Introducing We Are Charlie

By Pasqua Heard

2 Jun 2016

2 Jun 2016

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We Are Charlie, who hail from Pretoria and describe themselves as "three dudes who know of salon quality hair and black coffee so strong you can shave with it", recently released their EP 'The Sad Kind Of Happy'.

The indie band is made up of Dylan Christie (lead vocals/guitar), Rowan van Eeden (backing vocals/bass) and Wesley Reinecke (drums) and has been compared to bands such as The Strokes, Cage the Elephant and Kings of Leon.

Get to know more about We Are Charlie’s origins, hidden talents and ambitions below …

Tell us the story of how your band started.

We’ve been friends for a long time. Wes and Dyl went to high school together and just caused a lot of trouble and played music. We met Rowan somewhere in the middle there and immediately tolerated him. The band started when Dyl wrote a couple of songs and decided to record them. He asked Wes to write the drums and, after the songs were recorded, we decided to start the band. We really never thought anything would come from it.

Are you currently studying/working while being part of a band?

Yeah, Wes is a sound engineer, Row is at a logistics company and Dylan is just happy not to be homeless.

Your single “Let’s Stare at the Sun” seems to defy westernisation. Tell us why you sang against this.

Westernisation has really dumbed down the newer generations. I think we’ll all agree it’s a little frustrating, so we just want to let people know it bothers us.

What’s the hardest part about being musicians?

Feeling good about yourself, haha. If you’re doing it right, then it will definitely cause a little bit of emotional stress, especially during the development stages. We’re our biggest critics, so we wail on ourselves a lot.

How would your friends describe each of you?

They would probably call Dylan a borderline alcoholic, Row’s a bit of dick and Wes is the quietest boy in all the land. Just joking about Rowan though. He’s actually a sweetheart princess.

Any hidden talents amongst you guys?

Not really. We are pretty mediocre individuals. Wes is super fast in water though. Like an uncomfortably good swimmer. Geez.

Who are you currently listening to? And what bands have most influenced your genre of music?

It’s forever changing, but we all listen to a lot of different stuff and don’t really go out looking for inspiration or influence. When it happens it happens.

Goals for the future?

We have a few places we want to play like Daisies and Russia.

Where can your fans see you next?

At the moment we’re going to be a little quiet and spend most of our time indoors watching reruns of prison break, but we’ll be doing some tours to everyone’s basements later this year.