did the name come from?
We’re glad you think so. Be safe out there guys. Seriously though it’s intended to be bad advice. We thought what the most painful way to blind yourself is.
You are singing about westernisation in “Let’s Stare at the Sun”; what exactly is the story behind this?
We have the opinion that the newer generations (including ours) are far too happy with the sheep mentality. People are following some really lame trends, saying and doing some really stupid things. We’re trying not to generalise but some people need to stop being so weak in character, and that’s what we’re trying to say in this song. The idea just came from a bunch of nights out with some old friends talking about how cool the scene and people use to be. Maybe we’re just being assholes.
What was one of your best music accomplishments?
Geez, nothing really. We don’t really see ourselves as achievers. I guess achievements to us would be getting people sweaty and making some great nights a little crazier. Things we are proud of would include making some great friends in the music scene and having some lame stories to tell at our next ‘Let’s go for a beer(s)’ meeting.
What is the most trouble you’ve ever gotten into?
This one night, right, we went out and drank a beer, and by the end of the night… we had finished it.
When can we expect the EP to go live?
We’ll be releasing mainly singles off for the first couple of months so we aren’t entirely sure yet. We will keep you posted and we might have a few surprises along the way. We’re not saying it’s a video of Rowan in a dress, break dancing to Darude’s “Sandstorm”, while Wes does consecutive back flips in an attempt to assert his dominance at a local hockey game, but it might be.
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