INTERVIEW: Charley launches bid to represent Australia at Eurovision with 'I Suck At Being Lonely': "I want people to know that feeling lonely is okay - don’t suppress your emotions.”
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Australian rising star Charley today takes her next step in her remarkable journey with the release of new single ‘I Suck At Being Lonely’. She is aiming to become Australia’s representative at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Italy and will perform it live for the first time at Eurovision - Australia Decides on February 26, broadcast on SBS and SBS On Demand.
Charley wrote the song three years ago with Jim Alxndr (Carly Rae Jepsen, Ruel, Jack Garratt) on a writing trip to LA in the aftermath of a heartbreaking relationship breakdown. It is a powerfully beautiful song, brilliantly pared back so the focus is on Charley’s tender, raw and emotive vocals. Piano and strings gently accompany her, soaring towards a dramatic ending before crashing out leaving us with just Charley’s heartbroken voice.
“To think that something that real and sad could be turned into one of the most special moments in my life by performing it at Eurovision really puts things into perspective. Everything happens for a reason and no matter how dark a moment is, it can be turned into something beautiful,” Charley says.
‘I Suck At Being Lonely’ is a strong contender to take Australia to Eurovision in 2022 and be another impressive step in Charley’s career less than a year after the release of her debut single ‘Hard For Me’. With each new release she proves she is one of Australia’s most promising new talents who has everything it takes to break through into the international mainstream. We recently sat down with Charley to talk about the new single and all things Eurovision.
Hi there, Charley! It’s a massive delight to chat with you again, how are things with you?
Things are good, I’m getting prepped for Eurovision so that's taking the majority of my time up right now but everything's good.
I just love that you said ‘I'm just getting prepped for Eurovision’, did you ever in your life think that would be a sentence that you seriously uttered from your mouth?
I actually didn’t! It’s not ever been a thing that I thought would happen, it's just kind of come about really quickly. And it's been amazing.
Let's talk about the single ‘I Suck At Being Lonely’. This is one of those play, little bit of crying, rewind, play again, cry some more songs. I just love it. It's so different from your previous singles, but still so you. Can you talk me through this wonderful song and its creation?
Oh my gosh, thank you for that. It was three years ago, when I made this one. I was in LA on a writing trip and I had this tumultuous relationship, on and off, with this person for like seven years. I'm just going to be very honest, at that time it was our fourth breakup. And we had done long distance for so long, and I was finally in his country and I just felt so incredibly lonely. Because I was in LA, but also because I just wasn't allowed to talk to him, I just couldn't reach out. That's where it started from, I was just really heartbroken. I got into a session with Jim Alxndr, who's one of my favourite humans now, we’d only just met. In this session, he just opened this whole flood of emotions up because he's that type of person, he knows how to make everyone feel so comfortable, and to be vulnerable himself. We just chatted for hours and he started playing with some piano and the song just came about very naturally. I was writing down things that were happening to me in LA, like I would be getting drunk and trying to have fun and everything and I'd get in the cab to go home and that was the moment when it would hit that I was extremely sad and really lonely. That's where that line ‘One thousand cabs without you / Drunken and sad without you / I'd say I suck at being lonely’ came from. And it’s just grown from that and turned into this real orchestral song that is very real and raw and honest to me.
It's gorgeous. It's such a standout line, both in its poetry, but also in its relatability. So many people will be able to relate to that moment, it's always in the quiet moment. The cab ride home or even the bathroom break when you’re out and it hits you.
Literally! As soon as you’re by yourself, even if you're with your friends or with other people, it's that one thing that reminds you of them and you're back to square one.
‘I want to go home!’ We last spoke to you after the release of your last single ‘Arizona’, which was about mental health and your own anxiety and coming to terms with it. That also came from a writing camp you'd attended and it was wonderful, but again you had those little moments of being alone and going ‘I don't know how to explain this anxiety’. I wanted to talk to you about this writing process of yours, it seems to be incredibly cathartic and also very self aware of you to be able to pinpoint those moments and turn them into something of beauty.
