A few minutes after their show supporting Arch Enemy, on June 12th in Bologna (our photoreport here), The Charm The Fury were kind enough to give us some of their time. Here’s how singer Caroline Westendorp replied to our questions!
Hi, we’re Giada and Federico from MetalPit! Thanks for the opportunity of this interview, we’re glad to speak with you. What are your feelings after the concert?
It was nice, actually pretty good. We are kinda spoiled with the Italian audience, we played with Marilyn Manson a year ago and also with Eluveitie, and the audience went crazy! So we’re kinda held our hopes high, but it was early in the day and people were kind of mellow, they needed some warm up. But it was good anyway, it was fun.
How did The Charm And The Fury come into existence?
Well, that’s a long time ago… I think someone posted like an advertisement on Facebook or something. “I’m looking for a metal band…” and I was oh, I would want to try out as a screamer. So it all just started online, we met through the advertisement of someone looking to form a band and we started jamming out, some left, some joined and now we are here.
What are the ideas and inspirations for “The Sick, Dumb & Happy”?
Everything actually, the society we all live in right now. It mostly revolves around the fact that we are actually closing our eyes for, like, real problems in the world such as… back then, well, still, war in Syria, the attacks to Charlie Hebdo in France as well… people are becoming dumber, blinder, in their own little world, caring for their own interest and stopped looking at real problems. And that’s what the media does, if you think: it’s a one side perspective on the world. And Trump wasn’t even chosen, elected by then, when we wrote the album… so, see what happened!
What are the real problems you’re trying to address here?
Well, the main theme we address is to wake up from your stupid cell phone. Just don’t drown in the picture-perfect image you see on Instagram, get to see the real story behind it and wake up. Just don’t make your world smaller, that’s exactly what the media does to us: it keeps on making us dumb and feeding us with picture-perfect images, and that’s not the real truth.
In “Echoes”, you touch on politics, war and more. What do you think about that?
War and politics, well that’s an endless discussion! Well, now with Trump, what is happening this week, it’s coming out of hand… if he became President, then the world has actually lost. Also, with the refugees from Syria who are coming to Italy, I think it’s necessary to welcome them and behave like one union and now it’s, like, all countries are like “no, Syrian people, oh”… they need to start acting more as one. And, also, Trump sucks. He should go.
You recently signed to Nuclear Blast, so how do you feel about that? How did that influence the band?
Well, we are super proud because we are all our idols have been signed or are signed to Nuclear Blast, like Slayer, Machine Head… also Europe and even Steel Panther, one of my guilty pleasures, are signed to Nuclear Blast. It’s a big honour, because they’re so big, the biggest in the scene I guess. It didn’t have any influence on the band, we got signed after we brought and finished the record, so they heard that and they were like “okay, let’s go for it!”
Do you have any plans for the future, after the tour?
No, it’s going to be a bit quiet. We’re going to do the tour and some cool festival shows, such as Wacken, and after some time we’re gonna write the album, so mellow out, but still writing, yeah.
What’s your favourite song to perform on stage, and why?
Well, I really like “Songs of Obscenity” right now, because people are actually doing the wall of death, even within shows like this, which are mellow and early in the day, we manage to get a wall of death. So, I like that song the most.
What do you think about the “female fronted band” topic? Is it sexist, offensive or you just donìt care?
Yeah, well, it goes two ways: you attract a lot of attention, but people are also a bit kind of like “let’s see what she’s got”. You always have to work a bit harder, because they’re like “oh, the band is only going well because they have a female singer”. You’re kind of disadvantaged, because they’re all like “oh well, she’s got boobs, that’s why doing this”, while I really try to be a good singer as well. It’s actually very sexist: people don’t expect you to be in the band. I was called once by someone, I think the tour manager maybe, who came to me and asked if I were the merch girl! So yeah, the sexism is still rude. It needs to change.
What kind of music do you listen to in your everyday life?
That’s funny, because we were just talking about it. On tour, you don’t listen to the music you actually make, because you’re like inside the metal sound the entire night. I listen to a lot of hip hop, Post Malone… also, acoustic, folky, country like Fleet Foxes, Stone Foxes.
Which vocalist inspired you the most?
I was very much inspired by Underoath, that’s like metalcore. I was wondering how I love metal female fronted, super gothic metal-ish females, such in Within Temptation, our you have the serious, typical metal women, and then you have Underoath, which is kind of in between, with a southern Pantera vibe. That’s why I was super inspired by them, because there wasn’t a female singer operating in that scene back then.
Is there any band or singer you’d like to duet with?
Well… I would say Underoath, with Spencer Chamberlain. It would be an honour with Alyssa and who else… singer Keith Buckley, from Every Time I Die.