Name: Charlotte Brandi

Nationality: German
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Charlotte Brandi's new album An den Alptraum ("To the nightmare") is out February 10th via Listen.

If you enjoyed this interview with Charlotte Brandi and would like to find out more about her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, and Facebook.   



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

My writing usually emerges from a period of silence, when sounds and noises in general feel fresh again. My songs are often byproducts of my life, they don‘t exactly love big focused attention. They seem to buckle under pressure and tend to crumble easily. It‘s either incidental or super intentional writing for a theatre piece or so what brings the quickest outcome.

Inspirations are so plentifull, it is impossible to say what I write about. But since I am a person who is quite bad in abstract thinking, it is safe to assume that most of my lyrics come from a place that I either lived through or at least was able to feel.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

The start always feels light and easy. Like improvisation. Maybe like a cook atwork or something.

What if I only had a carrot, sugar and an onion? What good can come out of this? Oh, that carrot reminds me of rural German cuisine, so why not play with the idea of tradition and spice it up with something else? While I am in Lucerne, working on a theatre piece, why not write about death in the mountains and the fact that we will all vanish into the unknown? Let‘s play around with that a bit and see what happens.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

I am an inflammable, curious, passionate kinda gal. My whole day is one big research. It happens in the back of my mind. I am constantly wondering how to live, what love is, how time is spent best and also, whence I can get a good hit of instant strong emotions.

It helps that I've grown a bit older by now, so I can hold feelings longer within me, let‘s say, until I reached my studio door. Once I'm inside, I'll jam on Daddy's guitar and if that doesn‘t do it for me, switch to the piano next and if that quickly bores me, just try an all acapella version of an idea. And so on …

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating?

I truly admire actors and I have watched them transform into anything out of playfulness in a way that continues to make my jaw drop. That mix of playfulness and discipline can be the alchemistic sweetspot of the two poles.

Without openness, you will get stuck. But without discipline you won‘t get anything done. But the last ingredient on top of both should always be megalomania. I often miss that in women, I have to say.

What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

Oxygen is good, but not too much. I never smoke when I work alone, only when I managed to create something – like a first demo draft that makes my blood boil. Then I need a cigarette and preferably a beer to celebrate that new creature that mommy just made and have a little party with myself.

Before that state, I just try not to be too hungry or dehydrated. But I figured that working hungry can be quite beneficial.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

I always start with trust in myself and forgiveness for whatever happens next. I start with the will to explore a new part of myself, with the curiosity of encountering a new facet of Charlotte that I haven‘t met yet.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

They tend to emerge from a place of their own.

I have too much respect for lyrics now. They like to show themselves, like little children. Oftentimes, they are mediocre but truly heart-felt. Then, I try to give them the best musical company I can come up with. Sometimes, they are just outerworldly and exquisite (that is rare, of course, I only had that two or three times in my life), then I cherish them by enhancing their beauty with simpler music not to pull focus away from them.

My song “WIND” is one of those rare examples.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

It‘s a slippery slope. I don‘t even know whether any one person has got more than two or three truly good lyrics inside them.

You can easily say anything that just pretends that it is deep, but I tend to detect the fraud and I totally hate such songs. And of course, you can be much too arbitrary and plain (which is a German disease, I find) and not add anything interesting to the human family …

In the end, banger lyrics cannot be forced. They approach you like a long missed friend and make you feel complete for a second.
 
Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

To be honest, if I answered that question, I would scare the magic away, I‘m afraid. I am proud to say that I enter a space, that even I know so little about and any word about the process of the first creative eruption feels like flashing a light into a deers eye at night in the woods …

All I can say is that I spend about four hours in the studio and feel super exhausted afterwards. But in the end, I have the demo of a new song and I can finally smoke my cigarette and drink my two beers while I listen to it over and over again. And while I am listening with the “this is complete for today” kind of mindset, I immediately find mistakes or other things that I need to work on some more RIGHT NOW. So usually, the first cigarette is only the beginning of the next working phase and I will leave the studio around midnight – if I‘m lucky.

Oh, and I think, I learned to question myself and I do not believe everything that I think or feel. That helps to shape stuff! But who knows, maybe if I would completely fall into my emotions, maybe I would be even better than I am today? This is one of a few riddles in life that I am working on.

