Charlie Worsham On His Sophomore Record, His Inspirations And Songwriting – Interview

We were lucky enough to be front and centre during the press conferences at the recent C2C Festival in London. Charlie Worsham stopped by to talk about his upbringing, his musical and literary inspirations, working with Frank Liddell, his second record, his appearance on Bones, helping the next generation, songwriting, his heroes, his artistic evolution, and returning to his (literal) roots. You can read what went down below.

RW Publicity: [Can you] just tell us a little bit about growing up, the music that influenced you, and how you got to be here?

Charlie: I was born outside of Jackson, Mississippi, grew up in Grenada, Mississippi. The son of a banker and a teacher; my father was a banker by trade but a drummer at heart, and so my earliest memories are of getting to watch him perform small gigs in the area, in Mississippi. I never took to sports, I was not that athletically inclined! So music was always my calling. I can honestly say it’s the only job I’ve ever had. I grew up playing a lot of bluegrass; by high school I was playing in the bars on the weekends, and really learning the craft that way. When it came time to attend college I went to Boston, the Berklee College of Music. Always knew I wanted to move to Nashville, we had visited Nashville, Tennessee many times as I was growing up, and taking lessons there, seeing shows there. So I packed up my things, and right around my 21st birthday I moved to Nashville. Played in a few different bands, write for a few different publishers, was fortunate to play in the studio. My big break came when I got the chance to play in the studio band on a few songs for Eric Church’s album ‘Chief’, and Eric, and Miranda Lambert, and Taylor Swift and others were kind enough to have me open for them early in my career. Taylor in fact let me open for her before I had a record deal, and helped me get a record deal with Warner Brothers Records a few years ago. We put ‘Rubberband’ out, and you guys were great, the press was very sweet and positive about ‘Rubberband’. Now I have a second album that is just around the corner. We’re getting it mixed as we speak.

RW Publicity: You had some music featured in a TV programme, and over here you had a bit of a spike. So just tell us a little bit about that.

Charlie: That’s right! A couple years ago I got to have a guest appearance on the TV show Bones. They used a few of my songs in the episode, which I “acted” – quotation marks! (laughs) But one song in particular, ‘Love Don’t Die Easy’, that was on ‘Rubberband’ – it really made an impact. They played it at the end of that episode, and for a couple days I was number one on the iTunes chart for country here in the UK. And it was the first time I was number on for anything, so I can credit the UK for my first number one and I am very grateful. Ever since that moment I’ve been trying to get over here, and I’m so glad to be here, especially for C2C. It’s been a wonderful experience.

RW Publicity: You’re not gonna go off straight away, you’re gonna be around for a few days?

Charlie: That’s correct. I’m on Warner Brothers with my friend Frankie Ballard, and was talking with a friend at the label nonchalantly about how cool it would be to join him, and word got to Frankie and he was kind enough to offer me an opening spot, so we’re gonna be in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow this week. Back in London on Thursday, and then Sunday we fly to Hamburg, Berlin and Munich. What’s cool is I’ve been most of these places before as a teenager, never to play music, and it’s quite amazing to have the experience of returning with a guitar in hand.

RW Publicity: Cause you were saying how other people have helped you, but actually you’ve done one or two things helping musicians, was it Berklee’s…?

Charlie: Oh yes! My alma mater Berklee College of Music does a trip to Nashville every year on their Spring Break, and I suppose I lend a little bit of information and experience to the students, but I really get the most out of it. It’s a trip I took myself as a student, and whether it’s giving them an idea of how much rent is in Nashville, or telling them a handful of unspoken rules that go into writing on a bus or being in the studio, how to behave according to etiquette, you know… it’s a blast for me. And there’s a place in Dickson, Tennessee also called the Quest Center, who I’ve been fortunate to work with the last few years. They offer a place for students to go after school where they can take guitar lessons. If they come from a low income family they can go there for free, or pay $1. There’s nothing in the world that makes me happier than to see young people get into the arts, because that’s how it happened for me.

RW Publicity: Apparently to come to Nashville these days if you’re a songwriter, it’s very important you come with a driving license, because you can be an Uber driver and play music to visitors?

