Music Journalism

The Charlie XCX interview

DailyMusic

The Charlie XCX Interview. 

Exclusive backstage interview with Charlie XCX; After just coming back from the US she is now doing a her second full-length UK headline Tour, prequel to her first headline tour in the UK since 2015.  She mentioned “im more nervous performing in the UK, I think because I’m from the UK, I always worry no one is going to be there”. Even after 2000 people watched her perform at Birminghams O2 Academy Gig Charlie still has doubts about her amazing talent and work.

Charlie XCX mentioned that ‘I hate gigs, I don’t want to do a show that isn’t 100%. Hype’ and thats why Charlie likes to open the gig as if its a party, with strobe lights, local drag queens and the track ‘Shake It’.  

In Charlies most recent gig she gave the first 50 of her die-hard fans who were queuing up for her gig, a chance to meet her. One fan was so excited they quoted  “ oh my god, I’m going to cry, I’m going to shit myself”. 

Charlie has been performing from a young age, her parents used to take her from home, at Start Hill to perform at raves in East London when she was just 14 years old. 

We asked, Did your parents push you towards academia or not playing illegal raves as a teen?   Charlie quote said “ No, they have always let me have my own space to do what I want to o and be creative’ 

Then at the age of  eighteen years old she moved to  London for art school, in which she then got signed to  Asylum Records, which is a subsidiary label of Atlantic. 

On this label she released two mixtapes, Heartbreaks and Earthquakes and Super Ultra in 2012. Charlies major label debut album was ‘True Romance along with singles ‘You’ and ‘Nuclear Seasons’ in 2013 . 

But in 2013 onwards was Charlies’ real break through when she featured on two hit singles, ‘I Love It’ By Icona Pop; which sold over 2 million copies in the US, and ‘Fancy’ By Iggy Azalea which sold a whopping 4 million copies in the US alone. 

In the interview Charlie quoted ‘SOPHIE gave me that feeling I had when I was 14, on myspace watching the Ed Banger Crew – I felt so inspired”. 

‘SOPHIE’ is a Scottish Musician, Producer, Singer and Songwriter know for her synthesised approach to Pop music. Charlie and Sophies first collaboration was announced in March 2015, with the. Album titled ‘Product’. 

Then In 2016 Charlie and Sophie collaborated again on a single called ‘Vroom Vroom’ which is primarily produced by Sophie. An uncut version also came along with this song, with an extended part as a teaser for Charlies upcoming album.

In an interview with Charlie she said “After ‘Vroom Vroom’, I’m not going to make sacrifices anymore, because that’s not the kind of art I want to make”. 

Charlie was also a bedroom producer from a young age, where she would post her tracks to my space, which lead her to being discovered by London club promoters. 

Charlies’ other works involves writing songs for famous artists, most you’ve probably heard but did know they were written by her. 

We asked her ‘Do you ever regret giving away smash hits such as ‘Senorita’ and or ‘Same Old Love’? 

“I think when Selena Gomez did ‘Same Old Love’, I really liked that song a lot but I just knew that it would be so much more powerful coming from her than it ever would from me. She’d just come of one of the most high-profile pop culture relationships with Justin Bieber, and was singing those words and it felt really powerful and it was really real to her”. We also asked Charlie how do you work with so many different artists ? – “It’s never really a strategic streaming move or anything like that. It’s about being inspired by the person and being into them”. 

Most recently Charlie has signed to Modelling company ‘Select Model Management’ who have also signed the likes of Paloma Faith, Abbey Clancy and Kelis. In the recent shoot Charlie is showing off the luxury lingerie brand with a wild west twist.

As well as this Charlie has also announced a new Netlix series ‘I’m With The Band; Nasty Cherry’ The six part series ‘follows the women as they navigate a new ages of music, making up their own rules as they go and blowing up instagram feeds in the process’. 

The series is an ‘unfiltered, intimate docuseries in which Charlie ‘finds out what it takes to build and break a real, badass, all girl punk band’. Charlie said that the show and the band is based on what she wish she’d grown up into. The newly made band Nasty Cherry played their first show in September at NME’S Girls to the front show. 

We also asked Charlie about the ‘Crying’ instagram Video which blew up earlier this year, when asked Charlie said, “ I just think I had a low moment. I don’t know that it was about the pressure gf the album. Maybe it was subconsciously, but I wasn’t like ‘oh, the albums gonna flop, because I don’t really care about stats”.