Charlotte Martin

Charlotte Martin Interview
By alexander laurence
(I did this interview last summer but the editor of the magazine didn't think
it was hip enough. Everyone is a snob and trapped in a cage. Your indie uniform
does not impress me. So I did this interview and it never saw the light of day,
so I decided to ressurect it it here)

Charlotte Martin is from Charleston, Illinois, and now lives in Los Angeles.
She is more like Kate Bush or Fiona Apple, than Franz
Ferdinand. I heard her CD this summer and it definitely stood out from the
pack. Charlotte has a distinct voice and provocative lyrics. She is also very
good looking. That was cool because I get tired of hanging out with sweaty guys
from England.

The 27-year-old Charlotte Martin moved to Los Angeles a while ago to begin
her career. Martin recorded an album with producer Tom Rothrock. Due to label
politics the album never came out and Charlotte waited till the time was right
for her music. She spent hours working on new material and creating a studio.
After a year of live show, she started to build an audience. In 2003, she
released an EP called Parentheses. More people started to notice. Her song "Bring
On the Day" was included on the Sweet Home Alabama soundtrack.

She toured earlier this year with Sondre Lerche and Damien Rice. I caught her
on the Maybelline sponsored “Chicks With Attitude” tour, where Charlotte
played with Liz Phair, The Cardigans, and Katy Rose. Charlotte definitely stood
out among her peers and some fans showed up early just to hear her play. Her
first album On Your Shore came out this past August. She will be playing again
across America in October 2004. I got to talk to her on her tour. Katy Rose
interrupted us a few times who was trying to sleep or something.

******

AL: It’s the end of the tour?

Charlotte: I think we are family. I am getting depressed. There is still two
weeks left. It’s ridiculous. I wish it would continue for two more months. I
love sharing a bus with these people.

AL: You are not an organized person?

Charlotte: Right before I go onstage I get a little flustered. That is why I
have a glass of wine. I have been playing first. I play by myself. Katy Rose
plays after me. She is like punk rock music. It’s cool.

AL: Who are you sharing the bus with then?

Charlotte: Katy Rose and her band. I have my manager. There are two people
with me. Katy has six people with her. There are two Maybelline people.

AL: It’s good that you are first because you can just go on without a sound
check.

Charlotte: I do need a sound check. I am into certain delays and reverbs. I
am particular about what I like. I don’t know if you have heard bad sounding
keyboards and vocals, but it is very possible. It’s a fine art to make the
vocals sound good. It takes about fifteen minutes.

AL: What were the other tours like?

Charlotte: I played with Sondre Lerche. The other tours were all men. It’s
cool to have girls on the tour. I like playing with girls.

AL: Did Sondre Lerche hit on you?

Charlotte: No. He didn’t really hit on me at all. I don’t know what the deal
is. He didn’t really hit on anyone. He is focused on the music.

AL: Who else have you played with?

Charlotte: I played with Five For Fighting, Damien Rice, and Howie Day. I
played with Psychedelic Furs as well.

AL: Since you are in LA do they throw you on a bill at the last minute?

Charlotte: I get to be on the actual tours. I haven’t really been hanging out
in LA. I have been on tour for about a year now. I have my house in LA. I
have my dogs there. I have my boyfriend there.

AL: What is Charleston, Illinois like?

Charlotte: It’s in the southern part of Illinois. It’s boring.

AL: When did you figure that out?

Charlotte: When I was five. People who grow up in small towns usually have
really interesting imagination because they have to figure out things to
entertain themselves.

AL: You didn’t have the internet back then?

Charlotte: No. We didn’t really have the internet until a few years ago. I
read a lot. I still read a lot. I am over the online thing. I don’t go on unless
I have to. I don’t read the messageboards. I don’t want to know if someone
is pissed off at a show or they are being critical. They have a right to be
critical but I don’t have to know about it. I have a few friends who will bring so
mething to my attention if it is necessary. We have a monitor if someone is
being rude for no apparent reason. I like people to have free speech.

AL: Have you read any good books?

Charlotte: I am reading Battlefield of The Mind by Joyce Meyer. I am also
reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. It is about
spiritual feminism.

AL: Did you go to college?

Charlotte: Yeah. I studied Opera. You end up logging in more hours because
you have to learn more languages. You have to do an Opera every semester. I
would study ten hours a week in voice lessons. I would do recitals. You learn a
lot.

AL: You sing in German or Italian?

