“It’s definitely feels like the next chapter of the band is here.”
Charmer formed a decade ago, but they are emerging now with Downpour, and The Aquarian got to talking with its frontman, David Daignault, about what that means for them and what ‘right now’ feels like for the open-minded alternative rockers. Here is that conversation:
The first single to come out ahead of Downpour was “Arrowhead.” How do you find that it set the tone and stage for this album?
Well, we didn’t really know what to do. I just had my bandmates send me five songs in order of how much they liked them if released as singles or as priority. That was the only song that actually made everyone’s list out of the whole record, so that’s why we went with it. I thought it was pretty cool, as well, because I feel like it’s a good example of the theme of the album and the tone since it is quite a big departure our sound before.
Absolutely. Much of this record does almost feel out of left field, but it is also a step in the right direction in my opinion. It’s definitely the most cohesive piece of music from Charmer. Were there other songs or ideas that kind of hit the cutting room floor?
Thank you so much. Yeah, I was pretty meticulous with everything on this one and I wanted to make sure it was right. Five years is quite a long time, so I wanted to make sure we were coming back the right way. For me, at least, I think before I was kind of catering to what I thought people would like to hear and I really wasn’t getting much fulfillment out of that. It’s kind of hard to expand your sound, too, because all of the band members are into so many different types of music, and I feel like it’s hard when you kind of just pigeonholed into a genre, because things change all the time. Tastes change, so we definitely expanded the sound based on that, but we also didn’t want to push it too far where we were alienating the people that have supported us and got the band to where it is now. Not that we’re a huge band, but we don’t want to mess up. I was very nervous before all of it. I really didn’t know what to expect, and five years is a long time in today’s music world. I didn’t know if there were still people waiting around for us, so all of it was kind of nerve wracking. I feel great about the final product, though, and if anything I finally feel like I have a record that I truly love.
I’m really happy for you – all of you. I think that when a band is able to expand in any direction and garner new fans in that way, it is definitely a good thing.
I sure hope it lands, but you never really know. I mean, I see albums come out that are incredible, but they’re just so quickly overlooked. I don’t if that’s the right word, but it’s maddening in a way. Bands get stuck in these limbos because they’re making great records and then it just doesn’t click or something. I don’t know what it takes for something to hit, you know? I definitely feel lucky, though. You have to like to work 99% harder than all the other bands and also get lucky, because timing is definitely everything.
Timing is right. Seasonally, releases can be right or wrong, too, I find. I think the single of yours, “Blue Jay,” was a really smart single to release because it fits the season.There are songs and albums that, to me, I listen to in the fall and others that I gravitate toward in the spring, and “Blue Jay” feels like spring, it feels like now.
That’s how I write music, too. Thematically I reference times of the years and weather and all that kind of stuff so much because a song is just the moment in time.
The tone of the moment and the aesthetic of it, too, if you will.
That’s another thing I was really driving myself crazy about! Getting the right aesthetic for everything is so important as it is silly. How you present something and then how package it matters. It takes time, and we’re doing it for ourselves more than anything because we enjoy it, but when people support something, that justifies continuing and spending the time doing all of it, because It’s also not exactly easy. Being in a band and finding the time to do it all while maintaining home life, especially when you get older… the band is 10 years old this year so it’s not like we’re 21 anymore.
I totally get that. The time you spent on this was worth it, and I know fans appreciate that. Opening with “Linger” and closing with “Galick Gun” is thoughtful, and I am sure that took time to find and hear tracklist-wise.
I appreciate all the words, because I definitely drive myself mad with that kind of stuff. I’m thankful that I have a good circle of people who like to bounce ideas off and keep me in check is a good word for it.
Of course, and the artwork falls in line with that, too, I am sure. Your Charmer cover, the Ivy cover, the now the Downpour cover, all have a sort of nostalgic ambiance to it. I feel like I’m looking at scrapbooks and memories just looking at the cover of each of these albums, and that reflects pretty deeply within the music. How do you come to what we see, what the final album artwork ends up as?
Thanks. All the artwork has always come after the songs are written. It’s kind of a curse if you choose your artwork before you hear your album or if you only have a couple songs, because then it almost feels like you’re chasing the vibe of the artwork if you have it too early rather than have it all in front of you at once. Then you can visualize what you want. I really enjoy doing that. I don’t do a lot of visual art stuff, but the drummer of the band, Nick, is such a talented artist and helps me make things come to life. Even in Ivy we worked with Dylan England. He plays in a band called Del Packs and he’s a phenomenal artist. Working together to make that was great. I remember when he sent it. It was like a no-brainer that that was gonna be the artwork. I struggled with Downpour, though, for sure. We had lots of things at the beginning that were gonna be it, but then I ended up actually driving like two hours into the middle of nowhere. You see, my grandparents live in this town called Engadine with maybe 300 people in it. I went there and just rummaged through their photo albums for probably four or five hours one night with my grandmother in the living room with me. I think I pulled out a stack of like 40 photos and then brought them back to Nick and we laid ’em all out and visualized it. That’s how this came to be, and I feel like it definitely does capture this record, and if the cover art was anything else, it’d be wrong at this point, you know?
Totally.
And the album cover itself is a photo of my aunt on Isle Royale. I don’t know if you’re familiar with what that is.
No, but it’s beautiful.
It’s just a 55-mile-long island in the middle of Lake Superior, which is like the largest freshwater lake. “Rose Thorns” was a song that I originally had written for an album before Downpour that just kind of got scrapped, but there were about three or four songs that we pulled from that album that made it to Downpour, and “Rose Thorns” was one. It was like the first song written in all of it, and I actually wrote that on a backpacking trip through Isle Royale during that first summer of COVID, so when I saw this picture of my aunt there, it just kind of clicked and it was a full circle moment in a way. I mean, now I’m just ecstatic that the photo even exists.
LISTEN TO CHARMER’S HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED NEW ALBUM, DOWNPOUR, HERE!
