radionotes podcast episodes

Charly Oakley

by | Sep 25, 2022 | episodes | 0 comments

Charly Oakley

Charly Oakley has released a debut album that is expressively called Yelling Shit At The Universe.

When we spoke the album had just been launch and was also in-the-thick of a third-year’s production of 42nd Street as part of the Queensland Conservatorium where they’re currently studying musical theatre.

On the two year anniversary of releasing their debut Single June Charly spoke with John Murch…

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IMAGE CREDIT: Luis Campbell (on Instagram) 

Singles from the album include Independent or Lonely, Living/Dying and Keep Your Distance Where You Can.

SHOW NOTES: Charly Oakley – Yelling Shit At The Universe

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Feature Guest: Charly Oakley

Next Feature Guest: Director of RENT – Benjamin Maio Mackay

Chat with Charly also available on Podbean:

From The Archive – Chat with the singer from the 90210 Soundtrack:

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CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

Web-design/tech: Steve Davis

Voice: Tammy Weller  

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TRANSCRIPT

First version provided by REV team member – check to audio before quoting wider

John Murch:
Welcome to radionotes.

Charly Oakley:
Thank you so much.

John Murch:
Troublesome twos, how has this bub been in your musical repertoire?

Charly Oakley:
The bub has definitely come from humble beginnings, I think. It’s so funny, so many people have connected to that song, and I put it out when I was in year 12 in lockdown in Melbourne, and it’s so beautiful to have that there, especially it’s turning two today, happy birthday. That I can see my progress with the album from that beginning. It’s very beautiful, yeah.

John Murch:
It seems to have a bit of a space theme about it or otherworldly, believe you believe in aliens. Are you more a Mulder than a Scully?

Charly Oakley:
Look, I think I believe in angels more than I believe in aliens. But you know what? I definitely think there’s life out there, but I definitely do have… It’s funny you say that. There definitely is a kind of existential universe kind of vibe of my work. I very much enjoy talking about our world as more than just the earth, the moon, and the stars, I find it very healing and connective to have that theme in my work.

John Murch:
And the artwork for June very much draws us into that as well.

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely. I think the artwork for music is so special. It’s one of my favourite parts of getting a single and album together, just connecting with people, getting to make art, so cool.

John Murch:
For the Keep Your Distance Where You Can, obviously, that is a tap into the signage that was everywhere across transportation and inside banks even. Is that where you also get the inspiration for songwriting?

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely, and I think it was coming at a time where I was sick of being on my phone and I was just like, “Look up.” I feel like you get on the train, and everyone’s just head down on their phones doing whatever they want and I looked up because I think when you pay attention, the universe gives you some answers to what’s happening in your everyday life.
And at that time, I was struggling with setting boundaries in my day-to-day life and with myself and I just looked at that sign and I was like, “Yeah, there it is.” Because it can totally be interpreted obviously as a code or sign, which is very important. But also, just the emotional boundaries you need to set in order for yourself to remain in a healthy relationship with yourself and with the people around you.

John Murch:
Were those boundaries hard to set for you because you see life as so limitless at this stage of your life?

Charly Oakley:
That is a brilliant way to put it. Yeah, probably, because I feel as myself, I’m a very giving person and I look at people with such potential for growth, but sometimes you just have to set that boundary. You’ve got to draw the line.

John Murch:
Something that you’re quite passionate about, we’ll speak, I think a bit during this chat is that of gratitude, but gratitude is very much about your response to how someone responds to you or what is happening to them. It’s not a selfish thing, but a very self thing.

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely. It is such a massive part of my life and I think it’s the reason that I’m able to turn concepts that were potentially tender for me into things that have life and learning and wisdom in them. Everything we go through in our lives is just a lesson and absolutely, sometimes when you’re in the thick of it, it’s so hard to see that. But having that gratitude I think translates itself into self-awareness, which is brilliant for songwriting because that’s when you can give that little finished product that’s in nice little bow and people can really listen to it and find themselves in the words.

John Murch:
It’s a bit broader, but where does acceptance fit into gratitude?

Charly Oakley:
Do you mean in terms of for yourself?

John Murch:
Mm-hmm.