Charlie: (laughs) Yes. That’s correct. The old version of that – and I have friends that I’ve talked to, who were literally delivering pizzas and heard their song that they had written, their breakthrough hit, on the radio getting ready to peak at number one as they were delivering the pizzas still. I think the modern version of that is driving someone –

RW Publicity: Cause it used to be how do you get a songwriter out of your house in Nashville? And the answer is you pay them.

Charlie: (laughs) Yes! Exactly.

For The Country Record: You mentioned your new album, which is due very soon I hope. What can we expect from it, sonically, lyrically?

Charlie: Thank you for asking that. Sonically and lyrically and just the general attitude is not unlike the first record in terms of – no matter what I do I’m gonna sound like someone who grew up in Mississippi. But instead of trying to make that fit in, or maybe even apologise, or ask permission for it, I’m gonna just be asking a little bit of forgiveness – I’ve already done it. It’s more of a grown-up feel, and a lot of it was recorded live. It was four of us in a room together. We took it further out there, so to speak, and I did not think about fitting in when I wrote the songs or when I recorded them, so it’s a lot less diluted. The last record was a cocktail, and this record is a shot.

UKcountrymusic.net: Frank Liddell was the producer for this album, so what’s that experience been like?

Charlie: You laugh a great deal. He has some of the best stories anyone could ever tell about his experiences in music. But it was really a long journey before we ever set foot in a studio together. A lot of drinks together and having dinners together, listening to music together. I would say that the great takeaway from Frank was – he pulled me out of a place without confidence into a place of having confidence. By the time the microphones were in the red, there was little left to do other than make sure everybody was having a good time, because he really took a year and dealt with me between the ears, and I’m very grateful to him for that.

RW Publicity: Did he produce Lee Ann Womack?

Charlie: He did, he did.

RW Publicity: So he’s produced lots of different artists really, I mean Lee Ann’s as country as it gets really.

Charlie: She is. And I would say about Frank in general, some record producers make a name for themselves by having a sound, and you approach those producers to get that sound. What I really love about Frank is he gets the artist to discover their sound. Not unlike the great Sir George Martin who we just lost, it wasn’t that he gave the Beatles their sound, he figured out how to get everything else out of the way. That’s what Frank really did for me.

2Country Radio: People I’ve spoken to about highlights from the weekend, your name has come up a lot. How have you found the reception here from the audiences?

Charlie: Oh, I think it’s quite obvious I’m very taken with the fans here in the UK. The best experience you can hope for on a stage is when what you’re doing makes a noise the way that an electric guitar does to an amplifier, and when the crowd feeds back like a good amplifier does, and everything you do, every nuance, affects that feedback. That’s what I have every second, every moment I’m on stage. I’ve in fact had to really choke back tears many times, and not even on sentimental songs, which is kind of the thing! But because it’s just the greatest feeling in the world for people to be touched by your music the way you originally hoped and intended for them to be touched. So I’m very gerateful.

UKcountrymusic.net: One of the songs that you played at Songwriters on Thursday night was set to a waltz. What was the challenge of writing that song and setting it to a waltz beat?

Charlie: Thank you for asking about that, because I think I even mentioned it was my first waltz. I love that… the great thing about country music and what it’s built on is you have great shuffles, two-steps, you have the train beats, and the waltzes. They are not unlike if you have to study counterpoint. You have – not rules – but certain themes that reappear. The challenge of the waltz is you’ve got one less beat in a measure, so it throws the rhythm of all the lyrics into a different world entirely. I haven’t had a lot of practise with writing lyrics to that rhythm, and that was the great fear going in, was “I’m gonna mis-set lyrics,” but it magically happened with this song. I of course co-wrote that song with Jeremy Spillman and Brent Cobb, who are two of my favourites as writers and two good friends. They certainly helped me a great deal too.

Austrian Press: ‘Lawn Chair’ is such a catchy tune. What’s the story behind that?

