On the Rise
Charlotte Sands
Nashville-based songwriter Charlotte Sands tells Tyler Damara Kelly about her journey to Music City and the source of her unwavering determination.
Sands has many reasons to be smiling, but today specifically calls for celebration. The night before, she was nominated for two Heavy Music Awards – Best Breakthrough Album and Best International Breakthrough Artist. “It feels like a prank! When I found that out, I was like this has to be the wrong information,” she reveals, shaking her head whilst laughing incredulously.
“I just feel overwhelmingly grateful to even be considered a part of that category. It’s so exciting for me, especially being independent and not having a label backing me – every achievement feels so much bigger because of how much we’ve had to accomplish to get there”.
From 2018’s debut single “Phantom Pain” to her TikTok viral hit “Dress” – which was inspired by Candace Owens’ reaction to Harry Styles on the cover of Vogue and ended up reaching #1 on Mediabase’s independent chart and #37 on Billboard’s top 40 – Sands’ growth over the past few years has been undeniable. Despite this, she remains humble, even a little too self-aware. “It’s exciting to experience these really crazy wins as an independent artist, and sometimes I feel like I’m addicted to being the underdog,” she admits.
The underdog mentality to continue pushing on through the hardest times, acknowledging that she’s acquired a resilience despite having moments of doubt, is the main thread on her latest singles “Alright” and “Six Feet Under”. The latter is a pop-punk ballad akin to Demi Lovato’s “Happy Ending”, where Sands recognises the patterns that she keeps falling into, but doesn’t feel able to escape them.
“The entire thing is about self-reflection," she explains. "Being an artist, we’re taught to compartmentalise and have the artist version of yourself, then the personal life version. When those two things come together, sometimes it’s hard to figure out which one to prioritise – happy relationship or successful career? Sometimes you find yourself sabotaging all the good things to create art.”
“Six Feet Under” has only been out for a few hours when I speak with Sands, but she’s already received messages from people who relate to the song. She's proud to provide an outlet for those who are struggling and feel like they’re alone: “It makes me feel good to know that people feel like they have a song where their feelings are valid and that they’re being recognised,” she tells me.
Failure is not an option for Sands: “It feels like such an egotistical thing to say yes I knew the whole time, because I didn’t. I just always knew that I refused not to be here and I refused not to be as successful as I possibly could or at least give it everything I could,” she states, confidently.
“Every time something crazy happens, I’m like: ‘This is insane’, but there’s also this overwhelmingly calm feeling like I’m supposed to be here and I’m in the right place. It’s almost like there’s imposter syndrome of feeling like I shouldn’t be in this room, but then there’s this other feeling like, this is where I’m supposed to be and I’ve always known that I was going to be here. It’s having overwhelming faith in yourself and in the universe that everything’s going to work out, but not really knowing how, when, or why.”
This unexplainable feeling is exactly why Sands has never shied away from discussing her mental health struggles in her music. She wants to build a community for those who have never had the ability to speak out for themselves. “The only thing that I actually understand about what I’m supposed to be doing in the music industry is that I want to represent people who felt the way that I did when I was a teenager,” she tells me. “I felt like I didn’t have a specific place or person to go to. It felt like I was the only one experiencing these kinds of emotions.”
Sands grew up in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Her mother was an aspiring actress, and her father a musician, who always found a way to make her dreams accessible: “They never halted my creativity or told me to have realistic goals. They were always firm about how hard it would be, but said if you’re up for the challenge, then do it. I’m so stubborn and competitive that they were not worried about me at all,” she laughs.
She realises that her reality was not normal: “There wasn’t a single moment that my dad wasn’t playing guitar or our whole family wasn’t walking around singing songs. I remember going to my friend’s house when I was 12 and being like, ‘Where is your guitar? Where’s your studio that your dad makeshifted out of a closet?’ I think I was so lucky.”
Despite her family welcoming her creativity with open arms, Sands felt like an outsider until she started to discover music on her own terms. “I have a wonderful family and siblings, so it was really strange to know that you were really lucky, but also to feel like nobody really accepted you fully or understood you.” As is the normal rite of passage for teenagers, she found solace in music, listening to Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt and Alanis Morissette, before discovering bands such as We The Kings, Mayday Parade and The Maine, who she says “altered her brain chemistry in a million ways”.
As someone who always knew they would be a musician, this was the turning point. Sands had decided that she would try to pull people out of their own realities and allow them to experience the escapism that she was able to when she was really young and still figuring things out. Experiencing live music was undeniably life changing: “It gave me hope for the future and a reason to fight for my life.”
Music became a portal for Sands where she was able to experience absolute joy, and she’s been chasing that feeling ever since. “I don’t feel any pressure of failing because there is no option to fail. The moment that I decided I wasn’t going to have a Plan B was the most freeing moment in my life,” she says.
“At a young age, the fear of rejection and people ganging up on me or not liking me was ingrained in me. It was all of these things that a lot of people experience now that we’re so social media based and influenced,” Sands recalls, noting that she was in high school around the time that cyberbullying was rife. This only fuelled the fire for her to escape the negativity and chase the endless joy that music gave her. Sands came across a Rolling Stones article about Kacey Musgraves and her experiences of living in Nashville. It mentioned the artists she had grown up listening to, and all she could do was romanticise about heading to the place where magic was being made.