Charly Oakley:
It’s funny, I’ve actually been thinking about it a lot this week in terms of acceptance for my body because I think it’s very easy for me to find gratitude in my mind and in my soul, but for my body, and I think a lot of young people can identify with this dilemma as well. It’s that kind of body acceptance, especially in a world of social media where the expectations and that highlight reel we see is so far from what we feel and see in the mirror.
And I think acceptance is absolutely paramount for gratitude because there’s so much out of our control and in order for us to truly revel in those moments of unabashed joy, but also in the moments where it’s hard to be grateful, that acceptance is fundamental, I think. To be like, “This is happening to me.” And instead of seeing it as this is happening to me, what is happening for me, I feel is a better way to rephrase that and find more acceptance in that gratitude.

John Murch:
This is a slightly esoteric question, but it’s one that I wanted to ask you. Based upon what you’ve been saying, there seems to be this disconnect between mind and body, possibly for you where I’m more of the old school of your body reflects what your mind is going through. Talk to me about how you interpret that.

Charly Oakley:
Well, I think what connects the two is your soul, your spirit. I think mental health is the foundation for every kind of body expression that we have, whether it’s sickness, whether it’s injury, pain, you can find that and massage that and heal it through your mind in a way, because our body stole so much trauma, so much everything.
I was reading this book by Emily Stella Fletcher, who created this programme called Ziva Meditation, and she was on Broadway, and she was a swing, so that’s a very difficult job. And she was so stressed all the time and always getting injured and she was talking to someone who had a way more tracks than her to cover and she was so calm every single night and Emily was like, “How do you do this?” And she’s like, “I meditate. It’s for my mind.” Because if you don’t click off, she used this image of a computer with all these tabs open. If you don’t click off the tabs, your computer’s going to shut down.

John Murch:
And it’s also trying to find the answer amongst those tabs. It becomes such a whirlwind of confusion. You mentioned a swing.

Charly Oakley:
A swing is someone who covers different tracks or different roles in a show, and that can be up to 20 in some shows that you can be called on at the drop of a hat, mid-show, but you’ve got to be there all the time and you don’t know who you’re going on for. So you’ve got all of these roles rumbling around in your brain. So yeah, it’s a very stressful job, but people who are very good at it often have a lot of self-mastery in terms of their mind and their ability to manage their anxiety and stress and really get the job done.

John Murch:
And it’s a great analogy for what we’re saying there regarding tabs on a computer because you are backstage and at any point, as you stated, you could be asked to know about tab number four and that’s going to tell you what this actor needs to be doing at this very point.

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely. It’s an incredible job and I think if we take that analogy to our own everyday lives where you’ve got tabs with your kids or your family and your work and everything, it all piles up. And if we don’t take control of that, if we don’t shut down the computer every now and then and refresh the page, then of course, pain and sickness and expressions in our body are going to manifest themselves if we’re not taking care of that and making sure that there’s a new canvas for us to start our days with.

John Murch:
But surely, it’s also important to have a place for those things to go so that you can find them when you need them in your mind and in your body.

Charly Oakley:
Definitely. And I think that’s why writing things down, I journal all the time, but I’m also aware that a lot of people don’t feel like that’s a viable thing for them to do, that they don’t have time. But it’s about finding ways to output and store things that you might need for later in a really healthy way and whatever that is for you, whether that’s cooking or cleaning, walking, dancing, being able to shake it out of your body and put it into something else that you can do with love, I think is super beneficial.

John Murch:
It’s also, we should mention at this point you’re a qualified mental health first aid officer as well, so you’ve seen firsthand how these approaches that you’re taking for yourself can actually beneficial. Obviously, people should seek professional advice. We’re just spit balling here some of the ideas that are going behind the songwriting process for you.

Charly Oakley:
That mental health first aid course, I did it with Mental Health First Aid Australia and they were absolutely wonderful. And that programme I did is actually curated and leans towards how we can support artists as well, which I think is super important because obviously, we know that artists have been through so much in life, but also, particularly in the last two and a bit years. I think that self-awareness that comes with returning to yourself and letting yourself feel what you need to feel.
I think for a while, I was very invested in an overly positive mindset and there was a time where it was almost like that term toxic positivity we throw around was very real and raw for me because I was getting upset at myself for being upset. I was like, “Why can’t you just be happy? Just do it.” But I have a lot more of a holistic approach to that now, which is also helped with my training because people just need to feel what they need to feel, know that they have the resources and help to reach out if they need to do that. But feelings are for feeling, that’s why they’re called feelings.

