Charly Bliss: You should mine your experiences to the point of ridiculousness

Falling in love, overcoming fear, making friends as an adult, and focusing on the minutiae with Charly Bliss front person Eva Hendricks.

Editor’s note: This week’s interview is with Charly Bliss front person Eva Hendricks. Yesterday I published a review of the band’s new album, Forever, which is out everywhere now. You can read about it here.

Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Enjoy.

ES: Good morning. I understand you’re on Australia time right now!

EH: I sure am — it’s 9 a.m. here.

ES: I almost wore pajamas to this interview in solidarity, but I chickened out.

EH: Laughs. The thought is enough. I appreciate it.

ES: They’re these stripped Ralph Lauren numbers. Matching top and bottoms. They have buttons.

EH: Oh my gosh. That’s so elegant.

ES: Right? But how are you? I understand it is – or was (?) – your birthday.

EH: It's true. Well, I don’t know, you tell me. I was born in America, obviously, in Connecticut. And so technically in America, it is still my birthday, because it’s 14 hours behind the Gold Coast where I live.

ES: I’m very sorry I didn’t get you anything.

EH: Don’t worry about it, I’m getting paid big bucks to be here.

ES: How old are you now?

EH: I’m 31.

ES: I found 31 to be sort of a weird year birthday-wise. What did you do to celebrate?

EH: Yesterday I went out for drinks with my soon-to-be mother and sister-in-law, and then I went out immediately after for more drinks with all my friends. We got some pizza… I’m getting married in October, and my very close friend is making our wedding cake, so she made a sample version as my birthday cake. It was delicious. And I was up way too late. I'm lightly hung over for this wonderful interview.

ES: If I was hung over the day after my birthday, I would be canceling all of my appointments. Laughs.

EH: No way. Never cancel.

ES: This feels a little serendipitous though, because I’m getting married in two days.

EH: Okay. I have so many questions to ask you.

ES: Lay it on me.

EH: Well planning a wedding is so fucking stressful. Everyone warned me about this, but I thought “No, it’s not going to be stressful for me, this is going to be fun.” And I was wrong. I guess the main question I want to ask you is: are you feeling stressed or are you able to be excited? Because my dream is that, after many weeks of making 10,000 decisions, I will be able to enjoy myself. That everything will be set in stone, I’ll have made all of the choices, and I can just focus on the task at hand. Is that how you feel now?

ES: I can confirm that I’m not stressed out, though a big part of that probably stems from the fact my fiancée is amazing at planning and logistics. We’ve had a couple of surprises in the past week – yesterday I found out I accidentally booked too many hotel rooms for some of our vendors, for example. Luckily we got it sorted…

I think it helps to have a clear vision of what you want out of the wedding. Like, we know it would’ve been easier to elope, but we wanted a formal ceremony because it felt important to us. We knew we wanted to minimize our stress heading into the day so that we could maximize our enjoyment, and have as much quality time with our guests as possible. That was our North Star. It encouraged us to simplify as much as we could and I think it mostly worked. If I was really stressed I probably wouldn’t be doing this interview, but I feel like I have some time to chat which is amazing.

EH: That makes me happy to hear. We feel very similar. There were moments in the beginning where we considered eloping. And I think we share that North Star. I’ve been living in Australia for the last four years and I’ve got friends and family here. But so many of my friends are still in America, in the Northeast. When else will we have a reason to get everyone in one room to meet each other? I want everyone to be together. It helps to remember that when you’re like “We are spending an astronomical amount of money on this event.”

ES: So is your partner from Australia?

EH: Yes. In 2019, Charly Bliss played a festival in Byron Bay and I went on Tinder for the first time in my life. Callum, my fiancé, was the first person I saw, and I thought “Awooga that is a very hot person.” I swiped right.

We flew to Sydney the next morning, so by the time we matched, I was really far away from where he was. But he wound up driving ten hours to come to our show. We've been together ever since. And that was on my birthday five years ago!

Eva and Callum.

ES: What was it about Callum that triggered an “Awooga”? Was it the six-pack abs? Was it the surfboard?

EH: Oh my God… All of the above?

