Tuesday 19 November 2013

Article for magazine.


­­­­Born on August 28, 1986 in Northwood, England, Charlotte Young was raised in a family of writers and performers. She took to music at an early age and created her own band, which she named the red roses. The band met with success beginning in 2010, and became famous a few years later with their debut album, Petals (2012). On the album, Young’s voice can be heard on popular songs such as "Kiss my poison" and "Life without you." In 2012.

Some of Young’s talents came from her father, Edward, an artists and a musician who was himself a musical performer in his 20s. Young’s mother, Jane, a journalist and artist, also influenced her daughter, but in quite a different way. Young said in an article in GRANITE Magazine that a lecture of her mother's impressed her and inspired her to aspire to make music with "some of the big themes—sex, death, love and violence.

Young’s big break came in December 2012. Drunk at the Soho Revue Bar in London, Young cornered host Mary Nash—of the DJ duo Queens of Noise—in the bathroom and sang to her "Something's Got a Hold on Me." A week later, the Queens of Noise invited Young back to open for their club night.

"She belted it out, and I was thinking, 'Oh ... my ... God,'" Nash told The Telegraph in a June 2012 article. "I had literally never heard anyone with such a powerful voice ever. I turned to [DJ partner Tabitha Denholm] and said, 'I have to manage her.'"

The red roses initially consisted of Young, her friend Isabella "White" Summers and a drum kit and ended up becoming a four-piece band by 2011. In 2010, Welch recorded with the band Asworth, which released an album with the earliest version of her song "Happy Slappy"—later renamed "Kiss my poison"—and made a hit. Shortly after the release of the album, Young resigned from Asworth.

After signing up with Nash, Charlotte Young rose to fame. The band released its debut album, Petals, in the United Kingdom in July 2012 and met great success, peaking at No. 1 in the United Kingdom and at No. 2 in Ireland. When it was released for download in the United States several weeks later, the album debuted at No. 17 on the BillboardHeat seekers Album chart.

"Kiss My poison," released as the album's lead single, was featured on a number of film and television series soundtracks. A number of the band's other singles were also used as theme songs or featured in several American television shows, including Grey's Anatomy and So You Think You Can Dance.

The band itself made an appearance in a 2013 episode of Gossip Girl.

An article in The Sunday Times of London called Young the "most popular and most highly acclaimed female singer of the moment: poetic, literate, and hurricane-voiced." It went on to say that Young is "a fabulous artist that is becoming more known each day".

In the midst of writing music for The Roses new album in early 2011, Young was offered the chance to travel to Los Angeles to work with producers and writers of American rock music. Although she was tempted at first, Young changes her mind, saying, "No. No. No. No. No! I can't do that. This is too weird. I can't just suddenly leave behind everything that made Petals,"

Instead, the band made its second studio album Ceremonials, which included tracks by Loving, Tom Odell, James Blake, James Hills and composer White Smith, and was released in October 2013. A video for album track "What this life gave" was released on iTunes as a buzz single and on Young’s VEVO channel on YouTube: It drew 1.5 million views in two days.

Young did a significant amount of touring while writing and recording for Ceremonials, which was released in 2013

In January 2013, Young worked with the singer Daughter on material for her upcoming record, and in July 2013, suffered a vocal injury that caused her to cancel two European festival performances, Young said, "It finally happened, I've lost my voice. Seriously, I felt something snap, it was very frightening."

Music was a big part of Young’s life she loved it. Every second she had on the stage she performed immensely like no was watching. Her voice recovered and in August 2013 Young decided to play gigs in small venues; selling her tickets at extremely affordable prices. Young told GRANITE ‘’I felt awful, I shouldn’t be cancelling on my fans, they’ve spend money to come and see me perform, and I wasn’t even there’’. Currently writing a song with Daughter, Young is very excited about playing at Reading festival in 2014. She can’t wait; she uses to attend the festival herself when she was growing up. Young told GRANITE ‘’When I found out I was performing at Reading I nearly cried, loads of my favourite bands are performing there; I’ll be performing on the same stage. It’s just shocking how far I’ve come this past year’’. My friends and family have been so supportive and it really helps! Without them I don’t think I would’ve been so confident and successful. My mum and father are my two biggest fans and they have helped me the whole way. My father being a musician himself taught me from a young age how to play many different instruments, it was something I enjoyed doing and found it relaxing. I loved learning new things. My Dad is forever telling me that I should be teaching him things now! But there’s not much I can teach to a man that knows it all about music and producing. From a young age, Young started working on the skills for which we know and love her today. From the age of five years she started playing the piano, she wrote her first ballad at the age of 12 years and performed at local open mic nights from the age of 14 years.