John Murch:
As a songwriter, how do you use that journaling process to your benefit?

Charly Oakley:
Yeah, often I’ve got this book called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. She’s coined this term the Morning Pages, which is three pages of freehand you do every morning. Being able to sit down in the morning and just write without judgement . And sometimes the most random stuff comes out but in there, there are lyrics and in there you realise that you’re feeling things that you didn’t think you had the words for. I think a lot of people are afraid that they don’t have anything interesting to say, that for some reason their words aren’t valid or worthy of being written on a piece of paper because it feels silly. It feels trivial and you could be doing other things.
But humans are so creative. So creative. I often call them the muggles if they don’t do the creative arts that I’m involved in. But when I ask them, “How are you feeling? Give me a metaphor.” The things that people come up with are just beautiful. We are all so creative and we all have such power in expressing ourselves through words. And I think if people gave it a go, they’d be very surprised with themselves.

John Murch:
How important are post-it notes to you?

Charly Oakley:
So important. I’m a serial post-it notes person, but I’ve started putting up pages on my wall because the post-its are too small now. And I call it My Wall of Wisdom. And anytime I hear anything that someone says where I’m like, that resonates, that clicks in my body or I see a sign or something like that, I just come home and write it on the wall and then I feel like I’ll just have a big book by the end of all these cool things that people have said. They’re so important, I use it for everything.

John Murch:
And post-it notes do get quite big, those big meeting post-it notes. Yeah.

Charly Oakley:
I’m going to have to take a trip to office work.

John Murch:
Yeah, just stick it on the wall. That physically writing that hand pen paper communication where you can edit, but it’s not as easy as just editing and deleting on a screen. How many times we’ve written saying on a screen and going, “Oh paragraph delete.”

Charly Oakley:
Literally. And it’s funny because I’ve started writing a lot of my song on my notes app in my phone and it just doesn’t feel as truthful. I just put random lyrics and I just write them down on post-it notes. And I also, going back to the tabs, it feels like you’re taking a little tab out of your mind, putting it on the wall and it’s done. You can, because I feel like sometimes if you sit with those thoughts for too long, you lose them, they get lost in translation and you can’t even remember what your intention of writing whatever it was in the first place.

John Murch:
Let’s continue along that line, Chuck, with the idea of creativity as your soul and what you wish to do. Because you’re currently at the Queensland Conservatorium, which is no mean feat to be part of. By the time as Chap’s gone out, you would’ve accomplished a season of 42nd Street. But at this stage, yeah. How has that season been?

Charly Oakley:
It’s been wonderful. It’s a third-year show, so I’m in first year at the Queensland Con, but everyone’s a part of it first, second, and third year. So the third year’s headliner and then we’re all part of ensemble and doing all the things, but it is honestly incredible. Our director is Alister Smith who is currently directing Wedding Singer and Cruel Intentions in Australia, which is incredible that we get to work with him, and Dan Benz is our choreographer who is just a genius. But the process has been wonderful. We were in a tech rehearsal yesterday from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM, it was lovely. They’re very long days, but what I’ve learned about professionalism and how crazy it is to put a show together is, yeah, it’s been invaluable.

John Murch:
We’re talking about musical theatre, Growing Pains. Was this a production you were part of? Did you do music for?

Charly Oakley:
Yes. At the corner, our first performance project was a devised piece under the direction of Claire Christian who is an incredible mentor and human. She is love in a pocket, it’s brilliant. But we created this show about how difficult growing up is and why life gets duller the older we get, and how we can bring that joy back into our lives.
And I wrote a song for it called Growing Pains, which I actually performed at the gig with some of my friends from the Con who flew down to Melbourne to Naarm, which was so beautiful. But that writing of music theatre is something that I’ve been really interested in recently and being able to direct musically and theatrically has been really important and a really nice little curiosity that I’ve been digging into.

John Murch:
When we’re talking about that, I guess, looking back at childhood in a way, in terms of that reconnection of childhood?

