Charlie Winston

Singer-songwriter Charlie Winston was in town on Saturday to play a show at the Commodore Ballroom and we had a chance to sit down with the lovely Brit that afternoon.

Winston released his third album, Running Still, in November and was completing a cross-Canada tour with local act Current Swell. He first gained recognition from Hobo, his sophomore release in 2009, and has become extremely popular in France (he currently lives in Paris).

While it is easiest to label Winston a "singer-songwriter", his influences and sound are varied and complex. Many listeners (including some fellow concertgoers) didn't realise he was from England, due to the strong impact of blues and roots music on his records, especially on Hobo. However, on Running Still we have a song dedicated to Ludwig van Beethoven and another where Winston beatboxes in a true modern French electro-pop style.

Another strong characteristic of his songwriting is the leap from a personal voice to that of a character throughout the albums, moving from storyteller to a diary entry. Winston often chooses to focus on topics many people find difficult to face - global warming ("Summertime All Year Round"), job difficulties in the current economy ("In Your Hands"), our own mortality ("Kick the Bucket"). Despite the sometimes morose subject matter, Winston brings a sense of playfulness to his music with upbeat chords and witty lyrics.

Despite this given description of the artist, don't expect to hear much of the same on his record - Winston is constantly changing as an artist, both in style and medium.

"I like to challenge people's perceptions," Winston said. "When an artist does something, we expect them not to change. If I kept on with [the Hobo look], I'd be labelled with it and done it on demand."

He continued that artists have a difficult time these days, taking to Twitter to "convince everyone they're nice people," he said. When I brought up Kanye West as an example of someone who is extremely talent but, let's face it, incredibly arrogant, he agreed. "Beethovan was extremely difficult," he said.

We talked a little bit of about the difference in subject matter between Running Still and Hobo, most notably that Winston is much more clear about his ideas of the problems in modern times.

"It was on purpose i think. I think I've always aspired to use songs to talk about things that are going on," he said. "I wanted to be more direct with my audience and say 'I want to talk about this'."

Winston's penchant for storytelling was instilled at a young age. He was raised in a hotel his family owned in Bungay, Suffolk. "It was quite chaotic," he admitted. "Not much family life. It was pretty crazy. They wanted it to be a hub of entertainment as well," hosting musicians, dancers and the like.

"Whenever I wanted to talk to somebody, I just wnt down to the front bar and asked my older brother for a Coke," Winston said. "I spent a lot of my childhood talking to people over forty."

In adulthood he worked at the Prince Charles Theatre, a movie theatre showing a quirky mix of mainstream and indie films. He credited, among the others, the director Ingmar Bergman as an influence on the last record. He also said he planned on trying his hand at directing eventually.

Onstage, Winston seemed incredibly at ease, almost more so than he had been during our interview. He interacted with the crowd, even coming onstage to introduce his openers, Current Swell. They were a great fit for Charlie, a great roots-rock band that reminded me of a better, indie Kings of Leon.

Once Charlie came on, the energy went up a notch. His right-hand man, Ben Edwards, played harmonica and rocked it out onstage with some fast-and-loose dance moves. The light show was surprisingly good as well, which is sometimes neglected on singer-songwriter tours. 

His biggest hits won the crowd over, especially "In Your Hands", which got everyone stomping on the famous Commodore dance floor. Winston also gave a strong performance of "Speak to Me", beatboxing the intro and showing off some of those skills he presumably picked up in France.

However, when a quieter song was played the room lost a little bit of energy. That would be my one critique of the show, that the faster paced songs were better suited for a Saturday night concert in a bar.

With his latest tour all wrapped up, hopefully we can look forward to some upcoming summer festival announcements. You can check out Charlie Winston's page here.