Charlie: Oh, I’ll tell you! I will definitely get to Austria; I have been to Austria as a tourist, and I have fond memories. There is not a corner of Europe that I do not desperately wish to see very soon with a guitar in hand. But ‘Lawn Chair Don’t Care’ – also written with Brent Cobb and my good friend Ryan Tyndell. In Nashville when you write with other folks, you tend to keep a list of ideas or titles or things that might just help get the process started, and I had thrown that title out ‘Lawn Chair Don’t Care’, playing off the “long hair don’t care” common phrase we hear a lot. Because I literally brought with me from a trip home to Mississippi a couple of lawn chairs I had bought a decade earlier, cause I needed more seating in my house! And so I had these lawn chairs hanging out, and I had been pitching the idea and pitching the idea, and the thing I love about Brent and Ryan is they’re the only folks that I threw that idea out, and Brent goes “You’re exactly right! We need to write that!” I can’t deny that a case of Coors Light might not have been involved in the writing of it! But we sat down and wrote it. It was also influenced musically a great deal by my recent infatuation with Roger Miller. Jerry Reed as well, but on that song in particular Roger Miller’s writing style. The three of us had taken a road trip a few weeks before, and we had listened to a lot of Roger Miller. There’s actually a couple of songs that thanks to Roger Miller we got the idea for the songs. But ‘Lawn Chair’ is heavily influenced by his writing style.

2Country Radio: After seeing you this weekend, I think you’re up there in my top pickers of all time. Next to Chet, Vince Gill… you coming in at number three on my top list.

Charlie: Oh wow, thank you!

2Country Radio: Did you have picking idols growing up on the guitar? Because you are just a master of playing guitar.

Charlie: Thank you! Well, the thing I love about playing guitar is you can live to be a hundred and still be a student. I recently have been fortunate to really become good friends with Vince Gill, and he is my all-time hero. My parents took me to see him eight, nine times, and he was always ‘it’ for me. The thing about Vince though, is he’s still a student. He’s a personal friend of Eric Clapton, who influenced him greatly, who influenced me. My first concert was the Rolling Stones, and some of the first things I tried to figure out how to play were Keith Richards’ guitar parts. There’s always someone new I’m discovering and learning to love, but growing it up it really was Vince Gill, hands down. There are others, but he takes the number one spot.

RW Publicity: Going back to Roger Miller, so he’s someone you’ve discovered and got more and more into. He had a huge hit with ‘Kind of The Road’ here, but there was much much more to him. Was he a guitarist as well as a songwriter?

Charlie: He was, and I’m glad you mentioned that. Because a lot of the players I’m speaking of are famous for their electric playing, but I of course grew up playing acoustic instruments long before I had an electric. Even banjo before the acoustic, and there are bluegrass pickers that are phenomenal; that’s a very particular style. Roger Miller is a very underrated, I would say, guitar player. At a time before anyone else really knew how to do this – something that’s particularly good for me is – he was great at being able to put his artistry with his guitar playing. You would never know how great of a guitar player he was because it’s the same thing about a great drummer or a bass player, you don’t notice ‘em when they’re right there in the pocket. Jerry Reed would be another person, just like Roger, who was a phenomenal picker, and Chet Atkins actually – Jerry Reed was his favourite guitar player. They made some great records together.

RW Publicity: They are worth discovering, these records, but there’s more you have to keep discovering I think.

Charlie: Another great – if you haven’t done this before – the Disney animated Robin Hood, the old movie… Roger Miller did all the music, and he was the rooster walking around with a guitar narrating. (sings) Robin Hood, little John walkin’ through the forest… that song, and err, (sings) beep-deep-beep-deep-deewoo… all that music is so great and gets stuck in your head.

Think Country: Songwriting is obviously a huge part of your career, and you said you work with publishers. So I guess they kind of have an expectation of you to churn out songs as it were. When you go into songwriting, whether you’re writing solo or walking into a co-write, do you have a particular thought process that you go through when you start writing?