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely. Finding your inner child and how to play in our adult lives because there are so many moments if we just look up or if we choose connection like, “What choice are we making? Are we closing the door or are we opening the door to joy and to love and goodness and inviting people in, calling people in?” It’s very, very special.

John Murch:
And we’re not just talking about couples tickling themselves in their forties and fifties, although that is a return to childhood, I think.

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely, it is. Yeah. It’s about resolving things with family, about hugging your best friends, about watching clouds and making funny shapes in the sky. It’s about finding your favourite coffee spot. I’m just finding scenes from the show, but it was very, very beautiful and it was based off of a play called Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan Macmillan, which talks about gratitude and that was kind of our inspo for the piece, but it’s really special and I hope that it tours one day because there’s a lot of love in that room and people felt very changed by it.

John Murch:
And it’s very far away from just yelling sh*t at the universe, which of course, is where you’re at now with this very record that we’re speaking today. And you say it was also written as a play, so I’m guessing, was it published as a play?

Charly Oakley:
Not right now, but I’m sure if we’ve pulled a few strings, we could. So it was written by my whole cohort with Claire Christian. It’s so tender and raw and I think people really need to hear it, so stay tuned on that one. We’ll see what we can do.

John Murch:
We’re currently chucking –

Charly Oakley:
Yeah, it’s me.

John Murch:
We’re currently chatting with Charly Oakley. The new album is out, it’s called Yelling Shit At The Universe. Describe to us the album launch night.

Charly Oakley:
Oh my goodness, it was incredible. I was joined by two supporting acts, Charlotte Dirckze and Jordie Tomas and Jordie is my producer and my best friend. And I was also joined by my beautiful friend, Lawrence Hawkins, who has done a lot of the guitars for the album.
The launch, I’ve never felt so much love in a room in my life. I was blown away by the response. Did a couple covers, I did a medley of the songs that brought me up. So it was just like Gold 104.3, Smooth FM, like Crock-Pot. It was brilliant. And it was funny because I told everyone, my intro to that medley was, if you put on Gold 104.3, I could sing any song, all the words. And as soon as we started, I forgot the words to Rihanna, so I doubled back on my promise there. It was beautiful. I’m so grateful.

John Murch:
I think some Deborah Harry got a run in there as well.

Charly Oakley:
Oh, she certainly do. Yeah. I’ve never received love like that. It was really, really special.

John Murch:
What was the earliest memories of music for you?

Charly Oakley:
Well, it’s funny. I’ve got a good story about this. I didn’t include it in the medley, but Pink Moon by Nick Drake, I remember I was in a car on a road trip with my family maybe when I was 12 or 13. And that song came on and I just started singing all of the words and I said to my mom, I was like, “How do I know this?” And she said, “I played that to you when you were in my stomach.” And I was like, “What?” And she said she’d never really played it after I was born, but I just knew it.
So I’ve always had such a connection to that ’70s, ’80s, ’90s music, jamming out with my dad in the car, very much brought up on Fleetwood Mac. My dad loves Frank Zappa. I didn’t really get around that as much because it’s quite heavy for a child, but it’s been so fundamental to my upbringing, all of it. It’s all I listened to, really.

John Murch:
Nick Drake was one of those artists that was more respected and honoured after their time.

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely.

John Murch:
Do you think that’s also an important thing about music as a legacy? That the music that you write now, as great as it is, that there’s that connection with the audience, with the songs that you’ve written, but there’s also that important thing that it will actually have a legacy after your time.

Charly Oakley:
Yeah. Even in that medley, I did Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush and that’s had a massive resurgence recently because of Stranger Things on Netflix. And I remember I was writing that medley with Laws. I was like, “Oh, I hope my songs do that one day.” Like someone digs it up and 30s me like, “Do you remember this?” Oh my God. It’s incredible. And it’s such a testament to how powerful music is in moving people forever.
It’s a language that we will always understand and especially songs that have made a resurgence now in times where our political and social climate is a lot more unstable, seeing songs means something different or means something more is super fascinating, and yeah, I’m very excited to be a part of it one day.

