Sam: Bro, take me to the beginning. Tell me about your upbringing, family life, all of the basics.
Charlie: Yeah, I grew up in Seattle and started making music when I was in 8th grade in my friends basement. My mom put me in piano and vocal lessons when I was younger and DJ lessons too. I just always thought it was so fun putting different instrumentals over different people’s vocals and I just had so much fun with that as a kid. So that started the musical interest I feel like. When I discovered my friend and a studio in 8th grade, I fell in love and immediately became obsessed with it all. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I also played a lot of sports in High School too; I think it carried over into everything as far as music. But all in all, Seattle is a dope place and it’s taught me so much.
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Sam: As far as the Seattle music scene went, were you bumping music from the Seattle natives? What did that scene look like from your point of view?
Charlie: I mean, I’ve kind of been involved in the music scene since I was in 8th grade. There are a lot of talented producers and artists. It’s a great scene that I don’t think the world has shined a lot of light on & I think there are a lot of people here who are doing cool things and I’m hoping to being that to light a little more.
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Sam: Let’s dive back in to sports. What were some great memories that you can pull from playing football?
Charlie: I mean, I played football since I was five. It really has been my life. Just sports and music. I played for numerous teams, but I had a lot of fun playing football in High school because there are just so many fundamentals that you can apply to everything. I think the number one thing is having the short memory thing. If you mess up in football, you can’t let that affect the rest of the game, you have to move on to the next play. I think that counts with Wins and Losses. When you win, you can’t get too hyped up on a win, because you’re not going to play as well and I think that applies to music too. If you catch an L, you forget about it and move on to the next play and if you catch a W, don’t get too excited about it because you still have more games to play.
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Sam: What was a moment in your career when you realized that you might be able to do this music thing and make a living from it?
Charlie: I think honestly, in my mind, when I first started this, I had a little community around me who really liked my music; so in my mind, I’m like, if I have 2,000 followers and if this little group of people like my music and I can get the rest of the world to like my music, then mathematically that should add up. So once I got that small community of people around me that liked my music, that gave me the encouragement to try and make it bigger and add more people to the circle.
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Sam: We clearly know your music is phenomenal, but what is your process like? How do you take a song from an idea and turn it in to a full fleshed out concept?
Charlie: A lot of times, every day throughout my day, I’m constantly in my notes app. If a little situation happens, that basic idea, there is something there and I’ll just write these little ideas in my notes for certain songs and if I think it’d dope, I’ll dive in and maybe even write out a full five paged story sometimes to help understand it better. But as far as sonically, I really just put on loops and beats and come up with the melodies and let out whatever naturally comes out. I feel like I fall back in to a zone where I’ve fallen so deep into it, where I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s like some auto-pilot type shit.
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Sam: Okay, so with that, what’s one of your favorite songs that you’ve written?
Charlie: I had a lot of fun with “Party Girl”. It was just very authentic and I had a lot of fun writing that song…I couldn’t really tell you why, I just loved writing it.
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Sam: I want to dive in to this brand you’re building…”Onafriday”. So if an alien or someone who had no idea what it was, asked you about what “Onafriday” meant, how would you describe it?
Charlie: I would say that us humans have 4,000 weeks on this earth and there’s only so much time and the only thing we can’t buy back is the time. I was at this church thing and they asked new people, “What’s your name, where are you from and what’s your ultimate goal in life?” and I said, “My name is Charlie, I’m from Seattle, and my goal is to jus have a good time.” Because that’s really what it is. I have 4,000 weeks here and I want to make the best of it. And I think days are like a human made thing. You have to live like this way on a Monday and this way on a Tuesday…nah bruh, every day is a Friday. We only have so many weeks, so I’m not going to wait for it to be Friday…I’m going to live every day like it’s my last. It’s the idea of don’t wait to chase your dreams. Go do it now!
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Sam: So as we wind down, what are you working on right now as far as music?
Charlie: I’m putting together my firs project right now. It’s going to be really great. I got like 100 unreleased songs right now and just piecing it altogether. Testing things on tiktok, listening to the fans. But, I’m going to drop this song called “Colorado Boulder” next.
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Sam: Okay, last question. If you could give your younger self some advice, what would you say?
Charlie: I would say at the end of the day, it’s you verse you and you can’t let anyone else or what anyone else says steer you from your path, because it doesn’t really mater. Back in the day, I used to get caught up in what people thought about me, but in reality it’s so much bigger than that…This world is so big. Just don’t get caught up on what anyone thinks and live every day like it’s a Friday.
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