Here’s our interview with Charlie Henderson from Drug Store Romeos.
What is the most challenging part about making an album?
Songs are linked in some way to either a sense of self or a persona that you portray vocally but also with aesthetic choices. Every layer has a certain character to it.
Everyone within the band has their own personality. At the exact same time a song is displaying multiple personalities whilst also giving you an abstract sense of everyone’s personality together at once to create an overall feeling.
An album gets tough when you are not sure on what side of your collective selves that you want to put out into the world as the definitive expression of this point of your life.
Some people’s sense of selves are morphing and they no longer feel certain songs represents a self they want to embody but other people do
I read an interview back in 2020 where you said that you think your best song is “Quotations For Locations?” I agree that it’s great, but do you still think that now?
Personally I don’t think that anymore. I’m not sure what is our best song really… hopefully one of the new ones will become the best. Now you’re moving might be our most original. Being original and somewhat ‘ground breaking’ has become a very important quality for me in the making the second album.
“The World Within Our Bedrooms” received attention and success. What would you say was the most memorable part about that?
Playing headline shows and then sitting at a table whilst about 40 people wait to get their record signed and chat was an extremely beautiful feeling.
What would you say is the best way to gain attraction from listeners?
I’ve spent years really trying to put my finger on what makes an extremely attractive song. Rather than writing some large paragraphs, I’m going to condense some of what I’ve learnt into the form of one-word answers followed by an exclamation point.
Surprises! Dynamics! Clear mood / emotion! Entrancing personality! Tension and release! Some familiarity! Unique Sounds! Putting out music that gave you that sparky feeling!
Melodies with a bunch of semi-tonal jumps vs whole tone jumps (catchiness), A fashion / way of life associated with the music! Strange fun phrases! Direct vulnerable emotional phrases!
If you could perform with any artist, who would it be?
I’m particularly drawn to earth eater at the moment.
What are some words to describe your fellow bandmates?
Sarah : energetic, curious, playful, passionate, emotionally mature.
David : steady, funny, kind, dedicated, logical.
What’s your favorite music video you were in?
I’m most happy with secret plan. I think I really achieved the vision I had in my mind. However I think quotations for locations might be the most brilliant and intricately surprising.
When I was listening to “Wondrous Place,” I thought, “man, this sounds so much like a 60s song, only to find out it’s a cover of a 60s song. What made you decide to cover Billy Fury? (Jimmy Jones is actually the first one that sang it but Fury’s version seems to be definitive.) Thank you for introducing me to him by the way.
Our label has a ‘sync’ person and their job is to pair songs/ musicians with people who make video stuff.
Disney put out a call for someone to recreate that song for a new tv advert about disney plus. We got asked to make a demo to pitch to disney … in 2 days.
We scrambled to do that. Unfortunately they decided to go with the original. However our sync person pitched our cover to a new BBC tv show ‘everything I know about love’.
They were really into it so paid for us to record a studio version of the cover. When the show aired we thought we should put it out so people could shazam the song and find us
I noticed sometimes you guys switch up the instruments, but mostly still play the same ones. What would you call your “defining instrument?”
Mine is currently the bass guitar. I started as the guitarist but a few years ago we decided to stick to synth and bass. Sarah’s a better keyboard player than me so I took on the role of bassist.
Would you say your song writing process is usually complicated or do you prefer to keep it as simple as possible? Could you say that it really just depends?
The simplest can be when we’re improvising together and everything comes together at once with an electrifying feeling. Though because of lockdown we got used to writing along then bringing parts to each other… which has made things more complicated. When I’m emotional it can be easier as I’m trying to find a chord progression that matches my mood and I can just keep feeling it out till something stirs up the emotion in me even more. Also, when I’ve found a bunch of art I love I feel really inspired everything seems much simpler.