John Murch:
Can we talk about one of the songs that’s on the album. It’s called Living/Dying. The origins of this song must have been either a light bulb moment or something that was brewing for quite a time, which the two was it? How did this come about?

Charly Oakley:
You know what, it was both.

John Murch:
That must have been frustrating that you had the nugget, but you just couldn’t shine it.

Charly Oakley:
Yes, absolutely. I wrote that during… Oh, probably the sixth lockdown we had in Melbourne. So you know what, it’s definitely brewing. It’s actually, it sounds like a really angry song, but weirdly, I feel like there’s an inverted kind of optimism in it. I wrote this after… I know, the news was freaking me out. Everything was just happening all the time, all at once. And I was feeling really isolated because I wasn’t able to go back into the studio yet where I was training because of COVID stuff. And the walls were just closing in a bit at home.
My friend sent me this quote by Alan Watts about life is a dance. I can’t remember it verbatim, but it was something like, “Life is a dance, nothing’s coming. All you have to do is dance through life.” Or something wishy-washy like that. And I was like, “Huh, nothing is coming.” And I found it to be the most freeing way to approach the next couple months of my life. And I still think about it now. The lyrics of the chorus, “And nothing’s coming, nothing’s better, soon doesn’t exist but neither does never.”

John Murch:
It’s a timely response, isn’t it? Particularly for those of the younger years that have so much optimism for things they’ll do in the future. Yeah, I’ll share this. I recently lapsed a five-year plan. I’ve never been one about five-year plans. I’ve always been of that view. A bit like what you’re saying there, you can’t really plan it. Things are going to happen, do what you need to do now. But I decided to do a five-year plan. The five-years lapsed, none of that happened.

Charly Oakley:
Think about the five-year plan people who did this and then a pandemic hit them. That ain’t factor that in. No one can factor that in.

John Murch:
Jordie Tomas, he’s released a song, Victims of Us, but it appears on tune called Euphoria as well. Producer of this very record of yours but I sense it was more than just calling in a producer to do your record.

Charly Oakley:
It absolutely was. Jordie and I have been best friends for a very long time. I met him at school and it’s funny because we weren’t friends straight away, we were kind of acquaintances, whatever. And I didn’t know what, we keep trying to figure out when it shifted, but suddenly we’re just soulmates, so that’s fun.
That song Euphoria is one of the most special things I think I own if I can own a song, I guess. It’s funny because it wasn’t originally supposed to be on the album. Another track was taking its place called You Know Me, which I actually might release a bit later because I played it at the launch and everyone was like, “Where is that song? I want that song.”
But I wrote Euphoria, I wrote the chorus for it and I FaceTimed Jordie because I’m in Brisbane and he’s in Melbourne. I was like, “This is so stupid. Everyone’s heard this before.” And he was like, “No, I’m writing a verse to it.” And then the day before the album was supposed to be taken away from mixing and mastering, we recorded it with Laws on the guitars and it just feels so special. He is a genius and working in his space feels so homely and safe. He’s like a safety net.

John Murch:
And as I said, a musician in his own right as well though possibly, only he can speak for himself in terms of more producing role at this stage.

Charly Oakley:
Well, he produces all of his own stuff as well. He’s just a whiz. He does it all. And he is writing all of the time and just churning out these absolute bangers that just hit you in the heart space. I’m so excited for the world to hear it. He’s releasing some more tunes soon. Don’t give anything away, but he’s definitely one to watch. He did an EP in ’20… I’m going to say 2019, which is no longer on Spotify, but I’m sure you can dig it up somewhere-

John Murch:
I’ll have a look.

Charly Oakley:
Yeah, have a look. It’s called For Later. But yeah, he’s got Victim Of Us, Strawberry Gum, I Like It, and I’m So Lonely.

John Murch:
Have you been air dropping at airports?

Charly Oakley:
Yeah. I do it at the train station too because I think it’s meta-theatrical because it’s keeping distance where you can, so I’m just air dropping you a COVID safe sign that’s already on the train. But now you can just listen to a friendly reminder while you’re there. You know what, I only send it to feminine presenting names though because I have this irrational fear that someone’s going to be like, “Did you just send that to me?” And have a little altercation. But people have DMed me being like, “Did you send me a song? I love it. I just showed it to all my friends.” Boom. Promotion done.

