I’ll admit it. I never thought I’d see another Charly Bliss record. When COVID struck, the lead singer, songwriter, and lyricist, Eva Hendricks, had been in Australia and ended up moving there. How does a New York-based band survive when their singer lives on the opposite side of the world at a time when travel was nearly impossible?
Then, one day, after three years of silence, a new song appeared. Then another. Finally, we got the exciting news that a new album and tour were right around the corner. That album, Forever, comes out this Friday, August 16, on the UK-based label Lucky Number. It not only sounds like what we’ve heard before from Charly Bliss, but it is also a step forward in both songwriting and lyricism.
How did this happen? How did the band keep it all together and get to the point where they were going to keep this band going forever? I hopped on Zoom with Eva, 17 hours ahead on the clock in Australia, to find out!
SP: You’ve just recorded an album where you’re in Australia, and the rest of the band is in New York
Eva: Yes. I’m a glutton for punishment. I just like to make things as difficult as possible.
So, just from a process standpoint, was this like Postal Service, you recorded your side and they recorded their side? Or did y’all get together? How did it work?
A bit of that. It’s funny actually… I haven’t even made that connection, but that’s a great way of looking at it. Yeah, we did a bit of that. And honestly, in the past, I think as a band, whenever we’ve written, usually the first parts of a song will come together. Sam [Hendricks] and I are the primary songwriters in the band, so it’ll either be one of our demos, or we’ll send it to the group. And then, later on, once we’ve all had a chance to sit with it, we’ll all go to a practice space and work through the song and bring it all together.
But for this album, obviously, we couldn’t get in a room together. So, the equivalent of that would’ve been working together on Zoom. And honestly, we were pretty nervous about how that would look and work. But ultimately, it ended up being a really positive experience for us. We really enjoyed the process of working, and specifically, writing together on Zoom was a really positive experience for us. And then, when the rest of the band, when it was nighttime for them, and they would go to sleep, I would be like, “Okay. Cool. I’m ready to write lyrics and record the vocal while you guys are sleeping.” And by the time they woke up, I’d have a finished vocal in their inboxes. And then, by the time I woke up, Sam would have mixed it all in.
Honestly, it actually worked really well, and it was really fun. And then, I think by the time we all got in the room together to actually make the album and record, we were so ready for time together instead of feeling like, “Oh my God, I’ve just been sweating it out in a practice space with you for the past month.” It felt like we missed each other. We were so ready for that time together. It just ended up being really fun once we were actually in the studio together.
Was this the first time you had seen them since the whole COVID thing? Or did you visit otherwise?
We made the record over several trips to Minneapolis with Jake [Luppen] and Caleb [Wright]. So, the first time we were in the studio, yes. I mean, honestly, we have been apart for a really long time, but really, the first time we were all back together was right before Sam’s wedding. So, we got to really party it up, get it all out of our system, and then go to the studio together. But I think, overall, just having that experience of having… Whether it was because of the pandemic or just because now I live over here and don’t get to see them as often, there really is so much truth to the, I guess, absence makes the heart grow fonder or whatever.
But I felt like I had a perspective on my life that I didn’t have before the pandemic, of being able to realize how having the experience of missing my bandmates and missing this life that we had built together and missing playing shows together and writing together really gave me this perspective on like, “Oh my God. Even when things aren’t perfect, even when things don’t work exactly the way I hope they would, I’m still so lucky that I get to do this.” And just this overall feeling of profound gratitude for my bandmates. Yeah, I think once we were all together, and now every time we are together, it does have more weight to it than it used to when we were just like, “Oh God, I see you every single day.”
Does the band just hold a different level of importance in your life? Are you all doing different things now, where now the band feels like a vacation to you? Or is it still something that you want to do full-time?
It definitely still feels like work for sure, but work that I’m very grateful for. Yes, we’ve all had chances to do other things. There’s so much going on in our lives. Since our last album, Sam has become a dad. And I’m getting married this year, and I was writing a young adult novel while we were apart, and I worked on other things, whatever. So, we did work on other things. Spencer’s becoming a sommelier. There’s so much.
We all have other interests and things outside of the band, but I think I’m certain for all of us, the band is absolutely our number one thing. And if anything, those other things that we do outside of the band only enrich our experience of being in Charly Bliss together.
This makes me think of the song on the new album, “I Don’t Know Anything,” which sounds like you’re just letting everyone know how you feel about the band in your life. Where did that come from?
I’ve had a few questions about that song, and I want to make it clear that the thing that I’m struggling with on that song is more so about the industry around being in a band and the music industry at large and struggling with… It’s very confusing in music at this point. There are very few… It feels very like you are either in a stratosphere that is like… Oh my God, Ariana Grande and Beyonce and Taylor Swift. You are so massive, or you are so tiny. And I think it makes it very confusing to evaluate your position in the music industry. Are we succeeding? Are we failing? Sometimes, the ways that I feel about that change several times throughout the day because it is very confusing.
