Without naming names, a lot of the biggest names in pop and indie seem afraid to have fun these days. That’s what makes Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter (and on the indie side, Jeff Rosenstock and The Linda Lindas) such a breath of fresh air — they’re not afraid to call out people for pretending to be “too cool” to let loose, jump around, and dance.
Charly Bliss falls into this let’s-have-fun camp, too.
On the band’s first new album in five years, Forever, the quartet — singer Eva Hendricks, drummer Sam Hendricks, lead guitarist Spencer Fox, and bassist Dan Shure — have honed their balance of bubbly pop hooks and crunchy guitar riffs, and they’re having a blast. You will, too. It’s an album meant to be enjoyed among friends or fellows fans, possibly on the Forever And Ever tour.
I recently spoke to Eva Hendricks about the international backstory to making Forever, her feelings on the band’s debut album, and Charly Bliss’ very entertaining Twitter account. Seriously, give it a follow.
I’m asking this as a fan of the band first and a journalist second: where the heck has Charly Bliss been for the past five years?
That is a great question. So much has changed for us in the last five years. Putting this record out has been so wild because it forces you to look at your life and these very specific chunks, like where was I when we were making Guppy? Where was I when we were making Young Enough? And for this album, there’s never been a more intense period of change in my life.
I moved to Australia. Sam became a dad twice over, and so much has just changed for the four of us. It’s really wild. So, yeah, I guess a lot of what transpired was kind of pandemic related. When I went to Australia, I thought I was going there for six weeks. I had just fallen in love with someone who lives there. And right after Sam and his wife had their daughter, I thought, “Well, we can’t be touring for the next six weeks.” It’s so funny we thought that was all at the time. But, yeah, I was like, cool, I’ll go work on the album and write a lot over in Australia and test out this new relationship and see what it is. I left Los Angeles on March 3, 2020, and ended up not leaving Australia for a year and a half. I became like an Australian citizen in that time. We wrote so much of the album over Zoom and figured out a way to make it work while we were apart.
So yeah, that’s where we’ve been.
What does the album title mean to you?
I think when you’re in a period of so much change, it forces you to look at your life and see what are the permanent things. In the period of being in Charly Bliss, I’ve been through so many different romantic relationships and apartments and lifestyle changes, and, you know, tent poles of who I thought I was. This album is so much about reflecting on all of that and realizing that even through all of these shifting external factors, the one thing that never changes, that never goes away, is Charly Bliss. That is the “Forever” of my life.