When I met Cal, I had been living in New York for a decade and — big love to New Yorkers everywhere — but he radiated health in a way I had not experienced in a very long time. Laughs. Australians are just so healthy, they spend so much time in the sun and are so clearly grounded and well-adjusted compared to everyone I knew in New York.

I think the biggest thing was how he acted when he came to our show. I had only dated people who, in the past, would stand off to the side and not participate in Charly Bliss shows. Callum was not like that. He immediately was so excited to meet all the other people who were there for the show and so proud even though we didn’t really know each other. He was so talkative with my bandmates and so wonderful and clearly wanted to be a part of it instead of standing off to the side and acting like he wasn’t there. I was like “This guy is pretty good.” Two weeks later he flew to New York and met my whole family.

ES: A whirlwind romance.

EH: It really was. The fact we had spent ten days together in person before I moved here in March of 2020 is fucking insane. Laughs. Like, that it worked. But it did.

ES: How has your relationship with Callum changed, or informed your work as an artist, particularly as a lyricist? Because I feel like Forever follows a very clear journey. Like, we’re in a good place right now but that was not always the case. Laughs.

EH: I think I am just so much happier now than I was the last time we put out an album. So much of that is Callum, and so much of that is also just the fact that, before we made this record, we were touring constantly, and it was sort of disorienting.

In 2019 we were on tour for 10 or 11 months. On any given day it was like “Where am I?” It was a wonderful and such a privilege to be touring on that level but you can lose your community or your roots. Even when you are at home, you feel like you’re transient. You’re home for three days, there’s no point even trying to see anyone because you’ll be gone again so soon.

Being in Australia for a year and a half straight was the first time I had been anywhere that long as an adult. I had a chance to make friends for the first time as an adult, to build a community, and figure out what my life looks like when I am in the same place for a while. Those were things I didn’t know I needed, but now that I have them, I can’t believe I ever survived without them.

There’s so much on this album that is about Cal and about falling in love and feeling seen and understood and freer as a result of that love. But there’s also so much on the album about friendship and having friends for the first time as an adult. I feel so much closer to who I was as an eight-year-old these days than who I was pretending to be when we released Young Enough. When I listen to this record, I can hear how free I felt and how much I was coming back to myself. It makes me really proud.

ES: The thing about the album that really struck me is how it blends joy and vulnerability. There are not a lot of bands that can pull off a line like “You can protect yourself from things you would like/If you’re obsessed with only doing what’s right.” And that’s the first line in the song!

EH: When I moved, I felt I had made my world so small. I was so scared. I felt like anything going wrong would completely knock me to the ground. I was so anxious and nervous all the time and felt really… Unmoored as a person. I tried to protect myself by making my life as safe as I could; to remove all the possible variables that could hurt me. I have OCD and the ironic thing about it is that the more you protect yourself, the worse off you are. It’s better to be knocked over and realize you will be okay…

It was unlike me to be throwing myself into these situations, moving across the world. But it was so gratifying. I was swimming in shark-infested waters, with waves that were really, really big. I was scared out of my mind, but I survived. I’m still alive. Those experiences rewired my brain. I realized that protecting yourself doesn't even work. There is no protecting yourself in life. It's all a total illusion. That was a big theme on this record. Like, fuck it, I might as well open myself up to getting hurt.

You should always be challenging the idea of who you think you are. It was terrifying to try and make new friends in Australia. Last night at my birthday I kept looking around the table thinking “I fought so hard to open myself up to these people who now mean everything to me.” It’s like the only way out is through… The only way to change is to throw yourself in.

ES: That’s so real. It’s incredible when you find people who make you feel like you're seen and are free to be yourself.

Charly Bliss

I know you’ve discussed this with other media, but it sounds like Young Enough was a dark period for the band. How were things different this time around?

EH: Yeah. That record was painful for so many reasons. The interview process around that record was painful, subject matter-wise, and then writing the album was so nerve-wracking. Everyone says you have your whole life to write your first album, and then you have to write your second album in nine months or less, and that was definitely our experience. When we made Guppy, our first record, it felt like there was no one watching. Then suddenly it felt like a lot of people were watching. It’s hard to not let that affect you.