To have worked so hard and put so much effort into something and sometimes have these soaring moments of being at a show and looking out and seeing all these people who deeply care about this thing that you worked on for so long and getting it and seeing you and seeing the vision and everything, and that is such an affirming feeling. Then, I had the experience of being on the internet and feeling like, “Does what we do even matter to anyone at all?” It’s very confusing to know how to place that just in your own perception of what you’re doing.
And then, on top of that, knowing that if you express any of those feelings of feeling dissatisfied with the music industry or frustrated with streaming platforms like Spotify or anything like that, the overall reception you receive on the internet is like, “Fuck you. You chose this.”
Do you read the comments?
Unfortunately, I do. I mean, there’s certain places I won’t go. I will never go to Reddit. I know without knowing. I don’t want to know, and I don’t want to know.
Well, I did go to your Reddit. That was something for research.
Don’t tell me. Help me help myself, please.
Okay. I will leave it be. But there was one comment on YouTube I really liked. Someone said that your new sound, the new single, which I will tell you. [Editor’s Note: I go off on a wild tangent here, but I promise I’ll come back to it.] So, I have a friend, who has a 10-year-old daughter, and “Calling You Out” is now her favorite song.
Oh my God.
And Charly Bliss is going to be her first concert. That’s a thing that’s happening.
Oh my God. I’m going to cry. That’s so cool.
So anyway, someone said, “It sounds like Charly Rae Jepsen to me.” And I thought, “What’s wrong with that?”
That is the best compliment someone could give us. Okay. That’s an internet comment I will fully endorse. Whether they meant that it was an insult or compliment, I don’t care. To me, that’s-
Yeah.
… highest compliment.
I mean, I thought so, too. Let me see. Again, I’m just going to just jump back to the industry side of things. So, you’re on Lucky Number Records now, and I didn’t know what it was, and I looked it up and I was like, “Oh, that looks like the coolest label in England.” There’s Dream Wife, Hinds, and Walt Disco. Jay Som, and I’m like, “That is great.”
We feel so lucky to get to work with them. Honestly, they’ve been huge supporters of this. This record would not exist without them in every way, shape, and form. We’ve undergone a lot of changes in our team over the last few years, and they have so stepped up for us and just really shown up for us and been involved in every aspect of making this record, which is honestly really rare for a label to be that involved and that supportive on that level. And it’s just been truly a good dream working with them.
And you don’t feel like a US label anymore, is that-
We’d love one.
Okay!
But yeah, I mean, honestly, we would love one, but Lucky Number absolutely stepped up. And I think that the longer you are doing this, I think you realize that the more important thing than just checking the box of having certain things like, “Oh, we have a label here, the label here, and a booking,” whatever it is, whatever member of your team you’re trying to add or build on. In my experience and our experience, the most important thing is having the right partner, and just checking the box of having a US label is wonderful. I really look forward to the day when we have one again.
But in this case, Lucky Number were the right teammates because they saw the vision and weren’t trying to make the record anything else. They really believed in us and really had our backs. And to us, at this point in our career, it was way more important for us to make the album we were dreaming of making than it was to have every box ticked before we went into the studio to do that.
I mean, how many… It’s been years, right? And you released a few singles. My favorite is kind of a one off was “Its Christmas And I Fucking Miss You.” That was my favorite.
Thank you. That makes me smile. I wrote it in this room.
Did you write it in this room?
Yes.
How’d you get PUP on that? Are you friends with those guys or…
Yeah, we’re besties with them. We’ve toured with them so many times, and they’re just the kindest… I mean, they’re Canadian. Above and beyond that, they’re just like people, such wonderful guys and just the most supportive. We were exploring the idea of writing together and we had sort of had this half-assed idea for a Christmas song.
Honestly, we kind of biffed it. We almost didn’t think we were going to come up with anything that good, so we didn’t start working on it until… I don’t even remember, like November, when usually the time to work on Christmas songs is July, so you’re so super ready to go with a full… Have the music video and everything. We wrote that song and then were shocked by how good it turned out, and then had to scramble to be like, “Wait, this should have a proper release.” But thank you. I’m so happy. I mean, honestly, that is one of my favorite songs we’ve put out, too. I’m really proud of that song.
Well, Christmas songs take years before they become standards. I mean, it takes 10, 20 years. So, somewhere down the line, it’ll become-
Yes, we plant the seed. Planting the seed.
It’ll become a Christmas standard. I think the most recent song in the top 100 most-played Christmas songs is about eight or ten years old. It’s an Ariana Grande song.
Wow. So, six years from now, seven years from now, we’ll be fully in the canon.
Absolutely, 100%. I mean, power pop is… Okay. So, I look at you as a power pop band. I know in the past you’ve been called all sorts of other things, but we know power pop is… One of the things everyone says about Power Pop is all those bands should have been bigger. Something about The Replacements, Matthew Sweet, all the greats of power pop should have been bigger. So, I look forward to 10 years from now when you’re playing huge venues, and everyone’s like, “How come they didn’t have more hits on the radio?” So, there you go. That’s your future.
Thanks. I’ll take it. I’ll absolutely take it.