I will let you know as soon as I have the result of another experiment. Maybe an album without cerebral judgement next time. Let‘s hope it‘s not going to be awful!

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

Ideas as a concept sound brainy to me. They mostly come before I even touch an instrument. As soon as I enter the sensual space of music, I just trust my messed up taste and go with the flow. After all, I do know, that not many people here like the things I like.

So I already have an advantage over others – or a disadvantage, depending on your perspective.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

As tacky as that may sound, yes, for me, there is definitely something spiritual involved. I feel the most “me” when I write. I cherish the fact that there is only one Charlotte Brandi in the world and regardless how imperfect she might be as a human, she owns an internal signature that needs to express itself like a plant needs water.

In the “Bhagavad Gita”, there is a saying that God presents itself through you as you. God created you and now wants you to be yourself, nothing and nobody else. Whatever that means, that gives me at least some rough direction for who Charlotte is and who she is not.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

Oh, that is mostly worldly stuff. Time, money, those things. When I am running out of money, that song is what it is. I am not one of those artists who sacrifice their wellbeing on the altar of creativity. Not anymore, at least.

I have a little sacrifice-trauma because of how I lived my life while I had “Me And My Drummer”. Nothing good came out of not taking care of myself back then, eventually, that killed the relationship to my bandmate and now, the band is gone forever.

That is why I try to balance out my resources and my artistic goals very carefully. But, as with many things, that gets a lot easier, when you grow older, it comes natural to me now, when things must end and how.

Does this sound old and lazy?

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

It‘s an automated process, I believe. As most of the process in general feels automated by now. I will pick up the song again and again, because deep down, something in me just KNOWS that more work needs to be done. Until it doesn‘t anymore.

It also has a lot to do with luck, I think. The stars have to align in your favor to present to you the right people that a song requires. If the wrong people are around, a song can only be so good. Mixing engineers, drummers, string players, those are usually my touchstone kind of people.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

It depends. When I have a strong, competent person in front of me, I can develop trust during the process.

Mostly, unfortunately, I don‘t meet a lot of strong personalities when it comes to mixing here in Germany. People tend to underestimate it and tell themselves “Oh well, anyone can mix, right? I mean, I know how to do other stuff, so – how hard can it be?” But the difference between those people and a person who is truly A MIXING ENGINEER, is just huge, I‘m telling ya. So I need to watch over my songs like a hawk until they get what they deserve.

The strongest, most professional person I met in those terms was Jon Joseph from L.A. who mixed three songs of “AN DAS ANGSTLAND”, my first EP. What he did truly excited me. And he gave those songs a certain sound, that actually went beyond mixing.



I only had to carve out the voice enough out of heaps of nice, analogue effects and beautiful punchy drums, so in the end, I made it much more pop than he would have done it. I felt, I had to, otherwise, people wouldn‘t have understood my lyrics. But another part of me felt sorry for that decision, because I truly appreciated his ballsiness. I miss that in women, as I said before.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

What drains me is when I feel like I have taken care of so many things, I have done my share, I have brought beautiful fresh music to the face of the planet and then I realize, that I have signed a contract with the business side of things and that side requires stuff that I tent to struggle with. That side needs a superficial, yet catchy language to get people the tiniest bit interested in music.

I used to struggle a lot with that. I am more the Joni Mitchell type than the Nick Cave type, I would say. I am just a gal who loves to write songs and sing them. Others must help me with the rest.

So when an album is finished, I fall into a hole of weariness, laying awake at night, worrying, if the rest of the campaign works out in a way, that I don‘t have to blame anyone for anything crucial, especially me, for not being megalomaniac enough. That phase always feels scariest.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I come from “anarchy”. People like me have the opportunity to grow into great artists, because we already bring the element of chaos to the table. When not in balance, that element can stay “sloppy”. So I try to be strict with myself and learn and discipline myself as good as I can.

I just read Will Smith's biography “WILL”, in which he says, that his father used to tell him: “99% are as good as zero”. I think that‘s bullcrap. And mathematically wrong, also.

My being thrives on freedom as well as on structure. Everyday is an opportunity to let both of them work together once again, so nobody gets hurt.