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INTERVIEW: Charli XCX

9 April 2013 | 3:00 pm | Lauren Payne

British musician Charli XCX kindly gave up some of her time to have a good ol' chat with us.

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On Tumblr, kids tend to flow through photos that they think are funny, cute, or artistic, or will just make them look cool. It’s a funny site and it has taken a liking to many artists, especially CHARLI XCX.

The British songstress has been making music that has been described as “goth-pop”, but that is a very loose description. Her debut album True Romance will be hitting our shores this month, and it’s a light-hearted album full of dance tracks with the hint of pop. CHARLI XCX is a unique musician that takes inspiration from 90s films has a voice that twinkles like glitter. Before some studio time, CHARLI XCX has a chat with us about this wonderful life of hers.

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Let’s start with the obvious question first. The XCX, I read that you came up with it when you were younger, have you had a lot of people asking about it?

Yeah, everyone always asks me actually. It basically came from.. when I was 14 I used it as my MSN name. Do you remember MSN? I was obessed with it when I was 14, so I would use it as my MSN name and when I signed off I put Kiss Charli Kixx, so XCX. And then when I was younger, when I was 14 I got contacted by this guy called Chaz when I first started putting my music online, you know on Myspace, and he was like, “I want you to come and play at this rave in East London,” and I was like, “alright okay,” and I said yes. So he asked me what I wanted to put on the flyer, and I didn’t have a name at that point so I was like, okay put Charli XCX and so it’s kind of stuck from there.

So do you think it’ll stick with you years from now?

Yeah well I’m not going to do a Prince and change my name you know? I’m just gonna stick with it because it’s kind of cute.

Tumblr seems to be reacting to your fashion choices quite a bit, people seem to really like it. Where do you get your style inspiration from?

I get my style inspiration from my favourite movies and my favourite movie characters. When I was younger I was obsessed with the Spice Girls so the reason I wear my buffalo shoes is not only because their fucking awesome and kick ass [laughs], but also because I love the Spice Girls and I’m paying homage to their amazing aesthetic. But mainly I get my fashion inspiration from films, you know my favourite movies like Clueless, The Craft, The Addams Family, Wednesday Addams is a style icon I think. Beetlejuice as well like, Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, she’s amazing and Empire Records. All of the characters in those film I completely love, Cher Horowitz and Liv Tyler in Empire Records, I think that whole aesthetic is really cute. I don’t know I guess I just kind of started wearing shit anyway.

I’ve also read that when you’re writing music, you can picture the music video in your head. Is there a video ‘vision’ you can tell us about?

Well I can’t tell you about it because we’re actually gonna make it! So it would kind of ruin the video. It’s kind of more at the time of writing a song, if I can’t picture the video in my head then I don’t feel connected enough to the song. So for ‘Nuclear Seasons’ I had all these crazy ideas like I wanted purple skies and this epic scenery, this epic landscape and waves and oceans, and that’s what we went for in the video.

I just feel like I have to visually click with a song because when I write my lyrics I’m always looking at my favourite music videos, my favourite photographers, my favourite film to kind of get inspiration, so I guess I have to come out with a visual representation of the song at the end as well.

It sounds like you get a lot of inspiration from films, are you a film buff?

No I’m not a movie buff at all! My boyfriend is a film director so he’s the movie buff and I kind of learn from him, but no I’m not a movie buff at all. I like what I like you know, I like Sofia Coppola I think she’s amazing I love the greys she uses, he colour palette it’s amazing all the pastels. I like quite girly movies but with a dark twist.

So you’ve been touring a lot lately with Coldplay, Sleigh Bells and of course your SXSW shows. What you’re favourite part about touring?

Just playing the shows. I know that sounds really obvious, but I love performing you know it’s my favourite thing to do as an artist, playing shows. Especially with Coldplay, being able to play to such a massive crowd every night was so awesome and overwhelming and I completely lost myself in every performance we did on that tour it was just really magical. But then also partying is good too, I’ve learned from SXSW that I peak too early. We went on this party rampage on the first night and then I was just like oh my god oh my god dying! It was cool though it was fun.

And you have your tour with Elle Goulding in April, do you think you’ll get much relaxation time on that tour?

No I don’t think I’ll have anytime. I just saw my schedule and my press schedule is just crazy! But that’s fine, I’m there to promote my record so I’m gonna fucking promote it like fucking crazy! [laughs]. I think it’s a really good album so I want the world to hear it.

Yes! True Romance is a lovely album, how would you describe the album as a whole?

Well I’ll definitely say that their pop songs, but I’d say that their pop songs with a twist. I love pop music but I’ve only ever wanted to write credible pop music, not top 40 specific pop music. This album is one hundred per cent me, it’s like my love experiences and it’s very emotional for me, and so raw for me. They’re all really emotional and written through phases of different relationships and things like that. I think the whole album sounds dreamy and luscious, quite rich which I really wanted to capture. I don’t know how to explain it, like textual, I think is maybe the wordso hopefully that’s conveyed. I think the whole album is purple, that the colour I think it has.

Will we see you in Australia playing the tracks anytime soon?

I love Australia. I remember when I was only just breaking on Triple J and I wanna come back and play the album because your crowds are always so wild and up for it. I really want to get back out there. But I’m busy until August, or September actually because of festivals, so the Australian Tour will probably be early 2014, but I so badly want to come and play out there coz I did Parklife festival and it was my first time in Australia and it was amazing!

Words by Lauren Payne.