John Murch:
There’s a line there that’s not comfortable, but at the same time, it reminds me that I recently went in music store. On the counter, there was a QR code. Oh well, okay. Well obviously, I need to scan that because we’re in those times and I need to scan it because I’m here. It was someone who worked, there’s latest album.

Charly Oakley:
No, it was not.

John Murch:
It said for your own safety, “Scan my new album.”

Charly Oakley:
That’s… you know what? Times are a changing, John.

John Murch:
I like it.

Charly Oakley:
You like it. And they can decline. Honestly, I reckon-, I’ve had so many declines, so many. But I think I’m just practising rejection.

John Murch:
It’s not lost on me that you’re being sexist or genderist and only sending it to feminine-appearing people.

Charly Oakley:
I know-

John Murch:
A feminine-appearing names at that.

Charly Oakley:
I know, but yeah. I’m not going to send it to iPhone 13, but if someone’s like, “Lucy.” With little emojis, I’m like, “You can have the song.”

John Murch:
If we talk about a connection between you, Jordie, and maybe the guitarist as well, the lightning tattoo, how does that fit in?

Charly Oakley:
The lightning tattoo. See, I got this lightning tattoo in February on my birthday with Jordie. My best friends Jessie and Jordie came up to the Gold Coast and we went to Movie World for my birthday because with those two, actually, that’s the other thing about Jordie that I’d say brings to our work just in a child play fun, all of the gorgeousness. So we went to Movie World and just before it started flooding torrentially, and we’re on the roller coasters with torrential rain on us, but having the time of our lives. Then we went to get these tattoos.
The lightning bolt for me, I’ve got it on my finger because there’s this quote I love by Brené Brown, which says, “When we move information from our heads to our hearts, we use our hands.” And I like that idea of creation and energy. That’s like my hands do that. And it’s a reminder that that’s where I make my magic and my energy in my creation. So Jordie has one too, just because we wanted to match and Loz got a butterfly.
We all went to get tattoos together before the launch because we’re young and so fun. But he got a butterfly that has… If you look really closely, there’s a bullet in the body of it because Loz, first of all, Loz loves butterflies. There’s a lyric in Euphoria about butterflies and his favourite part of production in the whole of the album is in Keeping Distance Where You Can, we’re in the pre-chorus. It’s like, (singing) and then there’s a (sound effect noise). And it’s like a reverse bullet sound thing. So he got that on there. And I also got a little caterpillar playing the saxophone. Because I thought it was my debut before I turned into the butterfly. And I liked the saxophone. The tattooist was halfway through tattooing me and he said, “So you played the saxophone?” I said, “No.” But it’s on my body forever, so cheers to that.

John Murch:
So, that’s Bernie the Caterpillar?

Charly Oakley:
No.

John Murch:
Haven’t gone with Bernie?

Charly Oakley:
Mm-mm. It’s going to be… Someone said a new name for it. Check me a DM. This is how we engage with my new listeners. They can tell me what to name my caterpillar.

John Murch:
Just so we’re very clear, we’re naming a caterpillar that plays a saxophone, right?

Charly Oakley:
Time is tough right now, we need a bit of respite.

John Murch:
Any possibility the caterpillar will get some green later on? And I mean, in its body colour.

Charly Oakley:
Oh well, you know what? It’s playing some musical notes and I realised that these musical notes don’t actually exist. They’re minimum quavers, which is non-existent. So I’m going to have to get them filled in. So maybe we can fill the body in green too.

John Murch:
We’ve spoken tattoos, we’ve spoken gratitude, we’ve covered some of those and we’ve spoken about post-it notes, which I’m always happy to go back to at any point as well. The gratitude website, by the way, its gr.attitudeco. That’s gr, dot, attitudeco. So it’s a company of attitude that is growling.

Charly Oakley:
I love that. Yes. That’s what my marketing is now.

John Murch:
What are you doing on that Instagram site? What’s the purpose of it? Because as you’ve mentioned already, there is this thing of overcompensating happiness.

