INTERVIEW:
Charley Stone
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IT has been great speaking with….
a bit of a music legend. With an incredible C.V. boasting her name, Charley Stone is someone whose work you will definitely know. Currently a gigging guitarist with the likes of Sleeper and Desperate Journalist, Stone is set to release her own debut solo album. Here Comes the Actual Band is will be released on 29th May. After dropping the incredible single, Free Food - the first from the album -, back in November 2023, Charley Stone has shared A Scream. I have been speaking with Stone about that single, what we can expect from Here Comes the Actual Band, in addition to what she has brought from her band experience to solo work, the music she grew up listening to, plus what comes next. An incredible artist that everyone needs to check out, it has been a thrill getting to know more…
ABOUT the amazing Charley Stone.
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Hey Charley. You have previously played in bands like Salad. How does life as a solo artist differ?
Being in bands is fun! The camaraderie of it, and even the difficult stuff, e.g. when you disagree on how a song or set should go and have to thrash it out until everyone’s happy. In contrast, I really love the freedom of being a solo artist, but it’s also lonelier. And onstage, when playing a totally solo gig without my Actual Band, it’s a lot harder, because you feel a lot more exposed. But then one of the reasons I decided to start doing this was to push myself out of my comfort zone, because I feel totally comfortable onstage as part of a group, but going up there on my own gave me a whole new bunch of nerves to overcome.
Having played in bands, is there any experience or lessons from that time that you bring to your solo career?
I think there’s something really special about working on music collaboratively. So with my solo work, although I might record a song at home with an entirely self-crafted arrangement, I’ll strip it right back to one guitar and vocal when I bring it to the band and see what direction everyone else takes it in. Ultimately I’m the “musical director” and steer it and make the final decisions. But I don’t wanna dictate what everyone should play, because that’s not particularly interesting to me – and from my own experience, I know that you bring much more energy to a part you’ve created yourself than one where you’re trying to replicate someone else’s style.
Another thing is that by the time you’ve played in your tenth or fifteenth band, you have a really good understanding of how different every group dynamic is, and start to enjoy the puzzle of how to work together with different people, getting the best from everyone and giving everyone space. Also, the importance of fairness and transparency when it comes to the financial side of things.
“It was a time when I was pretty much always feeling intensely-intense, full of anxious knots in my heart, and this was the song which emerged”
What is it like playing in touring bands at the moment in terms of how it impacts your songwriting and sound?
I suppose when you’re learning someone else’s songs, esp. if they wrote the guitar parts, you pick up on little tricks and tips you might not have come across before. And seeing how different bands interact (or not) with the audience has probably helped define my own onstage persona. But I don’t think the other bands I’ve played with have influenced my songwriting or sound any more than any of the bands I’ve just watched or listened to. But then I’ve been around a long time. At this point in my life there’s just been layers and layers of sounds and bands and other cultural influences all sort of composting down in my brain and fermenting into my own unique brew, I think.
Take me back to your earliest years. Who were the artists who inspired and motivated you?
Earliest years of life, or of playing guitar? Because when I was a kid it was basically just The Sound of Music. When I started wanting to write songs, it was Duran Duran at first and then early U2, All About Eve, Throwing Muses, The Cure, David Bowie and David Sylvian.
A Scream is your new single. How did that come together? What is the story behind the track?
A Scream is actually the first song I ever wrote on electric guitar, back in the last century! I had a really cheap difficult-to-play guitar, and when I finally mastered barre chords on it I set myself the task of writing a song using them. It was a time when I was pretty much always feeling intensely-intense, full of anxious knots in my heart, and this was the song which emerged. We used to play it in my first band, but it never really had the power I’d envisaged for it.
But I brought it back for a solo gig a couple of years back, and then when I was doing pre-production rehearsals for the album with the Actual Band, Mar (bassist) suggested we try that one. It absolutely sucked the first time we went through it, but then Lily (drums) hit on this really thrashy way of playing it and finally it really gelled. We recorded it all set up in the same room together, but then when they’d gone I added (and mostly deleted) loads of additional layers of guitar and BVs, and fed the lead vocals into an old analogue delay machine and out into a guitar amp and back into the desk… and when I listened back I shouted out “I love it!”, because it was all there, exactly how I think I felt it should be, back when I was 18 or 19.
You work in an industry still male-dominated. How important is it for you to be working alongside other females and queer folk? And do you think attitudes towards female musicians is changing in terms of recognising their importance?
I think most people gravitate towards their own tribe – that’s not so much “important” to me as what feels natural. In a sense it was actually more important to me to at some point break out of that and occasionally play in a band of mostly cis-het men. Because that brought its own challenges and insights. As to changing attitudes: the landscape is completely different now to how it was when I started out. Back when I formed my first band, the only other non-male bands most people had as a reference point were The Bangles or Fuzzbox, and every single gig we played was with all-male bands or very occasionally a group of men fronted by a female singer. But that was a good 30 years ago now, and the fact that this question still comes up is quite telling, isn’t it.
“I’m not sure it will feel real until I actually have a physical copy in my hand”
Your debut solo album, Here Comes the Actual Band, is out in May. How does it feel knowing it is almost out? What kind of themes and stories are explored throughout?
Most of the songs on this album come from a sort of imaginary world. Many of them started as images in my head, and in writing the songs I made stories of them, and so created a parallel, whimsical dream-world. There are characters and places in the songs which relate loosely to places and events in the “real” world. And sometimes they’re more vivid to me than many of my actual memories. There’s a lot of romantic yearning in them and explorations of procrastination in its various forms
And at the moment tbh I’m still procrastinating on all the practical things I do to ensure this album actually comes out. I’m not sure it will feel real until I actually have a physical copy in my hand. And then I’ll be relieved that I can finally start work on the next one.
You now have a live band behind you. How did you meet them…and can we see you on the road later in the year?
I know both Lily and Mar from their other bands where they sing and play guitar. I had long thought both of them were very cool and wanted to hang out with them more. So when I put out the call on social media for band members, I was utterly thrilled to get a message from Mar reminding me that he also plays bass, and a very drunk text from Lily asking “CAN I BE YOUR DRUMMER CAN I PLEASE”.
The Actual Band is intended to be fluid, though, and for the next couple of shows my friend Melissa will be depping on drums as Lily is away.
If I can get some funding I’d love to take us out on the road. Touring is expensive so currently most of the gigs I play outside of London I do totally solo.
What comes next for you? After the album is out, are there seeds for yet more music?
There are always seeds! It’s growing them that takes the time. I’ve currently got about three different unfinished totally solo albums on my hard drive. What I’ll probably do next is finish one of those and sneak it out online, and then start working some of those songs into sets with the Actual Band, along with some totally new ones, and then at some point we’ll record ten of them for another full band album.
As I allow all my interviewees, you can finish with any song you like and I will play it here. What shall we go for?
My favourite band at the moment is Panic Pocket, and they wrote my favourite queer unrequited love song of all time, so let’s go with that. When I first heard this song I was utterly obsessed with it and played it on a loop for hours at a time. More recently I’ve been covering it at gigs. So, this is OK Cupid:
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