In this interview spotlight, we chat with Charlotte Savary about her new project, influences, and more.
Full Q&A, links, and the video for Coming Home can be found below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
I’m from Paris, France, and I create folk and pop songs.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to stay the course?
I always sung and wrote lyrics at home when I was young, at one point my brother asked me to come and sing in his band, I did. We used to play concerts on the streets, little by little, a series of encounters and collaboration proposals let to being a touring artist with Wax tailor and Felipecha. I’ve been a recording and touring artist for 10 years, making a living, which is something I never even dreamed of as a teenager, and now I would not imagine going on without singing and writing songs.
Who or what are your biggest influences when it comes to your creativity?
My influences comes from all that I’ve listened to, seen or read, and also from what I’ve experiences, this is not very original, but my inspiration comes from the times when I am away from my life at home. For instance being on tour so much offers a lot of new faces, sceneries and experiences, and the downtime is very good for clearing my head for creation.
How is your new release different than previous ones? Did you set out to accomplish anything specific?
It is different because it is entirely me, solo. All the bands I participated in before, they all helped me grow as an artist, they were (Clover, Felipecha) and are still (Wax tailor) amazing experiences. But there was a comfort in being in a band, signed on labels, surrounded, taken care of. Today I am on my own, telling a very personal story, It hardly gets any more personal that that actually. And I did it independently, I had the chance to work with amazing artists on this album, the videos, the artwork. That’s what kept me believing there was something there that people might want to hear.
Do you face any challenges as an indie musician in a digital age? On the flip side, how has technology helped you (if it has)?
The challenge is to keep up with the evolution of the digital tools of the musician and place your energy, time and money where it will be effective, but also to keep a distance when needed to regain inspiration. Contemplation, slowing down, switching off connection to the world is much needed and salutary to creativity. It is indeed, schizophrenic to be an artist in the digital age.
If technology helped me ? I’ve always been fond of the internet, actually studied multimedia, I created my own website back in 1999, it was a music bootleg exchange website, people could contact me and we would trade live bootlegs through the mail, burning cds to complete our collections. I used to chat on music newsgroups when everybody else my age was dating, and when Napster rocketed, that was, for me, amazing, I could fin 15 different covers of “Paint It Black” and download them (back then the music databases were not comprehensive, the records companies where quite hesitant, afraid of losing business). Even my memoire was on Napster ! And then I started working for one of the first music download services. But I was doing music on the side…
How do you feel about streaming services? Any romantic attachments to the physical formats: vinyl, 8-track, cassettes, CDs?
I feel they ‘re one of the many means of getting our music out there, I do wish they would pay artists more. Shareholders are the ones making profit off artists’ creations. This wrong, but not new to the world. I still use them, Tidal mainly because it pays artists more, and I like the fact I can listen to HIFI audio, but I am attached to albums, I enjoy vinyls, their huge covers where the artwork is really magnified.
Where can we follow you online and hear more music?
- Official website (charlottesavary.com)
- Facebook (facebook.com/charlottesavary.music)
- Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCViRwSZmuxaVOG7kcDonJsQ)
- Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/charlottesavary
- Bandcamp : charlottesavary.bandcamp.com
Anything else before we sign off?
Be well 🙂
