“California is so beautiful, if you’re not in traffic”: in the shadow of Laurel Canyon with Pearl Charles
I’ve been to the Brudenell more times than I can possibly remember. I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of money on pies and pints, and I’ve seen hundreds of musicians take to that hallowed gig room stage, from local bands to fully established international artists. But I’ve never seen quite so many people politely lined up at the merch table than when Pearl Charles graces it with her presence, and she’s not even tonight’s headliner.
We had planned to chat at around 20:45, but it was well past 9pm by the time the queue cleared, and Charles apologetically accompanied me to the corner of the main bar. She’s gone all out for her stint of support slots with The Wandering Hearts, donning a crimson waistcoat with Paul McCartney on the front and Big Ben on the back as she takes to stages across the UK and Ireland. “Imported USA,” it reads. It’s undeniably garish, but Charles manages to make it charmingly so.
“It’s a nice feeling,” she tells me, referring to the stream of fans who took the time to buy a record or simply to chat with her, “We came a long way”. Charles and her bandmates are far from Leeds locals. Born and raised in Los Angeles, the frontwoman is much more accustomed to sunnier pastures, telling me that she grew up “in the shadow of Laurel Canyon,” just blocks away from the countercultural epicentre.
“I do think that somehow worked its way into my psyche,” she admits. The essence of her hometown, the cinema and the psychedelia of the city certainly seems to have found its way into her music, at the very least. The first CD she ever purchased was a collection of soft rock hits by the Eagles, while she found inspiration for the country elements of her sound in the western movies being produced just a couple of miles down the road.
“Growing up, visuals were actually stressed more than music,” Charles explains, “My parents both loved music. They saw from a young age, before I was even conscious, that I was gravitating towards it. But I have three siblings and they really encouraged us to explore every medium of art. I’ve taken every kind of art class you could imagine – photography, painting, drawing…”
Ultimately, Charles settled on songwriting – or “rock and roll,” as she terms it – as her medium of choice. “I feel like writing for me is the connection to the source,” she asserts, “to something outside of you”. But Charles never left her love of visual art behind. She channelled it into cowboy hats and custom-made sets, into sunset-side photoshoots and glistening vintage music videos, each aesthetic choice further enhancing and elevating her increasingly distinctive artistry.
To land on her current sound, a kind of cosmic take on Americana, Charles collected sonic influences like Pokemon for almost a decade. She played the autoharp in an “old-timey country” band before venturing into 1960s garage and psych and eventually finding her love for 1970s yacht rock. “It was almost chronological,” she notes, “I kind of combined all of the things I’d loved and worked on throughout the years to create this sound.”
The culmination of her work arrived in 2021 with Magic Mirror, a shimmering and fully realised collection of Americana, acid rock and ABBA influences. It’s the introspective sound of her 20s, according to Charles, but now she’s looking to explore new concepts, turning her attention outwards. “I can definitely write about myself forever,” she admits, “But there are so many other things to comment on and use as inspiration.”
As she has meandered through genres and decades, the influence of California maintained a constant throughout it all, particularly the state’s aversion to public transport. “As an LA native, driving is crucial,” she explains, “It’s my favourite place to come up with songwriting ideas. Something about having that private space. If I lived in New York, or London, although I love those cities, I don’t feel like I’d get those moments which feel somewhat meditative.”
Charles often goes on drives purely to generate songwriting ideas, finding that the distraction-less environment allows her mind to wander a little more. Los Angeles may seem like a huge industry city to outsiders, made up of skyscrapers, shopping strips and streams of traffic, but Charles grew up there. She knows the shortcuts and could even direct you to a dirt road.
“California is so beautiful,” she sighs, “If you’re not in traffic. If you know where to look, you can find those really beautiful natural places not very far. Being surrounded by that is obviously just inspirational in and of itself.”
Charles takes inspiration from the people she surrounds herself with, too. She’s a co-writer by heart, comparing songwriting to therapy and declaring, “You can’t have a therapy session alone!” Her boyfriend and guitarist, Michael, has been particularly instrumental in this process, “literally and figuratively”.
Charles clearly maintains a genuine love and admiration for her homeland, but the opportunity to travel further afield was a major draw for her when it came to pursuing a career in music. She’s been touring and performing for almost her entire adult life, but she’s only recently swapped the “floors of funk houses” for hot springs and hotels.
“I make it a priority for me and my band,” she explains. “And I think it’s cool to be a female band leader with a mostly male band because I feel like they aren’t used to having that attitude of, ‘How can we make this nice for ourselves?’ I think at this point, we really just want to put on a great show every night.”
“Taking care of your mental health is a big part of it,” she adds, “I think being in nature, seeing beautiful things, taking care of your body and what you eat and where you sleep is crucial.” But when Charles isn’t dipping her toes into a hot spring, she’s still willing to return to one element of early touring: house shows.
On the long drives between dates in the States, Charles is more than happy to play living rooms to pass the time. It’s difficult to imagine that any crowd could hold even more admiration for her than the reception she received at the Brude, but Charles finds that those more intimate and impromptu shows can breed even more appreciative audiences.
“Usually, they’re cities where bands don’t go,” she explains, “And they don’t have a good venue or a good independent spot with well-curated music. Everybody deserves to have it, not just people who live in cool cities.”
