Charley shares exclusive acoustic version of single 'Arizona' and talks the creation of the song: "I want people to be able to see it and feel it and get goosebumps like they're in that situation."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Maclay Heriot

Sydney based Charley is proving to be one of the brightest young talents to emerge on the Australian music scene in 2021. With music that overflows with sublime melodies and irresistible pop soundscapes plus relatable, empowering lyrics she is the type of artist that instantly connects with your heart.

Last month she released her second single ‘Arizona’, an eclectic track that superbly blends classical, synth and acoustic guitar with a hint of music-box fantasy thrown in. She has recently recorded an acoustic version of the song which you can watch exclusively on Women In Pop below before its general release later this week. Charley also dropped by Women In Pop to chat more about the song and her career to date and you can read the interview below the video.

Charley, you wonderful human and maker of pop sound and accompanying visual treats, thank you for your time today. Your music is so very sherbet dipped, it sounds like it comes out of a candy store. I love it. How are things in your world?
Thank you for having me! Oh my god, thank you. I guess that's just what music is, you make it beautiful and as crazy as you can get it. Things are good, coming out of COVID and finally starting to get sessions and make music again and get tours prepared and everything like that.

Amazing. And let's talk about your delicious sophomore single, ‘Arizona’. Can you just talk me through the creation of this wonderful, wonderful song?
I've had social anxiety for like, my whole lifetime and after coming out of the first lockdown, my friend Carla [Wehbe] organised this amazing writing camp down in Kangaroo Valley with our closest friends. We all went out there and had a great time together, but every single day or hour, I would nearly have a full blown anxiety attack just because I couldn't really handle being around people. I don't know how to explain social anxiety, it is triggered sometimes. So after the camp, I felt like I needed to write about this because I really just needed to get it out. I had a session with Cyrus Villanueva, Rory Adams and Jess Kent and we wrote the song the entire song that day. It was such a cool feeling, being able to get everything that I've felt out of my chest - when I arrive at a party, to what the anxiety attack’s like, to after the anxiety attack. We really wanted to put that in the song, the whole motion of just everything that goes on.

I think that's beautiful, and you've constructed it so well in the build. What I particularly love about the track is it's such a beautiful pop bop, but at the same time there is this really confronting lyrical content. Was that juxtaposition something you always intended to do with it?
Yes! I came in with a reference from a Kehlani and Charlie Puth song, it was a 3-3-4 rhythm and I wanted that rhythm to feel almost like a ballroom dance, but a really dark ballroom dance that's somewhat like Disney, but also has the darkness of anxiety and depression and all my mental illnesses. Because it really is a whole frickin dance when you're trying to battle with it. It just came out naturally, Cyrus pulled his guitar out and it just went from there.

Gorgeous. You are quite the multitasker when it comes to your music and you pair it with some absolutely delicious visuals and ‘Arizona', much like ‘Hard For Me’, it’s like there's a little short film in the film clip which I think we miss out on a bit sometimes with music coming out so fast these days. Has music for you always also been a visual experience?
It definitely has. It's always been such an important thing for me to have the right visual with it, because I like every song to have its own story and just have a complete world around it. I'm very lucky to have a label behind me and have money pushing it because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to make the visuals that I have. Being able to make this music video was one of the best things because I love directing, I love being creative in any sort of way. And being able to act, I would love to do that one day. So that was very interesting, in the music video I had to act out all these anxiety attacks and every single one of them turned into a real one. It was a very big traumatic experience, but it was really worth it. Very cool experience.

That just means you delivered with such integrity, like, this is what it looks like people! I want to talk a little bit about your debut single ‘Hard For Me’, which is just so fun and it completely embraces sexuality without force, like I said, it's fun. It's interesting, because obviously men have been singing for years about visualising us naked, but as soon as a woman says that we're like, ‘oh, no, that's…no, they can't’.
That's what I wanted to bring with that one, I guess. I was really comfortable in the room, because I was with my partner at the time, his duo partner and Stephen Schmuldt who was the producer. I felt very comfortable. and I wanted to sing about that, because everyone goes through like their horny stages when you're first getting into a relationship or seeing a person and I just go crazy over people, I get so attached, so I needed to put that in the song as well.

