Working on her third album,Charm, Claire Cottrill had one goal.
It takes so many records to really understand someones choices.
Im focusing on mystery and allure.
Lucas Creighton*
I was obsessed with it, and I feel like I found something for myself in it.
Cottrill sat down with us and walked us through every track onCharm.
Check it out below.
Sexy to Someone was more of a turning point of theCharmpalette to me.
Its when I discovered the overall vibe, especially when I brought it to Leon.
By itself, it can be kind of lame [laughs].
Its just, you need the weirder songs onCharmto understand that that was tongue-in-cheek, if that makes sense.
Its just one of those funny things.
No one really wants to ask for external validation.
Its like asking for someone to get you flowers.
You dont want to ask people to compliment you.
You just want the little dose of Well, that was really nice.
I wasnt expecting that!
Its so important for the album in terms of mood.
Theres a song calledLittle PadonSmiley Smileby the Beach Boys.
Ive loved that song for a long time.
My friend put me onto it in high school and I was like, This is insane.
This is so weird and cool.
I also really like the idea of something feeling like second nature.
I love nature and I love symbiotic relationships.
Slow Dance
Slow Dance is one of my favorites.
I basically made a PSA in the studio being like, c’mon make some feminine music.
Have a little femme in your step!
Slow Dance is probably the most vulnerable song on the record.
[Charm] is a lot about dating in your twenties and figuring out how to date.
Dylan Nowik, Marco Benevento they all stayed at Allaire [Studios] with me.
And Second Nature and Slow Dance were those moments.
I rerecorded those vocals five times trying to figure out how to make them sound better.
And every time we listened to it, we kept going back to the first vocals.
They were like, Its perfect.
Just stop toying with it.
Thank You
That one was really fun.
For a long time, the chorus and the verses were the same chords.
So Leon changed the verse chords, and the song was immediately done.
Within minutes of him changing it, I was able to write the verses.
Theres a lot of fun sounds, and theres some cheeky lyrics.
I love that bridge so much.
Its super, super awesome.
Terrapin
Terrapin and Juna were both instrumentals that I was given that Leon had worked on separately.
My idea for that was, I just want to float on top of this.
I listen to music like that.
But fitting words and verses and choruses on something thats already made was a really fun challenge.
Theres a silly element to that.
Juna
Its probably my favorite one on the album besides Second Nature.
I made that song not thinking it was going to become huge.
[Theperformance onFallon] was going to be Sexy to Someone, and then everything started happening with Juna.
So we changed it maybe two days before, which was nerve-wracking, but super sweet.
I just wasnt anticipating doing mouth trumpet on television.
Chords are almost the same as Sexy as Someone.
That one was super fun to make, also kind of infuriating at times.
I was struggling with the sounds and how to make it weird enough.
But then I made Echo, so it was like, Lets put them next to each other.
Two completely opposite songs, weirdly next to each other on the album.
Echo
I have been really obsessed with Broadcast since high school.
It sounds weird and it sounds like them, but its also this step into pop… question mark?
So inspiring to me.
Glory of the Snow
To me, its underrated.
I saw that [fans] were talking about it less.
Slow Dance, Glory of the Snow, Terrapin, you guys are really not talking about those!
That song was made the second day Leon and I ever worked together.
I rewrote the verse and the chorus a million times before it landed on something that felt sweet.
The fact its called Glory of the Snow, its just something that struck me.
It was heavily inspired by Seabird by the Alessi Brothers, and it was made in the winter.
Its this bouncy little moment.
That song feels like upstate to me.
I also love the conviction in his voice.
Hes really sure of himself, even if hes talking about getting stoned.
Its a cyclical thing.
If you listen to the record over and over again, youre experiencing one whole pocket of dating someone.
The bookends tell you what happened.
Maybe some of the lyrics onCharmare less meaningful or kind of silly.
It is an intentional choice, so I want it to be felt and heard as an intentional choice.