Charlie: Great question, because the world of publishing, it’s an interesting time for publishers, particularly in Nashville. As you are probably familiar with we have Music Row, which is two streets that are about half a mile long. Music Row is in a time of great upheaval, also great opportunity. That’s traditionally been the home of publishers and were the songs that made country music famous were written. Also Tootsies! (laughs) I am fortunate to work with a fabulous publisher, and his name is Arturo Buenohora Jr. He used to work at a larger publishing entity and his first four signings were Miranda Lambert, Taylor Swift, Dierks Bentley and Eric Church, and to this day he works with Eric and Dierks in the studio, and mentors them as songwriters. Arturo has taken me under his wing since before this current deal, but right now we are at his company called Little Louder. It’s a small family and there are expectations, but rather than the expectation to be to churn out the songs and to show up every morning at a scheduled time, he wants me to discover my best work and my best self and the truth. I think that writing the truth is the one rule of great art. To tell a truth and express it in a way that other people can understand that truth, maybe with a new perspective. My process is to maintain relationships with my good friends that I love, that are very talented as writers. That just means spending time with them, whether it’s a co-write or not, and that relationship extends to the one I have with my own writing spirit and myself. So I try to fill up a page every morning, in a notebook, and the only rule is to get to the end of the page and to stick to the truth. That’s been serving me well. That’s how this second record began; I bought three notebooks at Waterloo Records in Austin, Texas, and out of those three notebooks came the songs on this record. It really comes down to telling the truth, and you never get it the same way twice, it’s never lyrics first or music first, if you’re lucky it happens like lightning and it happens all at once, and you get a fragment. But Willie Morris a great author, from Mississippi, he used to keep a shoebox, and any time he had a thought for a character name, or a great line, or a great idea for a story, he wrote it on a scrap of paper and threw it in the shoebox. When the shoebox filled up, he’d dump it on the table, and put ‘em together, see which ideas fit like a puzzle. I feel like that’s kind of the song equivalent of that is what I try to do.

RW Publicity: William Faulkner?

Charlie: Willie Morris. William Faulkner also from Mississippi. Willie Morris wrote a book called ‘Good Old Boy and The Witch of Yazoo’, a book called ‘My Dog Skip’, and also one called ‘North Toward Home’. He worked at the New Yorker, he was Editor of the New Yorker for a number of years. Willie’s great contribution for me in literature is he described what it was like to grow up in the south, and then move to the north, and that strange tug of being sort of an ex-patriot of the south, yet by leaving the south and finding home in the north, loving the south on a deeper level. Because we all know that the south has some pretty dark history, but for some reason we still have BB King, the king of the blues, we have William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, all of these great voices from the south.

Up Country Magazine: I was fortunate to interview Vince a couple of weeks ago actually, and I was asking him about current artists he admired. Cam was the first one on the list and you were the second on his list in terms of people he now looked to as the future of country music. I saw someone describe you as the new Brad Paisley – do you see yourself like Brad as the songwriter, the singer, and the guitar picker all in one, or do you see yourself as any individual thing – how do you see yourself?

Charlie: Gosh – great question, because those are some great people to be compared to. I think that where I am in my life right now is – I’ve just figured out that it’s okay to be me, and I know better than I did a year ago who that is. But of course it needs to grow and evolve into something, and I honestly don’t know what that will be. I expect it to have songwriting elements and guitar-playing elements, but my favourite thing to do is not to play the lead. It’s to be a great rhythm player for someone else. The majority of my experiences right now are playing in other bands. I hope that whatever I become, regardless of who I’m compared to, that it’s known for camaraderie with other great musicians and artists, because that’s really how you get better. Be the least talented person in your band. Be the weakest link in your band and you’ll always get better. That’s a piece of advice that Vince was given that he’s passed along to me, and I plan to honour that.

UKcountrymusic.net: When I spoke to you last year in the lead-up to what was your cancelled tour, you said the one thing you had to do when you come to England was go find Worsham, down in Sussex?

Charlie: Near Bexhill, yes!

UKCountrymusic.net: Have you had a chance to do that?

Charlie: I have not! I do have a couple of off days, and I’ve gotta look at the logistics, but I do have some off days coming up. And if I don’t go back to Harrods to buy some clothes, and get in a tour of the War Rooms, then I might make a day trip to Bexhill. My parents will be here in a couple months to celebrate I think their 37thwedding anniversary, and they’ve already pre-ordered… I don’t know if it’s the Bexhill trip, cause I don’t think you need a kilt for that, but my dad has a kilt reservation! For something, and they’re gonna visit Worsham farm. I believe so much in where we come from, and the earth we touch when we’re born affecting us in life. You see that in our music in America, it comes from you guys… and somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains it got stuck and changed. And then when you look back to the British invasion, and the artists that influenced the Beatles and Stones, there’s just this beautiful relationship that’s been going on for a long time. So I need to get to Worsham and get a handful of dirt so that I can figure out the mysteries in there.