Charlie Cosser On Charming Liars

Yeah, we recorded a full album that we decided to release as a series of EPs. So the first one was the New Disorder and then recently last month, we released an EP called We Won’t Give Up. We decided to release EPs just to give our fans constant songs that were coming out every three or four months instead of one big batch… then not hear from us for two years. We’re a brand new band, especially in this country, so we wanted constantly to be able to feed people with new music. So, that’s why we took that approach. We Won’t Give Up has, I mean I love all the songs, but I really connect with a song called “Wasted,” which was actually on the New Disorder EP, as well, so if it was on both EPs then we must like it a little bit.

Yeah, I write many of the lyrics, but Karnig and I are guitarists; we’ll sit down and jam out a few ideas. Sometimes, we’ll start with a guitar riff or a melody or sometimes even the song title first. And that’s how I like to write sometimes because that really focuses the song and essentially hones in everything from the beginning so you really know what you’re writing about, what the feel and the tone of the song should be. So, it happens a number of ways and then everyone slowly as the process develops kind of begins injecting their flavors and makes it into a Charming Liars song.

We had always had this small pipe dream in our heads of coming out to Los Angeles and recording our album. I think maybe because most of the albums we grew up listening to or the bands we grew up listening to had all written and recorded albums in California working with American producers or in studios in L.A. We kind of all had that moment individually where we would be listening to our favorite albums and reading liner notes back when people actually bought CDs and they would all be at these studios in L.A. So, we thought if we were going to take this seriously and do this properly, we were going to do it the way we’d always dreamed of as young teenagers. When the opportunity presented itself to come out and work on a few demos with a producer out here, we took it with both hands and essentially never really looked back. As soon as we got that small taste of it, we never really wanted to go back to doing Accounting 101 at university or whatever boring things we were doing. We got the taste and caught the bug and didn’t want to go back.

We’ve worked with a number of people. The first person we got to work with out in L.A. was a guy called John Feldmann who works on a lot of our favorite rock bands including The Used… He was the real reason that we came over to L.A. in the first place cause he actively encouraged us to come out and check out the scene here and work with him. And then we worked with John Fields, who’s an incredible producer. He’s worked on everything from Jimmy Eat World to Switchfoot to Andrew W.K. And then I guess the super producer that we got to work with was Bob Rock, who’s incredible. He recorded the majority of our album and he’s done everyone from Metallica to Aerosmith and Bryan Adams... He was incredible.

Essentially, it started, Karnig and I have been going to school together since we were about 9 years old, back in London and I think when we realized we were going to go to the same high school together, we both never really knew each other, we never really spoke to each other, but when we knew we were going to end up at the same school, we realized that we were both listening to a lot of the same bands and that our individual dreams was to be in a band. We had this idea of starting a band as soon as we started high school. So we did that, then eventually, Mike, who went to a different school, joined us when we were about 15-16, so we've been together as a trio for a really long time now. And then when we moved out to L.A., we met our second guitarist, Nick, and our drummer Zack and officially formed Charming Liars out here in Los Angeles.

I wouldn’t say so. I would say we listen to a really, really wide range of music. We have really eclectic tastes, sometimes pretty questionable tastes from other people’s perspective. We don’t really consider any of our tastes guilty pleasures. We’re pretty proud of the fact that when we were touring with Alice in Chains, the main band that was on rotation in the van was the Backstreet Boys combined with Michael Bublé’s Christmas album. So, we’re pretty open to a lot of things, but the common denominator between all of us is the fact that we all grew up on American punk, hardcore metal, indie and just straight-up rock music. That’s what kind of unifies us, then we have our separate little interests as well.

Our first video was really wacky and it had sexy nuns riding around L.A. with crossbows. This one’s going to be a little bit more straightforward than that and it’s going to be a performance video with all lights and projections and just an energetic, rock performance video.

Yeah. Recently, our first single got picked up on radio in Mexico and Latin America and Mexico seems to be a place where bands only tackle it on their 3rd or 4th album and we’ve been lucky enough to go down there ready. So, we’re returning there next month to play with a massive band, who we’ve buddied up with down there called Panda. There essentially like the Foo Fighters of Mexico. We’re playing an arena show, it’ll be our first official arena gig and that’s going to be in Mexico with them in August, which is incredibly exciting. And then, hopefully some more shows in the U.S. following that and in the U.K. and potentially in the new year, Australia.