Charlie Hickey on Podcasts, Pasadena, and Pop Music
Charlie Hickey is a 21-year-old singer/songwriter from South Pasadena, California. He released his debut EP, titled Count The Stairs, on January 26, 2021. The project was produced by Marshall Vore and contains six tracks, two of which feature Phoebe Bridgers on backing vocals.
I stumbled across Charlie Hickey’s music completely accidently. After he covered a song from one of my favorite bands, I began listening to Charlie’s own work. I noticed a certain sensitivity that caught my attention, leaving me wanting to hear more. Luckily, the next week he dropped his debut EP. Soon enough, I had emailed his managers to set up an interview. Here’s what Charlie had to say about songwriting, growing up in Pasadena, the genius of pop music, comedy podcasts, Pinegrove, and more.
(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Ellie Fallon: To start us off, what is your weirdest hobby?
Charlie Hickey: Hmm… I want to give you a good answer to this. I don’t know if this counts, but I’m obsessed with this very specific scene of alt comedians.
What’s it called?
Well, it doesn’t really have a name, it’s just like a scene of these C-list celebrity comedians? They’re all friends. I don’t know, I don’t want to call them C-list celebrities, because that’s insulting. I don’t even register on the alphabet of celebrities, so I guess it’s okay for me to say that. But these comedians like Mitra Jouhari, Whitmer Thomas, and Cat Cohen and Patti Harrison all have a really bizarre, absurd kind of surreal comedy podcasts. And I listen to them religiously. It’s sometimes like the only thing I can count on listening to.
I’ll have to check that out. Let’s talk about your EP! What made you want to do this? Has it been a long-term goal of yours?
I mean, I think there have been different sorts of stages or different levels of my clarity about wanting to do this. I grew up in a musical household and I’ve been playing music since I could talk in some way or another. But when I was around 12 or 13, I went to a middle school that had this after-school rock band program that helped me solidify wanting to do that more. I was like the only sixth grader in the advanced bands so I felt like hot shit.
Were you playing guitar at that point?
Yeah, I was playing guitar and singing. I think that was some of my first exposure to really playing in front of audiences and stuff. And then there was a next chapter after that. In my last year of middle school I saw Phoebe Bridgers play for the first time. It was an exposure to a type of songwriting that I wasn’t necessarily familiar with, and it really inspired me. That’s how our friendship began. I think I started to take the songwriting aspect of it a little more seriously after that point. And then throughout high school I recorded music and self-released it.
Did you go to a performing arts high school?
I did go to a performing arts high school called LACHSA in Los Angeles. After I graduated high school I went to CalArts for music, but then I dropped out. So that was kind of the final decision to really do it.
Have you been writing more songs during COVID?
Definitely. I’ve written a lot of music and also made demos that are in various stages, so I've got a lot of recordings.
That’s awesome. Do you have a home setup for recording?
No, actually I go over to my friend Marshall’s house and we use his recording setup.
I heard that you two collaborated a lot on the EP. How long have you been working with him [Marshall Vore]?
I first started working with Marshall when I was like 16. I met him through Phoebe [Bridgers]. That was in his earlier days of producing music. We started recording some stuff together, more just for fun because we both really liked what each other did. We became really close friends because we really jived musically and emotionally. Eventually we started writing together. The first song we wrote was “10 Feet Tall,” the second single from my EP. So that kinda marked the beginning of a collaborative writing relationship with him.
I want to ask you about your songwriting process, do you usually start with lyrics or a melody?
I always have trouble answering this question. It’s very disorganized. I guess occasionally I’ll come up with some words first. I’ve actually been doing some creative writing recently. Sometimes that ends up turning into music, but usually when I write songs the lyrics and music are very connected. I’ll be sitting there strumming and writing words down and singing. Creative writing is cool because it exercises a completely different part of my brain. I think when you’re writing a song you just write differently. Generally I think it’s hard to take words that are completely separate from a song and write a song with them, although it’s possible.
Returning to the topic of working with Marshall, do you find it hard to open yourself up when collaborating on a song? I feel like that’s so intimate.
Yeah, I’ve done quite a few co-writing sessions, but when I’m writing with Marshall it doesn’t so much feel like a co-writing session. Sometimes us writing a song together just means saying, “Oh you should come up with something else for that line.” It feels like we’re both working toward a common goal. There’s not a whole lot of ego involved. I feel like we both just want to make the songs as good as possible, and we have a very similar definition of what that means.
Do you want to talk a little bit about growing up in Pasadena and how that influenced you musically?
I mean, I don’t know if it was like Pasadena … actually, you know what, that’s totally not true. Pasadena has a strangely tight-knit musical community, like there’s the South Pasadena Eclectic Music Festival where all the local bands play. I used to play that and so did Phoebe. Phoebe is also from Pasadena; we played the South Pasadena Eclectic Festival together.
It’s really cool that you had opportunities to play when you were younger.
I’m very grateful for it. My parents and their friends were super supportive. I was definitely encouraged, which is good.
I’d like to ask you a bit about Phoebe, if that’s alright. You two met when you were in middle school?
Yeah, we met when I was 13. And it’s all because of Pasadena. We met through a family friend. They were like “you have to come hear this girl Phoebe”, so I went to see her with my mom. My 13-year-old self was completely blown away. Just seeing someone who was closer to my age doing what I wanted to do was really powerful. And then I went and did a cover of her song on YouTube. She sort of knew who I was at that point, but we had never had more than five minutes of conversation. After that she asked if I would come play that song with her at a show. That’s sort of how our friendship started. I feel like… I know I wasn’t her first fan, but I feel like I saw it. I saw that she was really special. It makes me feel like there’s some sort of justice in the world, like sometimes you just know. I felt like everybody around me knew that Phoebe was gonna completely blow up, and sometimes you’re just right.
Should we talk about other music that you’re enjoying right now? Favorite bands?
Well, Pinegrove is my favorite band. I love Pinegrove, and I also love a lot of pop music. MUNA is one of my favorite bands. I listen to all sorts of sorts of stuff. I love hyperpop, and I love SOPHIE. But I think Elliot Smith was my first favorite songwriter. John Prine is also one of my favorite songwriters. And Conor Oberst, of Bright Eyes, of course.
Totally, I think folk artists can learn a lot from pop music.
Oh yeah. I mean, two of my other favorite songwriters are Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne because their melodies and songcrafting are unparalleled. There are people who have the ability to write very dense, meaningful things, but it’s important to strike that balance. That is my favorite type of song:something that strikes the balance between a pop song and a really dense artistic thing.
With pop, I feel like everything is immediately on display. You don’t necessarily have to go looking for the answer.
Totally. I think it’s much harder to write a song like that than it is to write a song that’s really dense and deep. That might be a controversial thing to say, but not many people can write a good pop song. It really takes skill…I think writing a pop song takes as much skill as being a virtuoso classical pianist or something.
I definitely agree with that.
I don’t trust anybody who doesn’t like Avril Lavigne.
•
It is on that note that Charlie and I left it. I am so grateful to Charlie for answering all my questions, and I hope hearing some of his words has inspired you to listen to his music. Here is the music video for “Ten Feet Tall”.