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely. And I started it in 2019. I think September 2019. And it definitely started just as a place to just post some cute photos of live, laugh, love, very much that energy because I was really finding my feet in the gratitude world, and I had a warped understanding of what it really was. But it’s really evolved now into a place where I encourage young people to feel what they need to feel, but also give them the tools that we never had as kids, which no one really had in schooling. An idea of how to develop well-being literacy, I suppose, if you can use that as a term.
We were never taught how to have hard conversations, how to self-soothe, how to heal. And I think that’s really what I’m trying to lean into now. Especially since moving away from home, being quite vulnerable and open about the struggles and the hard days because people need to see that. The representation of vulnerability is super, super important, especially for young people. And when they’re on their phones all the time, I feel like it’s an easy way to get in front of them.

John Murch:
But you also admit there has been that change as well, as you mentioned earlier, I guess in the older times it was less about self and more about getting done.

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely.

John Murch:
And now there’s more of a self-awareness sort of aspect to that.

Charly Oakley:
Definitely, yeah. I feel like it’s okay not to be okay has almost had its time in our modern vernacular in terms of its meaning and effectiveness and how it resonates with people. Because people hear that they go, “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” But instead of showing people it’s okay not to be okay, I think I’d rather reframe that as it is okay to feel. You don’t have to numb yourself, you don’t have to push things away and bottle them up because you don’t want to be a burden, or you don’t want to be an inconvenience, or you just want to keep going and pretend that everything’s fine. It doesn’t have to be fine, but how can we nurture that and make those feelings feel as safe as your joy and your love and your peace does?

John Murch:
How do you protect yourself from that over feeling?

Charly Oakley:
From over feeling, yeah, just those peaceful practises, the journaling, the meditation, walking, talking to people. I live with two of the most divine people in the world, Beck and Alyssa. They’re my housemates. And we were very lucky that when we moved up here to Brisbane, to the engine that we knew each other before, which was beautiful. But we know each other so much more now just because we’ve been able to have meaningful conversations, these sound boards for each other.
And there’s so much open communication in terms of, I have space to talk. Would you like to talk about anything? I don’t feel like I’ve got space today. I feel like I’m feeling very inward and introverted. I’d appreciate this today. That communication I feel like for young people in particular feels really hard and unnatural to navigate in terms of… Like, “Oh, I’m feeling too much so I’m just not going to say anything.” But being able to sit down and just one sentence, “I’m feeling a lot today. I need this.” Having those conversations, it’s self-care. It’s protecting yourself and protecting the people around you.

John Murch:
Let’s talk about another song off the album. This one I think maybe the new single or new feature track, so now’s a good time to talk about it. Secondary, that’s a track from the album and it sits quite high up in the play as well, which really sets the scene for the rest of the album. Do you mind talking us through that?

Charly Oakley:
Absolutely. I wrote that, that was one of the earliest songs I wrote. I wrote it in 2020 and it’s been through many iterations. And it’s funny because I didn’t actually have a person in mind when I was writing it, but just that feeling like you are second to someone. And I feel like a lot of my songs that have that kind of… Like Independent or Lonely, for example. Both of those songs have a conflict of I’m feeling second or I’m not putting myself first. And the result always comes to what if I chose myself? What if I did that first because I’ll never be second to myself. Because as much as in Secondary, it feels like I’m being second to someone else. There’s also a betrayal of self that’s occurring as well because feeling like that feels awful.

John Murch:
If no one else was in mind, was there a lot of self-awareness happening at that time of maybe a bit of a disconnect with yourself?

Charly Oakley:
Yeah, I think so. And it’s funny because a lot of the songs I write I’m like, there’s a self-awareness but there’s also a kind of flow where I think I just need to write this and get it out. I don’t know why I’m feeling it, how I’m feeling it, but the words flow and it’s there. And so many of the songs I write two years ago, I hear now, and I go, “Oh, it makes sense.” And that’s why journaling and stuff is so important because you’re writing things, but then they might only make sense a couple months later or years later, even as secondary has been for me because things resonate at different times. But how would they supposed to resonate if you never write them down in the first place?

John Murch:
I have an idea of where you’re coming from, but I’m going to ask you straight out, Charl. What are those musical influences that are part of your ecosystem? Not necessarily for this album, but for you as a songwriter and musician?