Charlotte: All of it. I sang in French and Czech. I studied Italian, German,
and French for ten years.

AL: Do you like the more modern 20th century classical music?

Charlotte: Benjamin Britten influenced my album. I like Gian Carlo Menotti’s
“Old Man and The Thief.” Henryk Gorecki is a favorite of mine. I like Iannis
Xenakis. He doesn’t even use score or notation. I had to study that in college.
I have blocked some of that out. I can appreciate John Cage but I can’t get
into it. I like most of Post-Romantic stuff of the early 20th century like
Rachmaninoff and Britten. I like the choral and vocal stuff.

AL: Did you ever play or tour with a proper Opera company?

Charlotte: No. I auditioned for the Met and that is as far as I got. It was
only a regional audition. That was in Chicago. After I graduated I moved to LA.

AL: When did you start writing songs for this album On Your Shore?

Charlotte: I started writing this album two years ago. I did an independent
album in 1998. I sold that on my own. I got signed to an indie label three
years ago and the record got shelved. After that I put out two independent EPs.
After that I put out Parentheses on RCA last year. This is my sixth or seventh
release.

AL: What is the early stuff like?

Charlotte: Shit. Shit. I did a record called One Girl Army for an indie
label. It is a young sounding. It is an interesting record. Anything before that is
not worth your time. It’s not good. It’s like really bad dinner theater.

AL: Was there anything from Parentheses that is on the new album?

Charlotte: There is one song that is on both called “Your Armor.”

AL: How many songs did you record?

Charlotte: Twenty-one songs. They all have been in the tracklisting at one
point. I don’t know what I am going to do with the other songs.

AL: How do you start writing a song?

Charlotte: It depends. I don’t know. Sometimes I will have music or lyrics
first. Sometimes I have both. One thing that I don’t do is “piece” things
together. I know a lot of people do that. They will write something and make it fit
somewhere else. I can’t do that. When I work on a piece I have to have fresh
ideas or I get burnt out. I feel that it is not good enough. I throw away a
lot of stuff. I throw away most everything. If I can remember something it might
be decent.

AL: How good is your memory?

Charlotte: It’s pretty good. I memorized two operas a year.

AL: Now when you are onstage you can break into some opera odyssey if you
want to?

Charlotte: Not so much. You have to be vocally in shape to do that stuff. If
I was in shape I could do it.

AL: What do you like to write songs about?

Charlotte: I write about everything from death, to declarations of love and
spirituality, to finding God, to losing God, to abortion, to anorexia, to
books, to denial, to stalking. I write about anything about human experience that I
need to express. If something moves me I will write about it.

AL: So there is no subject that is off limits?

Charlotte: No.

AL: You mentioned religion. Do you believe in a higher power?

Charlotte: Yeah. I am still searching. I am always searching.

AL: What are you searching for?

Charlotte: Him, her, it. God. I believe in God.

AL: Have you had a divine experience?

Charlotte: Yes I have. It’s through the music. It’s hard to explain. It’s
when you are so caught up in a piece, whether you are a listener, or a composer,
or a performer, where the piece takes you out of yourself, some place else
you haven’t been. That is like a religious experience.

AL: It’s sort of like drugs without the drugs?

Charlotte: Kind of. Imagine doing drugs when that happened. It would be
mindblowing!

AL: Don’t you think that actors and performers have those sorts of
experiences, when everything is going right, that they have those sort out-of-body
experiences? They are living in the moment.

Charlotte: I was watching the news the other day. They discovered that there
is really nothing in space. The chances of life in our galaxy have gone down.
They are pretty sure that there are no other planets in our galaxy or beyond
that can support life. They think the earth is an anomaly. They don’t know how
it happened. I personally believe it was created. I don’t think it was an
accident. I don’t think our makeup is an accident. I don’t think music is an
accident. I don’t think anything is an accident. Somebody somewhere knows what is
going on.

AL: What about people like John Cage? He was trying to create chance.

Charlotte: I don’t think everything is forced and programmed. I just think
that our existence is not an accident.

AL: What about politics? This journal is Free Williamsburg, which is about a
hipster liberal neighborhood in Brooklyn….

Charlotte: I know. It’s one of my favorite neighborhoods. I was very excited
to do this interview.

AL: Some people are very political in this neighborhood?

Charlotte: I am reading My Life by Bill Clinton. I really wish that he were
still President. Does that pretty much sum up my political views?

AL: Okay.