I would have given anything for the gap between Young Enough and Forever to have been shorter. But ultimately I think it helped. It takes time to make something that you’re proud of. There was also so much going on in the world outside of the band at that point. When things are falling apart every other day, it’s hard to believe the album you’re making is important. So the whole thing was a bit of a reality check. We had space to experience life — Sam has become a dad twice over, Spencer moved to L.A. and back to New York — and I think that was really to the benefit of the music.

I would say the other thing that really helped us fall back in love with making music was working with our producers, Jake [Luppen] and Caleb [Wright] from Hippo Campus. They’re a bit younger than us, and their approach to making music is so playful…

Historically, my relationship with singing in the studio has been pretty negative. Everyone else is done their parts, and they’re looking at you like, “Now it's your turn.” It always makes me lose my voice. I’m so nervous and then I feel like I’m holding everything up. Jake is the lead singer of Hippo Campus and he understood that pressure. He was like “I get it, I’ve been there, this experience is not going to be like that. Just trust me.” I can hear that trust on the album. I was having fun singing. It all pointed towards us being able to enjoy this process.

ES: Has anyone given you good advice, either around songwriting or performing that has stuck with you?

EH: I don’t know if this is the right answer, but there’s something that has stuck with me, in terms of ticket sales… Laughs.

I remember we were on tour with Wolf Parade, who we are huge fans of, and there was one show where they came down to our green room. They were all sheepish, and they told us “We’re so embarrassed there’s not going to be that many people here tonight. We’re so sorry you guys.” It was like, Are you kidding? You’re Wolf Parade! We don’t give a fuck. We were so stoked just to be out there with them. And then they told us that they had just been out with Arcade Fire — who I don’t care about anymore, for obvious reasons — and that Arcade Fire was coming into Wolf Parade’s dressing room to apologize for low ticket sales. And they were on a stadium tour.

It was a great lesson for me at the time in terms of remembering no matter how big you get, there’s something about making music that will always humble you. Laughs.

Another day I will never forget is when we got Best New Music on Pitchfork. We felt like we made it. And then that night, we played in Aspen to one person. Laughs. I think if you can learn to have a sense of humor about things, it will be to your benefit. Sometimes you’re on top and sometimes you’re on the very bottom. As long as you have people around that you can laugh with, you’ll be fine.

ES: I don’t want to take up too much more of your time, but I want to talk about “Back There Now” and the very Taylor Swift moment of “A boy would hang me if I gave him the rope!”

EH: Yesssssss.

ES: That was so sick. I heard it yesterday and it was like… Mouth agape.

EH: Ah! Thank you! That makes me feel so good. You made my day. Best birthday present.

ES: I know you’re a fan of Taylor, but I wonder if you could tell me what she means to you as a songwriter. How has she inspired you?

EH: I first started making music in 2011. We were playing shows in New York and I was attending NYU. Every band we played with was all dudes. And I remember feeling like I was holding the band back, feeling like it was to our detriment that I was the front person.

ES: That’s so sad.

EH: It’s true! I felt really embarrassed. I felt like the things I was writing about were so feminine, my voice was so feminine… Obviously so much has changed between now and then… But I think Taylor Swift's music, and specifically her lyrics, showed me the feminine experience is important and rich and worth examining on a microscopic level. I think the specificity of her lyrics and the way she captures all of these moments… It hurts and it hits people and it sticks with them because it’s so specific and real and true to their experiences. I completely fell in love with her honesty and her vulnerability. She is a master when it comes to capturing the way women experience love and relationships. I feel like it elevated the genre, to be honest. Laughs. Like “Oh, this is the most interesting thing in the world, you should mine your experiences to the point of ridiculousness — that is what people care about.” Ridiculous things that have been reduced to total minutia are still important.

ES: Speaking of minutia, what is the first song you’re going to dance to at wedding?

EH: I’ve been stressing over this. We’re walking down the aisle to “Book of Love” by The Magnetic Fields, and our first dance song is “The Whole of the Moon” by The Waterboys. As far as I know, Jake and another musician, Raffaella, are going to sing it. That’ll be really special.

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Eva Hendricks is a musician. She lives on Australia’s Gold Coast.

Listen to the band’s new album, Forever, wherever u get ur chunes.