Charly Bliss on maturing, moving across the world, and new album 'Forever' • Interview • DIY Magazine

When most bands start out, they probably don’t expect that their members will end up split 15,000km across the Pacific Ocean. But such is the current, far-reaching geographical status of Charly Bliss. For the Brooklyn-formed quartet, things began to change back in 2019 following the release of their second album ‘Young Enough’. Arriving just two years after their breakthrough debut ‘Guppy’, the record saw the quartet trying on a new sound for size, pushing the boundaries of their grunge-around-the-edges pop into something slicker and bolder, juxtaposing the sometimes devastating nature of its lyrics. As ever, the release came with a slew of touring, with the band away from home for almost ten months out of that year’s twelve. But it was the cogs of their personal lives that had begun to turn in unexpected directions.

“It’s pretty funny looking back and thinking about how much we had planned versus what actually happened,” laughs vocalist Eva Hendricks, from her home in Brisbane, where she’s now based. “Sam [Hendricks, her brother and drummer] and his now-wife found out that they were going to have a baby when we were right in the middle of releasing, then when we were on tour, I met my now-fiancé. Sam had his daughter on February 1st and I flew to Australia on March 3rd 2020 thinking I was coming here for six weeks to just test out my relationship – to see if it was just a long distance thing or something real. Then, of course, things really started moving with the pandemic and I ended up being stuck here for a year and a half…”

As with many artists, Covid put a stop to Charly Bliss’ professional plans, but it also turned their personal worlds upside down. “Reflecting upon how much has changed in the past five years among the four of us and our personal lives is pretty wild. We were all apart for so much of that time, and we were writing [our new] record over Zoom,” Eva nods. But despite having to get to grips with an entirely new dynamic, the band – completed by guitarist Spencer Fox and bassist Dan Shure – soldiered on; now out the other side and with third album ‘Forever’ in their hands, Eva talks of the shift as having an actively positive impact, helping the four musicians to find their footing as individuals, and finally fostering some semblance of stability and support.

“I think the reason we were able to make this album, and the reason I’m so in love with it, is because we were forced to be people outside of this band for a while,” she suggests. “When we were last writing, we were touring so much that I didn’t really have any strong friendships in New York or a crew that I felt had my back. When you’re leaving every two weeks because you’re about to go on tour again, what kind of community can you build or maintain around you? You’re always in flux and always in chaos, so having a home base and being forced to make friends again as someone in my late twenties was just such a shift. I had people that I saw for many weeks at a time for the first time in my life since I was maybe 19, and I think that was really to my benefit, from both a writing perspective and a mental health perspective.”

I’ve been able to experience so much more joy by allowing myself more room to make mistakes.” – Eva Hendricks

It was upon this foundation that the group began to approach ‘Forever’ – a record that bubbles with nostalgia while also remembering that life is too short not to have fun. Written and recorded across various sessions that spanned around two years, the quartet were able to explore all manner of ideas without the pressure of a hard deadline, meaning that the album could continue to shift and develop naturally at every stage.

Eva’s own personal growth can also be felt within its lyrics. Where previously, her stories were often ultra self-aware and self-deprecating, within ‘Forever’, her lyrics offer up some grace for the not-so-fictional characters involved. “On ‘Guppy’, I was making fun of myself. Kind of like, ‘I’ll say this mean thing about myself before anyone else can’. Then on ‘Young Enough’, I think I was just so sad that you can hear that,” she notes. “I think this is the first record where I feel okay with my shortcomings. I’m not any less aware of them, but I feel pretty okay about them.

“Another thing that’s such a relief is getting older. Of course you never fully escape [those feelings], but it gets easier, it gets so much less overwhelming and all-consuming,” she says. “I do think that I’ve been able to experience so much more joy by allowing myself more room to make mistakes and not think that it means something permanent about what kind of person that I am. There’s so much on this record that is about feeling in the messy middle of a lot of big questions in your life. I wrestle a lot with what it means to be in a band, and pursue the career we’ve chosen – are we a success? Are we a failure? Am I happy? Was I unhappy? Where do I land now? A lot of this album is about acceptance, and being willing to see things for how they are, and being okay with not always knowing the perfect answer. I think that there’s a joy in releasing yourself from trying to find that.”

It’s this open-hearted spirit that’s imbued within the album’s title. Even with the band now split across the world, the past five years have brought them infinitely closer together. “The word ‘forever’ can mean so many different things to so many different people; it can be a really hopeful title, it can be a really scary word,” Eva adds. “I think we experienced all versions of what that means throughout making this record. It took forever to make,” she laughs, “and that was very frustrating. But I think because of that – and having made it out the other end – there is a sense among the four of us that we can do fucking anything. If we can make it through this and still love each other, and want to keep going, and believe this is the best thing we’ve ever made – which we really do – there’s this really hopeful sense of that word among the four of us. We are in this together forever; we have each other’s backs and nothing can stop us.” 

‘Forever’ is out on 16th August via Lucky Number.

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