Charlotte: If Hilary Clinton would run, I vote for her in five seconds and
give her all my money. Yeah. I am not really into what is going on right now. I
am not really a party person. My father calls me a “Granola Liberal.” I don’t
like to be classified as that because I think it is lame. I just believe what
I believe in. I will vote for who I think is the most capable.

AL: Your family is …

Charlotte: Republican.

AL: Why do Republicans worry about abortion, gay marriages, guns and
terrorism, when there are other things in the bigger picture that really affect us all?

Charlotte: And the economy is completely crashing and we are at war for no
reason except the oil. Yeah! It’s a hard time for everyone. BMG and Sony just
merged. It hits everyone. Not as many bands can go on tour.

AL: Do you think that people in their twenties are very concerned about
politics?

Charlotte: Everyone is really concerned. I am playing Rock The Vote in New
York. I had a lot of fans email me links of ways of getting involved. I think a
lot of people my age have an opinion.

AL: Do people look to you for style guidance?

Charlotte: No. I have no style. I am not into fashion all that much.

AL: I just asked because some of these magazines that you are in had you wear
these certain clothes in the photo shoot.

Charlotte: The fans seem to be into the music. I haven’t really hit the level
of notoriety where people talk about what hair dye I use.

AL: When you did this album, is it all recorded live?

Charlotte: Yes. I worked with Joey Waronker and Justin Meldal played bass.
They used to play with Beck. It’s all live takes. We did about twelve live takes
of each song and picked the best one.

AL: What are those guys doing now?

Charlotte: Joey Waronker is mostly producing now. They used to play in a band
called Ima Robot. Justin is still doing that. I met those guys because I
recorded One Girl Army with Tom Rothrock for Bongload Records. The label ended and
it never came out.

AL: What do you like to do?

(Katy Rose comes in the room)

Charlotte: I like to smack Katy Rose on the ass.

Katy Rose: We are married. Did you know that?

AL: No.

Katy Rose: I haven’t slept at all. I am going to wear thermal underwear
onstage tonight.

AL: That’s cool.

Katy Rose: I look like a two dollar whore. Let me close the door. I am on a
rampage.

Charlotte: We have a date tonight.

Katy Rose: What are we doing?

Charlotte: We are going to sing at one in the morning. We are silly. We have t
o be. Sleeping on a bunk for a while is like being in a coffin.

AL: Except that you are still alive.

Charlotte: I’m still alive.

AL: Do you have any favorite films?

Charlotte: I like May. It’s a horror flick. I love All The Real Girls.

AL: What is up with the Goth thing?

Charlotte: That is so stupid. I like The Cure. So I am Goth? No. I don’t go
to Goth club.

AL: Do you drink blood?

Charlotte: No. I like The Cure. I like a few Goth comic writers. I have
friends who are witches. That is why I am wearing “I Live Jesus” slippers.

AL: You could be making an ironic statement.

Charlotte: No, it is not ironic. I even go to church.

AL: Can’t you just believe in a higher power without the church going?

Charlotte: I go for the music.

AL: Do you go to gospel churches and try to top the singers?

Charlotte: No, I just watch.

AL: You are missing the Curiosa Tour.

Charlotte: I am missing all my favorite bands: Interpol, The Rapture.

AL: You live in LA. Where are some hip places that we would see you at?

Charlotte: I don’t leave my house ever. I went to Perversion once or twice.

AL: You are Charlotte Martin. You should be hanging out at Star Shoes or
Beauty Bar.

Charlotte: I don’t go to bars. I stay home and read.

AL: What neighborhood do you live in?

Charlotte: West Hollywood. When you spend every night in a club, when you are
sitting at home you don’t want to go to a club. I go to Amoeba Records. That
is my favorite record store. I think The Virgin Megastore in LA is cool.

AL: Do you go to Buzz Coffee?

Charlotte: Yeah, I love Buzz Coffee. I used to go to this place called
Insomnia on Beverly.

AL: What is the rest of the year going to be like?

Charlotte: I am doing a bigger tour in the Fall. I am going to start working
on some demos. I have a bunch of songs written.

AL: I guess we have to go. Your manager is staring at me. You have to go
onstage pretty soon.

Charlotte: I love you. You are so fun. It’s so crazy. This is one of the most
in depth interviews I have done in a long time.

Website: www.charlottemartin.com
Every Time It Rains VIDEO:http://media.bmgonline.com/rcarecords.com/charlotte_martin/video/everytime_it_
rains_v2_128.mov