SHN Interview: Charlie Bennett
by Claire Silverman
photo: Ruth Bennett
Charlie Bennett is an independent musical artist from England. They write, record, and produce from their bedroom, and has gained a dedicated fanbase of listeners through social media. SHN host Claire caught up with Charlie via Zoom to discuss his career so far, his new single “Polka Dot Socks,” and what’s coming next.
CS: It’s so nice to finally sit down and chat with you. I really like your music and what you’ve been doing recently.
CB: Thank you so much.
CS: How did you get started in music, especially writing, recording, producing, releasing your own songs?
CB: My first instrument was drums, I started playing when I was 10 because there was this local drum teacher going around. Most of the ways I've learned how to play music has been by ear. I started actually writing music at 16, mostly through watching films, like Sing Street, which is about an Irish band in the 80s, and Begin Again with Mark Ruffalo. Films about music were a very big part of it, I really liked seeing the creative process.
CS: So what is your own creative process like when you're writing a song?
CB: Every single song I've written has been a personal thing. There’s always elements of my life scattered within them, “Is This Falling?” being a very good example of that. From a methodical perspective, I always start with chords first. I have loads of these little leather journals that I use and I've started a very big one recently, so I can really draw across the page which is nice, because I'm a very scruffy writer. After I have the cords, then I go to my journals and start improvising lyrics over the chords. I always find the music comes a lot more naturally first, than trying to fit lyrics around the music comes second.
CS: I’m curious as to who your musical influences are? Is there a specific band or an album that has impacted you a lot?
CB: My music tastes have changed a lot since I started writing back in 2016. I was very much into My Chemical Romance and much more rock music back then, whereas now I'd say one of the biggest artists that changed my taste in music was Rusty Clanton. His music has a lot of acoustic elements and all my music has been very acoustic based. Right now, my influences are probably beabadoobee and Oscar Lang, both artists from the UK who are doing great right now, and I admire their entire discographies. They've both gone from acoustic sounds from when they were collaborating together throughout 2018 to now where they both have full-fledged bands playing festivals. They are very big influences on me because I really admire their musical taste and the fact that they’re geographically similar to me.
CS: I definitely can see their influences in your writing. Speaking of collaborations, how did “Jam on Neptune” with tinyumbrellas come about?
CB: So tinyumbrellas and I found each other from having our music placed on the same playlist. My song “Is This Falling?” was alongside one of her songs called “Stardust.” tinyumbrellas reached out to me that they really liked my song, and then we basically hinted at the fact that we should collab in the future. About a month later during the winter lockdown in England in January [2021] we jumped on a Zoom call and it all happened in one afternoon. During that first call when we met, we wrote and started to produce the song all over Zoom. I was mixing it on my Mac, and on calls every week, we’d work on it. It wasn't until the start of April when the lockdown lifted slightly, that we were able to actually meet in person and then play the song live. It was it was a very interesting process over Zoom, and I'd really like to do that again. I think if anything good came out of a lockdown, it's been the fact that that we've found so many better ways of communicating with each other when we're not face to face.
CS: This past October you had your first show in London, how was that experience?
CB: It was really interesting. The first thing I noticed was how cool the venue was. It was in Shoreditch in London, and had all these archways and you could hear the trains going above you. It was the first time I'd really done anything on that scale, getting to experience that kind of crowd and atmosphere. My previous performances had been much more lowkey and calm, and the crowd at the London show was really hyped up. It was just really, really fun.
CS: Do you have plans for more shows in the future? Or are restrictions because of the pandemic still impeding that?
CB: I've definitely got stuff on the cards, a couple of promoters have reached out to me. But again, it's still very much up in the air. I'm applying to do some festivals, hopefully later in the year, but we'll see how that goes.
CS: I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you for those festivals.
CB: Thank you!
CS: Your most recent song, “Polka Dot Socks” is out now and it seems like your listeners really love it. What was the writing process for that song like? What kind of sparked it?
CB: It was a few months after “Jam on Neptune” had come out, and I was in a big writer's block slump. I just sat down with my guitar and decided I wasn’t going to put any pressure on myself to do anything. I’d been listening to a lot of “DIY” songs on Soundcloud at the time — I like getting inspiration from those kinds of songs more than ones that have been fully produced, they’re more useful because they’re more raw. I had some chord progression ideas in my head and I came away from that session with the line “you’ve stolen all my shoes” and then “polka dot socks” as a clothing item stuck with me, because it’s so specific. I started writing what became “Polka Dot Socks” in the summer, and then it was in the back of my mind, for about five months. In December I posted a snippet of it on TikTok, and it did really well, so that motivated me to finish it, and then within about a month I released it.
CS: I have to ask, do you own a pair of polka dot socks?
CB: I do. I do. I'm gonna make sure they don't get stolen.
CS: One last question, do you have any upcoming news you can share with SHN readers?
CB: I've been working for ages to figure out and solidify my sound, and I think I've kind of reached that point, especially with “Is This Falling?” and “Polka Dot Socks.” I feel like I’m now in my stride. I'm working on a new song at the minute that’s going to be one that you can probably shout in your car if you want to. So I think it's a nice transition. And I have a live version of “Polka Dot Socks” coming out very soon!
CS: I look forward to hearing both of those, that sounds really exciting! I want to wish you good luck on everything, and I hope no one steals your polka dot socks.
CB: Thank you very much!