Image: Maclay Heriot

It is such a flip to ‘Arizona’ thematically. You've been writing and curating these songs for a while, what was your process to go, I'm going to go with female empowerment, fun sexualization and then I'm going to do a tailspin and sing to you about anxiety’. I think it's incredible.
’Hard For Me’ is was one of my favourite songs that I've ever written and every single time I went back to it, it just made me feel so good, and so happy and powerful. I always knew I just wanted to put that one out. But the second song was always a mystery. I was tossing up between about five different songs. We were actually going to put another one out, [but] it had swear words in the title, so it was like, ‘maybe not this one’. And we were like the next one needs to be something that's again, all of me, and my anxiety is one of the biggest parts of me. Coming out of lockdown the timing fit really well, and [with] so many people going through it, it can be an anthem for people to make themselves feel better and stronger.

That phrase ‘all of me’ is just so incredible, and there's strength in leading with that. How did your wonderfully arranged and written songs come from your mind to your throat and beyond? What is your career trajectory to date?
I started singing when I was so young, I don't even remember how old I was. I started doing musicals with my family and at school, joined a band with my cousins and started writing there. Wrote a couple of songs and then we kind of broke up the band, got in another one, broke up that band and it kind of just kept on going. I didn't realise that I could do music for a living and then after school finished, I met my ex and he was a musician. I feel bad about how much I like to talk about that in interviews, how it's my ex that made me want to do music, but he was such a big inspiration in my life and I don't think I could ever not credit him for that, because he was doing it and now he's living in Nashville, and touring around America. That gave me the drive that I needed to realise that I could do it myself. So I moved to Sydney, and I got daytime jobs that I'm still doing here. Then I went to America and started writing around America. I'm just lucky I have had that drive to just keep me going, keep me writing and do what I love.

I think that's important, the people that surround you, they act as like catalysts. It's still all your work, but you can have those little pushes and they're important to acknowledge. You put your whole self into the process with such creative control, obviously there's perks and pitfalls in doing that. How have you found the industry as a creative soloist, a solo artist, doing everything yourself?
It's definitely not all myself, I have the most amazing support team around me. I have my family and my friends who are luckily all musicians, so they help me with literally everything. And my manager, I couldn't do it without him. It’s nice that they believe in me and they support my dreams and make me acoustic versions of songs and help me out with styling for my music videos. It’s definitely not a me job, it's the whole team and everyone around me that's really just helped Charley come to life.

Beautiful. Two questions - firstly, who are your influences musically, and secondly for you both as a listener, and as an artist, what makes a song?
Growing up, it was Kelly Clarkson, PInk, Jessie J and Ariana Grande. Then when I found Julia Michaels, that was the moment that I was like ‘this is what I want to sound like.’ The way that she’s so raw with her lyrics, she talks about the items of clothing that her ex had and the colour of it, and exactly what he said at 3:24pm on the 23rd of December. This relates to the second question as well, what makes a song a song - being completely honest and completely raw in a whole experience and painting a whole movie in front of you. That's why I love music videos as well because I want people to be able to see it and feel it and get goosebumps like they're in that situation. Listening to Julia does that, and JP Saxe and Maren Morris and Cxloe. That's what makes a song for me as long as you can feel it, taste it and everything like that.

I love that. Music’s clearly a catharsis for you, it's an avenue to process your anxieties, your hopes, and also I guess for you to reflect, in a playful or nostalgic way, on a moment. Has it always done that for you even before you were creating your own?
Always, Oh my gosh, always. I don't remember a time where I didn't want to put on music when I was sad. I'd be like crying, playing Julia Michaels just to get the emotion out. I've discovered that playing music and really feeling out what you're feeling is a good way to cope with anything that you're going through because it helps you process it instead of holding back emotion. I just started doing that from a young age but my therapist made it clear that that was a good thing.

Oh, it's a good thing and I think everyone does it. I always ask people what's your Jeff Buckley or Mazzy Star in the bath moment? When you just go ‘I need to cry and I have three minutes’. What's that song?
Oh my gosh, what's your?!

I actually just exposed myself and named them - Mazzy Star ‘Fade Into You’ and Jeff Buckley pretty much the whole Grace album.
Have you heard ‘Worst In Me’ by Julia Michaels?

No, I'm going to though, is that a good one? I need a good cry playlist.
Listen to Nervous System by Julia, that whole EP is insane.

Lastly, before I had to leave you Charley, Sydney's opening up, you've got beautiful music, what's coming up for you?
I am mainly focusing on ‘Arizona’ right now, but we have a new song coming out next year and we have a couple of shows for next year as well. It's mainly just getting the new music because we are planning also to put an EP out at the end of next year, so there's a lot of stuff.

‘Arizona’ is out now via EMI Records. You can buy and stream here.

To keep up with all things Charley you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.