I love writing from personal experiences and things that have actually happened to me. Everyone goes through those moments, and remembers how they felt in certain situations and are like, ‘I don't want to be back there again, I don't want to ride in a cab alone again, because it just reminds me of them’ or whatever. This situation has been on my mind and has been a real thing for seven years now so it’s very easy to write about!
It's such a beautiful song and it's so intimate. When people think of Eurovision they think sparkles, glitter cannons, spinning chairs and people getting pulled up into these amazing pyrotechnics. What is it for you about this song that’s like ‘this is my song that represents Australia in Eurovision’?
it's such a real, honest song that the entire world has gone through. It's all about owning your vulnerability and owning those times that you actually feel sad and not pushing it away. Being okay with being sad and being okay with a breakup because in the end you cannot let someone push you to the ground and make you think that you're not ever going to fall in love again - you can, it's going to happen. For me I just want people to know that love is going to happen again and that feeling lonely is okay, don’t suppress your emotions.
Do you have an all time favourite Eurovision moment? I'm sure you've just slam watched all of them lately!
Yes, I've been very much up to date with everything. I have a couple first of all ABBA. Second of all, Conchita [Wurst, 2014 winner]. My most favourite honestly is [2021 winners] Måneskin. Like, I died. I've watched their performance thousands of times, and I'm their biggest fan now. There's also this one girl this year, her name is Chanel. I watched her performance and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that is the Eurovision winner!’ She is incredible, you should look her up, it's called ‘SloMo’..
Doesn't that scream the whole nature of the beast? I always think of it as like the creative’s World Cup, but it's just really lovely. Everyone's just cheering for each other.
That's Eurovision. I don't know if any other song contest is as loving and accepting of different genres, different people, it embraces all different types of creativity. It's such a cool cool cool show and all the people behind it, that's what makes it so beautiful as well. Everyone that runs it are just really gorgeous humans. It’s been the most amazing process.
You can’t help but have a good time. Obviously the build up is incredible, I’m seeing Eurovision - Australia Decides everywhere. How are you prepping for it, because I imagine this is different to anything else you've prepped for, creative wise?
My manager is amazing, he’s really helped. We’re getting the dress made from scratch, and that's been a process, we've got stylists on that. The director has been really good, we've had a choreographer helping everyone. It's taken time, it’s slow but steady and worked out really well. Everything's been quite easy so far actually.
You’re sounding very cool about it, I like that. When we last spoke, you said to me how when you first found and heard Julia Michaels it was ‘this is what I want to sound like, these are the words, this is the truth I want to sing’. You're just sounding so confident, do you feel like you're on the way to that person? You're not going to be Julia Michaels, because she's already Julia Michaels, but are you on your way to becoming that person?
I think I might be. This past year, I've grown a lot. I've been through the most amount of heartbreaks within a year. I live by myself and I think living by yourself, it’s opened my eyes so much. I've started to have hobbies, and just live my life and realise that there's so many more important things than people who don't care about you. I used to get really, really caught up in that. I'm a lot happier. That really helps with my confidence because I’m just doing what I love and that's all that matters.
I think that needs to be a lyric in your song - ‘there are more important things than people who don't care about you’. That's one to put on a bumper sticker!
I’m writing this in my notes right now!
So we've got a big month coming up, Eurovision - Australia Decides is on February 26. Apart from all that shablam and cotton candy, what else is coming up for you?
I have my first headline show on the 3rd of March. Finally! I've been prepping for this for so long with my MD, he put all the songs down, we were ready to get the show together and then COVID happened, so we stopped it. I then wrote new songs and I'm like, ‘okay, we’ve got to do these songs now!’ So we’re finally at the point where we're all ready to go, we've had a couple of rehearsals with the band. I'm so excited, I've got Harley Alaska and Lucy Sugerman supporting me, and it’s at Marys Underground. It's gonna be really, really, really fun.
‘I Suck At Being Lonely’ is out now via EMI Records. You can download and stream now here.
Charley will be performing at Marys Underground Sydney on 3 March. Buy tickets now.
To keep up with all things Charley you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