However in 2011 Young’s career started to slowly turn into a mess… Her drug and alcohol intake increasingly affected her live performances, as she turned up to several club or TV performances too drunk to complete her set. Her management company suggested she got some help, but rather than take their advice Young dumped the management company and turned the experience into the catchiest song on her new album- “Stubborn never sober”

Young later told The Daily mail newspaper she did go to rehab but did not last long: “I did, for just 25 minutes. I went in and said, ‘Hi’ and tried to explain that I drink because I'm in love and have f****** up the relationship; I cheated on my boyfriend. Then I walked out."

'Stubborn never sober', the first single off the album, hit number seven on the UK charts and won Young her second Ivor Novello award for song writing. The album won album of the year at the MTV Europe Music Awards and Best Indie Vocal Album and Best New Artist at the 2012 Grammy Awards. It won numerous awards including Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. NME magazine rated the song as the best of 2012 praising Young e as “mouthy, funny, sultry, and quite possibly crazy". "It's impossible not to be seduced by her originality. Combine it with production by James Black that references four decades worth of rock/indie music without once ripping it off, and you've got the best song of 2012,’’ it raved. Petals was the top-selling album in the UK in 2012 for both over-the-counter and iTunes sales. Several other singles were released from the album and all charted well. In late 2012, Young’s debut album ‘-OH’ was released in the United States, debuting at number 45 on the Billboard charts. Even though Young had a huge problem with drinking in 2012 she decided to seek help. The time was right; she would be fucking up her career otherwise? She couldn’t let this talent slide away. Her parents wouldn’t allow her to either.

Young decided to attend alcoholism counselling and get the help she needed for her drug use to kick start her career again,she needed to focus on creating her new album ‘Pick up them pieces’ that will be released in April 2013. Young told GRANITE ‘I turned into an alcoholic and a heavy cocaine user, nobody was to blame apart from me – I’m trying to get back on track. A slow progress is better than none right? I’m so proud how far I’ve come already’ At least she was honest she’s realising that she had made some mistakes and beginning to get back her normal life style. In the interview we questioned Young on her love life she told us that she was single and not looking for a relationship until she got herself better and decided what she wanted to do with her music. However young started doing some small exclusive gigs in her local pubs up in London; she enjoyed performing and especially entertaining and surprising her audience. Imagine if you where just sitting in your local pub and all of a sudden an artist just started to perform? Young told us she enjoyed doing surprise performances because when she was younger she couldn’t always go to festivals and concerts she didn’t always have the money. She wanted all of her fans to feel special and enjoy the night as much as they could. Because she wished this could have happened when she was younger.

In February of 2013 Charlotte Young was officially clean she had been of alcohol and drugs for over 10 months now. Her family and close friends where so pleased of her. She was pleased with herself. Deep down she knew she could do it; she did. All of her songs where written out for the album released in January 2014, most of them where to do with the struggles she had last year.

Her album being released in January 2014 ‘These wars’ was going to be a popular hit, Her last album ‘petals’ was extremely successful peaking at No. 1 in the United Kingdom and at No. 2 in Ireland. When it was released for download in the United States several weeks later, the album debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard Heat seekers Album chart. She was so pleased with how far she had come. She couldn’t thank all of the musicians in her band anymore she claims she wouldn’t have been able to have done it without them. Mary Nash really helped Young become who she is today, from signing her after her drunken performance in Soho. Young just can’t believe how lucky she is. She was over excited about her new album coming out in 2014; she wanted to become more popular and see if she could even do better than last time. Her aim was to become No.1 again in the United Kingdom and also become No.1 in Ireland. She told GRANITE ‘I’m going to have one of my songs released for free on ITunes, it will help promote who I am, what I’m doing and how I sound! More people will by my album then… right?’ It’s great to see that Young has turned her life around and finally got her head screwed on. However something extremely traumatic suddenly happened in Young’s life, December (only a few weeks before ‘These wars’ was being released). Young’s closest friend Isabella White Summer former drummer in the band was involved in an alarming car collision between there motorcycle and a car in London. Summers boyfriend was drunk driving on the way home from a friend’s birthday party, thinking that it was only down the road and that everything would be okay. He was wrong...
Summers was critically injured and a her boyfriend ended up being hospitalized Friday afternoon after their motorcycle collided with a car in East London, police said. The car driver was cited, state police at London station said. Valario Jabobs 24, and his passenger, Isabella 20, were northbound at 3:45AM. When a car turned in front of their motorcycle from a side road, police said. Daniel P. Moffett, 23, of Auburn, was turning left from Brick Hill Road as the two youngster, of London, crashed into his car. Luckily they both survived this serious accident. However summers wouldn’t be able to perform the week of the albums release due to two broken arms and extremely bad injuries.