Right. So, just lyrically on this album, I mean, I got the album, and I read the lyrics, I listened to them, and a theme I picked up about this is the anxiety inside success, which seems to be something that you sing about a lot on this album. But then it ends with a couple of more forward-looking songs. It seemed to be like you’re settled down. Were you trying to write this, the track listing, as a story like that?
Oh my God, that’s so interesting. No. I mean, just purely because of the fact that it took so long for this album to come out. The scope of time on this record is genuinely five years. So, I feel like there are songs that, to me, it’s very clear that I wrote them. So much has happened to me in the last five years. I had a huge breakup. I moved to Australia. I moved away from all of my friends and family, and so much has changed in my own personal life. So, it’s like very obviously that has…
And also, just even taking time away from music for so long when it was so much a part of my life. In 2019, we were on tour for 10 months out of the year. To then go from that to years with the pandemic, zero touring and zero performing whatsoever, and not seeing my bandmates for a year and a half was so… That is obviously going to change the way you feel about things. So, I think all of those different themes are reflected in the album.
The idea that the track listing follows a narrative is so cool to me. I feel like I need to now re-listen to the album with that idea, because it’s hard for me to hear it other than what I was thinking when I wrote the songs and whatever. But no, we didn’t. But now, I want to say yes, Gordon, because that’s so cool. That’s so much cooler, the idea that we would’ve done that.
Well, read it back through and see if it fits. If it fits, you can start saying it in your future interviews. I don’t-
Amazing. Will you let me take that one?
Absolutely, 100%.
Thanks, Gordon.
All right. I don’t know how much more time we have. So, I’m going to ask a question that we always ask in our interviews. We want to know if there’s anything that you’re listening to that you think more people should know about. So, something you…
Man, I feel like, honestly, all of the music that I’m obsessed with is probably the same music that everyone is obsessed with right now. Obviously, I love Brat, the new Charli XCX album, and I’m obsessed with Chappell Roan and listening to so much of her music. the new Sabrina Carpenter songs I think are so clever and really, really great. In terms of something I would be listening to that I don’t know how many other people are listening to, the only interesting answer I would probably have would be my favorite podcast currently is this podcast called Otherworld. And it’s sort of a very spooky podcast where people call in and talk about their paranormal experiences.
The way it is done is so brilliant and fascinating, and I think even for people, whether you… I am the most gullible person alive. I believe everything that I ever hear, so that’s very easy for me to latch onto. But for someone like my fiance who’s very much the opposite, I mean, thank God just purely for my survival. It’s good that I have someone in my life who is not the same as me but a deeply skeptical person. However you’re approaching all of that, interesting no matter what and a very, very great podcast. Highly, highly recommended.
Excellent. So, there’s nothing there in Australia. Do you go out and see music in Australia, like local stuff?
Honestly, oh man, I have hardly gone out and seen music at all since I’ve been here, which is bad and embarrassing. But I’m trying to think. No, it reminds me of being in my early 20s in that I saw a great show a couple of months ago under my friend’s back patio, where this great band called Love Banana played a set that… And I kept looking, being like, “How did they get all the gear in here?” And there would be a lawnmower behind a drum kit and whatever, and it was awesome. So, I think, in that way, my experience of… It’s kind of brought me back to things I loved when I was in my early 20s in the New York DIY scene.
Seeing that reflected through Australia is very, very cool, and just more outdoor space, but still all these makeshift venues that are really great, and it’s more so just about getting as many of your friends together in a room and having so much fun. So, I have really enjoyed that part of engaging with the music industry here. It is definitely more rock-forward, and especially as my music tastes have gone way more in the pop lens, it’s been really wonderful being pulled back in that direction at the same time of rock music and garage rock.
Do you think, then, when you come to play live and you’ll be in San Francisco in September, you’ll sound more like a rock band than the pop on the album?
I always feel like when people… I think at this point, people love to say about us, “Where are the guitars?” Whether there is so much guitar on the song or not. But I think the really wonderful thing, and even it’s a great thing for me to remember, is I remember people having a similar reaction to Young Enough, and then coming to see the show and being like, “Oh.” Purely by virtue of the fact that, first of all, there are four of us, and the instruments that we play are guitar, drums, and bass. The songs definitely get performed in a way that really, I feel, highlights the rock aspects of what we’re doing.
Also, by virtue of the fact that we don’t have a ton of money, so there’s no way for us to have a sleek pop show. And I don’t think that would serve the music either. I think that one of the best things about our band is our live show, and the messiness and big emotions of that, I think, really reflect the songs on the record really well. Yeah, absolutely. I think our shows are as rocking as ever. But also, yeah, serving. It’s always just about serving the songs that you’ve written and trying to make people feel the way you felt when you were writing them is my favorite way to think about figuring out your mindset.
So, no three playback engineers, no diving into an LED screen. All right. Okay.
No, unless I win the lottery in the next couple of weeks. I’ve got a wedding to pay for, Gordon, so I can’t incorporate a playback engineer.
See Charly Bliss at Bimbo’s 365 Club on September 26. Buy your tickets now; there’s a wedding to pay for!
