Charli XCXmight be busy making her own music – most recently with Lizzo, nonetheless – but she’s also, like a sassier and better-dressed Simon Cowell, casually found the time to form her own girlband. If you follow Charli on social media, then you will have probably noticed her posting about Nasty Cherry; her new favourite four-piece alternative group. (In fact, the cover art to their second single What Do You Like In Me, released yesterday, was shot in Charli’s bed.) And just before her storming set at Radio 1’s Big Weekend, the popstar told Grazia all about forming the British-American band – and how she persuaded them to move to LA.
‘I’ve always wanted to work with a girlband, a girlband who are kind of punk inspired – like, referencing The Runaways – and are really in control of their own shit,’ she told us a few hours before her performance, while wearing her stage outfit of a PVC see-through coat and a jumpsuit. ‘I had these four friends [singer Gabbriette Bechtel, guitarist Chloe Chaidez, bassist Georgia Somary and drummer Debbie Knox-Hewson] who I knew and I asked them all individually like, “Have you ever felt about being in a band?” like maybe we could put something together for fun.
‘They were all down - so they all started hanging out, and they clicked really well. They all moved to LA together and started making music in this house in Glendale. I would come round and hear what they were doing and it was beginning to get really, really good so we kind of thought “Let’s just do this for real”.’
The musician also reveals how she has co-written some songs with the group, including their debut single Win. ‘I’ve been co-writing with them on some songs but they’re all actually brilliant writers,’ she said last Saturday. ‘They’re actually going to drop another song at the end of this week which is called What Do You Like In Me and it’s something they wrote on their own and I think it’s so brilliant, they’ve directed their own video for it.’
‘For me I love working with people who inspire me and the four of them, they really inspire me,’ the songwriter adds, before exclaiming, ‘I kind of wish I was in the band!’
Charli also tells us about her upcoming album – a move away from her previous two mixtapes Number 1 Angel and Pop 2 – which she says is going to be ‘less pop’. ‘It’s being made, which is good,’ she laughs. ‘I mean at the moment the song that is out is out with Lizzo called Blame It On Your Love and I would say that’s one of the most pop moments on the album. I always enjoy pushing my sound as far as I can in the most experimental way that feels right to me, so there’s definitely less pop moments on there. And really, whenever I’m making music, I’m just trying to make songs that I want to hear when I go out like in a club or a rave, so that’s kind of the brief.’
‘I was speaking with my collaborator AG Cook and we were considering doing another mixtape and making it a trilogy,’ she adds, when asked why she feels like it’s now the right time to release an album. ‘But it just sort of felt like time to do something even more epic.'