Young just wanted her friends to get better. ‘It was such a shock, I just want them both to get better and also learn from there silly mistakes. They don’t understand how lucky they are to be alive.Obviously I’m completely devastated that Isabella can’t perform for the albums opening dates, but I guess her health is more important. As long as she gets better is the main thing. But fans don’t worry, we’re still performing on the release dates. We’ll just be using a friend as a drummer!!!’

GRANITE when along to the opening of ‘These war’s’ in January it was held in Camden Round house the day of the album release, Young the only vocalist who formed the band thought it would be a fantastic way to promote the band and brand new album. After their performance she was selling the new album and also doing a CD signing. She was a natural performer and entertainer. She knew exactly how to please her audience and new fans! At the album opening GRANITE interview a few fans to find out their opinions of their band and what they thought of the new album.We spoke to four people two males and two females! It was lovely that we got invited to the opening and also get to speak to the fans and find out everyone’s opinions.

Name: Layla   Age: 18  From: London

‘’The amount of effort and rehearsing Young and her band member have put into this performance and whole night are unbelievable. I wasn’t expecting discounted drink, CD signing, and meeting Young… I mean she’s fabulous. She’s had her ups and downs in life. So have I, so I can relate to her music. I personally prefer ‘These wars’ to ‘Petals’ because all of the songs in it have more emotion, with a mix of heavy rock but also sad slow indie songs. So yeah... I love the new album, I’ve already bought it. I can’t wait to play it when I get home’.



Name: Brad  Age: 26  From: Scotland

‘’Young’s blimmin hot!!! I fuckin love the new album! It’s unique, upsetting but also so catchy. I’ve always been a big follower of her music from when she first started. I’m from Scotland but I’m always traveling to London for concerts and little trips. When Young’s playing I always try to come. She’s such a humble artist and has so much appreciation for how far she has come. She treats her followers like her mates, welcomes everyone and really gets the crowd going mad at her concerts! So I’m fucking chuffed I came to London this weekend!!!! My mates are gonna be going mad that they didn’t come!’’

Name: Lilly  Age:23  From: London

‘’I’ve never heard of Young before, Me and my friends where shopping up in Camden because we live in the area and saw her album release being held tonight so we thought we would go along. I’m a big fan of Indie/rock music myself. All of my house mates love it. So we decided to take a trip down. Straight away I love the whole atmosphere and the people there. The music was catchy and I really enjoyed it, I’ll definitely listen to Young more often now. I actually have purchased her brand new album! I’m surprised because I’ve never buy albums. I normally download all of my music online or just listen to albums and tracks on YouTube. Obviously; I’m a student I don’t have money to spend on all of the latest music. So I’m shocked I bought Young’s. I guess I’ve taken a big liking to her and her fellow band members. But the whole night was really welcoming, I really enjoyed myself. Especially meeting the band and getting my CD signed!!! It was so exciting and I was so lucky. The whole night was constant fun and excitement. I would definitely see Young again. 10 out of 10’’

Name: Daniel  Age:17  From: Ireland

‘’A few of my mates have spoken about Young before and told me that she’s really good, but I’d never heard of her until tonight. She’s done so well, especially not having the original drummer in the band due to her being injured in a car collision. The whole night was fuckin great; I and my mates had a total wicked night! We met some really hot girls, we had free drinks and to top it all off I bought Young’s album and she fucking signed it for me!!! Such a class night.




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