Charly Oakley:
For me at the moment, it’s definitely Lizzy McAlpine. I love the way she writes. It’s so interesting and alternative, but it makes so much sense. I love words that if you just saw them on a piece of paper, you’d be like, “I don’t really get it.” But then hearing it matched with a melody that just interlocks is so satisfying to me.
Olivia Dean from the UK is a brilliant, brilliant performer. She’s more like blues, jazzy, kind of R&B style. But it’s funny because I realise that keeping distance where you can always has parallels to one of her songs. One of the lyrics is, if you can’t see my mirrors then I can’t see you, which is on the back of tracks. And I always listen to that lyric. Well, that’s such a cool lyric. And so, there must have been something churning in my subconscious that was like, “I want to lyric about a sign now.” So yeah. And Missy Higgins, I love her. I love her writing and independent or lonely on the album definitely has a lot of her influence, I think.

John Murch:
Piano by jazz licks on what I guess is an interpretation of the lead single. Where did that come from? Is that a Jordie thing or is it very much a you thing?

Charly Oakley:
That’s very much a Jordie thing.

John Murch:
Right.

Charly Oakley:
He killed it. He really enjoys switching up form on songs and he will record an entire song like, “Let’s make it emo now.” He loves playing with form and I was really impressed and grateful for his contribution to that. But those licks are gorgeous, and I find myself, I love listening to a George Benson and God who else? All those bluesy, ’70s, soul-inspired like Aretha, all of it is so just melting, it’s gorgeous. And I feel really proud that we were able to infuse that into that song.

John Murch:
Where to next?

Charly Oakley:
The day the album was released, Jordie, Law, and I started writing the next one. When I walk in around, I feel like now that I’ve done this, I’m able to be even more vulnerable and even more, not that I wasn’t saying what I wanted to say in this album because I definitely am, but I feel like there’s a new level of maturity and self-awareness that has opened to me in this phase of my life as a whole that I’m so excited to write about.
More writing, more playing, more connecting with people. I’m so excited to just go play shows and just help people heal and escape from… Well, not even escape. I think creativity has a very… People view the arts as an escape, but I think it’s really a returning to what we know is true and here in our heart and soul. And I want to help people return to that as much as they can.

John Murch:
As a practitioner of musical theatre, how much is that playing a part of this new material?

Charly Oakley:
Heaps. I think story is, it’s everything. It’s all there is in music and it’s why people can reach out to me and talk about the story and talk about the words. Because I think a lot of musicians in my generation… Because production is so accessible and TikTok especially as well, if we get into that melting pot of a situation. People can write and put stuff out everywhere and we have learned now what this structure of a good poppy American kind of song is.
But for people to be able to reach out to me, post this release and talk about how much the words mean or how much… I’ve received so many direct messages about Garden of Growth in particular. People just saying they’re crying happy tears for their little cells and how proud of themselves they are. And that’s exactly what I want and hope that people will feel for a long time.

John Murch:
We mentioned the musical theatre that’s going great guns for you. What’s the production you really want to do?

Charly Oakley:
I want to do Waitress by Sara Bareilles. That show is me. I’m determined. I love that show so much. I was actually brought up on a lot of Sara Bareilles as well, and I sung love song at the gig to pay how much, but that music is just brilliant.

John Murch:
I’m so old. When you said Waitress, I was thinking Keri Russell’s movie, Felicity.

Charly Oakley:
I think it actually is based off of that though. But there’s another show as well called Fun Home, which I was lucky enough to be in the room in the final callbacks of, and it’s about the life of Alison Bechdel. Made the Bechdel test. It’s about a queer person and her relationship with her family and with herself and her internalised homophobia. It is wonderful. It’s one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, and it was definitely really fundamental in my understanding of my identity as well. Good shows all around.

John Murch:
Charly, before you leave us, I want to talk about that idea of music as medicine. Is music medicine?

Charly Oakley:
It absolutely is. I think it is. In a world that is so caught up in chaos and fear, music is… It’s our glue. It is what holds our collective conscious together. And it is I think a radical act of love and rebellion to say, “I will bring love, I will bring joy, I will bring healing to people.” It brings our world together and I can’t believe I do it for a living. It is just brilliant.

John Murch:
Charly, thanks very much for joining us on radionotes.

Charly Oakley:
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

 

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