SPILL FEATURE: LEARNING TO GROW THROUGH CHANGE – A CONVERSATION WITH CHARLIE HOUSTON

LEARNING TO GROW THROUGH CHANGE

A CONVERSATION WITH CHARLIE HOUSTON

One Canadian musician you want to keep your eye on is Charlie Houston. Her captivating electronic pop EPs, I Hate Spring and Bad Posture, are filled with groovy beats, upbeat production, interesting melodies, memorable choruses, and genuine songwriting. Recently, Houston released her debut album, Big After I Die, a phenomenal debut that continues to prove why she is one of the most exciting up-and-coming Canadian musicians.

“It represents a transitional period of my life of having all these things that were certain and then losing them and then being in a state where I was on my own and didn’t have any of the things that I was generally identifying with to create my sense of self,” she states about Big After I Die. “Everything was gone, and I was kind of left with like, ‘I don’t know who I am anymore.’ Then I realized throughout my whole life I’d been doing this, like kind of attaching myself to things and people instead of figuring out who I am and who I want to be when it’s just like me. I feel like I was feeling that intensely at the beginning of writing this album, so I feel like that’s kind of how all the songs came about.

Big After I Die marks some significant changes for Houston, including working with new creative partner, Duncan Hood. “I made this album with a different collaborator than I had in the past, and I was really adamant at the beginning of it that I wanted to focus on songwriting first before going into production and recording,” says Houston. “All of the songs were written completely first on guitar or piano for the most part before we got into the production process because I wanted to kind of challenge myself lyrically and improve on not just taking the first lyric that comes but really trying to figure out what I want to say with each song… I feel like my EPs were a bit more electronically focused and a bit more polished from a production sense where I feel like since I was much more focused on songwriting and putting the song first and having it be able to stand alone without production, this album feels a bit rawer and more mature because I feel more mature now.”

Houston initially began writing the album with a concept that connected the songs ultimately scrapped that idea. “Whenever I kind of started with a certain concept, I would then find it hard to write because I feel like I was being restricted, like if I wasn’t fitting into that box, that it was wrong.” However, once she finished writing she realized a lot of the songs were connected. “They’re all written within the same eight-to-ten-month time frame, and I looked back and just realized a lot of them were about my inability to deal with change, my fear of being alone, and I’ve been a very co-dependent person in the past which I don’t really like. So, the name of the album it’s not literal, obviously, but Big After I Die is just another way of saying ‘Learning to grow through change.’”

“Slut For Excel” almost ended up being an entirely different song. “We initially wrote that song as an acoustic ballad,” states Houston. “Every time we went to record it, it just didn’t feel right. Then, as a joke, in a session one day, I was like, ‘What if we just like, as a creative experiment, turn this into a Talking Heads song.’ We did, and it actually sounded really cool.” Reflecting on the meaning behind the track, Houston exclaims, “I have three older siblings, and they’re all kind of in corporate jobs, and I always kind of felt like I compare myself to them and kind of feel like I’m never going to be as successful as them by doing music. The whole song is me comparing where I’m at now to different parts of my siblings and parents’ lives and what they were doing, and just like that kind of unavoidable comparison and feeling like you’re not good enough because of what someone else is doing even though it’s like totally different from what you’re doing.”

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“Lewps” was one of the only songs from the album that did not have lyrics first. “I made that riff, and then we put it over this drum machine loop, and it was just kind of that, and it sat as this instrumental for a few months ‘cause it was so different, and I couldn’t see or hear lyrics or a melody would fit into it,” reflects Houston. “Finally, we took a stab at it, and I again, kind of as a joke, was like, ‘What if I just make the first line I hit the g-g-g-g-ground.’ Once I did that stutter vocal the direction of the song became very clear. My co-writer and producer, Duncan Hood, is a multi-instrumentalist and an incredibly talented person. So, he had the idea of putting this very rhythmic funky bass line that pairs and complements the heavier side of the song so well, and it’s definitely my favourite part of the song.”

With a runtime of under two minutes, the exhilaratingly energetic indie rock “Pink Cheetah Print Slip” is non-stop fun. “It being short felt right,” exclaims Houston. “I wasn’t like, ‘I want more.’ We could’ve put a bridge in, taken the energy down, and then brought it back up, but I like the idea of it being full-fledged the whole time, which I feel you can only do for so long.”

One song that is really special to Houston is “Spiral”. “It’s the first song we wrote. It became a sort of ‘North Star’ for me as to what all the songs were sort of about, like becoming dependent on people and then not wanting them to leave you, especially when you need them the most and not wanting to be too much for people. And I just really wanted a pretty acoustic song, and that is that song.”

“Lighter” is a completely hypothetical situation about a relationship. “I think when I’m in relationships and in general, I have a deep fear of losing people, as everyone does,” exclaims Houston. “I just had the idea of ‘It would be a lot easier if this person I was scared of losing was just dead because then I wouldn’t have to worry about losing them anymore.’ We just created this hypothetical, like very dramatic narrative of, like, this relationship where you’re really in love with them but also like, ‘Well, maybe, I’ll just kill you, and then I won’t have to worry about any of this anymore, and it will be so much easier.’ So very satirical and over-the-top in terms of content.”

Houston enjoys taking personal experiences and utilizing a more satirical approach to the songwriting. “I like taking actual feelings that I have and then thinking of ways to write about them, like “Lighter” is an exaggeration of my fear of losing people which is like a genuine fear I have. We just created this more interesting, and kind of fun narrative about it, which is similar to what we did with “The Descent”, which is about a bad experience I had with an edible that gave me crazy anxiety. That song is written in the perspective as if the edible was a real person, which I thought was fun. I like coming up with more nuanced ways to say what I’m trying to say.

Last year, Houston opened several shows for the iconic Canadian band The Beaches. “By far my favourite touring experience at this point,” comments Houston. “They’re an amazing band and I’ve been a fan for a long time and also so sick to open for an all-female rock band. It was really inspiring, honestly, just to talk to them about their careers. They’ve been doing this for so long and are finally getting the praises that they deserve. I feel like I learnt a lot from the conversations I had with them.”

Big After I Die dropped on January 31. “I hope everyone finds a song they connect to,” comments Houston. “I think that the album is quite dynamic in terms of genre, and I think there’s something for everyone. I hope people have fun when they’re listening to it. I feel like I’m not having it trying to be a record you put on and you get really pensive about it. There are songs that are more sad or more intense, but overall, I wanted it to be playful and fun.”

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Main Photo Credit: Matt Barnes | Background Photo Credit: Lourdes Lasala