“In my mind, I’ve always believed that the root of being an artist is the song and story above the brand and production. It’s always the song. At a really young age I realised that I had to be the best songwriter I possibly can before I can be the best artist, so I moved to Nashville solely for the purpose of trying to really challenge myself amongst the greatest songwriters ever to exist.”
Sands convinced her parents to let her move to Nashville after she graduated high school. She deferred all her applications to Berklee College of Music with the idea that she would take a gap year, but as soon as she landed in the legendary Music City, Sands began to have cold feet.
“I was 18 years old when I moved to Nashville. I didn’t know anyone there, I didn’t have a job or a place to live – of course I lied to my parents about that,” she laughs whilst still maintaining an apologetic air in her voice. “I called my mum when I got there and said to her, ‘I want to come home. I’m miserable, I’m homesick, I don’t have any friends and I’m so sad’.”
Her parents remained encouraging “They said to me, ‘You have to stay there. You’re not allowed to come home for three months because you made this decision and you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life if you come home now’. Three months later, I was happy as could be.” Sands tells me that she didn’t even go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas that year because she fell in love with the Music City; one year turned into seven, and there was no turning back.
Nashville was imperative for Sands to find her own voice. Five years ago, she was releasing music under a different name, which in her own words was, dark moody pop inspired by Lorde. She recalls playing a gig and accidentally introducing herself by her legal name, Charlotte Sands. For two years, she battled internally with wanting to be a cool and mysterious brand until one day she had an epiphany: “If I can’t even walk into a room and feel proud to introduce myself, I’m doing something wrong,” she admits. “I remember going onto all my social media and changing my name to my legal name. I had a wave of complete freedom.”
She realised that rather than pretending to be someone else in order to fit in with what seemed cool, she could instead begin to make music that felt authentic to herself. “That’s what has come to fruition over the last three years… Now my personal life and professional life are one identity more so than they ever have been,” she says.
"My entire strategy is basically just not going away to the point where people are sick of me."
Sands has a love for confessional songwriting, gritty punk guitars and dreamy synth pop soundscapes. It took a few years to cultivate these elements into her own sound, but now she’s found the right formula. Her 2021 debut EP Special leant into alt-pop with ballads about heartbreak, and anthems about overthinking relationship dynamics. Sonically it sits in the same world as Halsey and P!nk with its playful nature, and focus on catchy choruses. Meanwhile its follow-up, Love and Other Lies showcased more confidence. Guitars were at the forefront, perfectly fitting into the pop-punk revival of 2022, and between diss tracks about bad exes, “Every Guy Ever” and being in the honeymoon phase “Want You Like That”, it’s Sands most concise release to date and signifies the lightbulb moment where she had figured it all out.
Since the release of Love and Other Lies Sands has released 11 singles, seven of which are collaborations with some of the artists that she’s admired since she was in high school. Sands features on “Loved You A Little” alongside The Maine and Taking Back Sunday. She recalls meeting The Maine at Sad Summer Festival and vocalist John O’Callaghan reached out to her a few months later: “I didn’t even listen to the song, I was just like, yep, absolutely!” she laughs. “They asked if I had listened to it and I said, I don’t care. It could be ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and I would still sing that song with you.”
Whilst her duet “Crash” with Mokita leans into R&B, and she explores metalcore on “Let You Down” with Sleeping With Sirens, the subsequent releases bounce between pop-punk and synth-pop but they still feel uniquely like Charlotte Sands. “I’m excited that genre is kind of slipping away,” she says. “Every artist can experiment in whatever they want. I think the artist is kind of the genre. If you’re supporting an artist, you’re supporting their character and what they stand for.” Sands explains that she now feels as though she has the freedom to experimental with new production and song writing styles and wants people to support her through her experimental phases because it is a part of the whole process.
“My entire strategy is basically just not going away to the point where people are sick of me and say, ‘How is this girl still here? How does she have a song out with every band ever?’ They’ll be super annoyed and eventually just give in and start listening to my music,” she tells me in a matter-of-fact way, but with a knowing smile, and it’s hard to tell whether or not she’s joking.
If I’ve learnt anything throughout our conversation, it’s that Sands isn’t a quitter. This self-belief has seen her open for My Chemical Romance at Milton Keynes, manifest a tour with Yungblud, start up a partnership with The JED Foundation – a non-profit organisation which helps prevent suicide – and another partnership with BetterHelp, in order to gift one month of free therapy to people.
Despite the unwavering confidence that she has, Sands isn’t able to stop the intrusive thoughts from winning sometimes. “My imposter syndrome, for the rest of my life, will come from a place of thinking that this is a prank everyone is playing on me. Is this a joke that the world came together on different platforms that I don’t know of, and decided, ‘Let’s play a joke on Charlotte Sands.’ Who knows? That is where my fear comes from. I don't know if that's a realistic fear or not, but it's in there,” she admits. “It feels like you're dressing up to look the part and you're just waiting for somebody to be like, ‘Wait a second. You don't fit in here. You’re not supposed to be here. Who gave you the invitation?’”
Despite these fears, she refuses to have a backup plan. It’s a bold – and quite frankly terrifying – choice to make, but it appears to be working for her. “I’m just running at full speed all the time, and crossing my fingers. I’m so stubborn and competitive that I have no other option than to reach these goals that I’ve been dreaming about my entire life,” she confesses. And so the hustle continues. Sands spent the majority of 2022 on tour, and this year is shaping up to be the same – festival appearances, a support slot with Simple Plan, and her first EU headline shows are all on the cards, as well as another string of singles.
“Even if I’m that random artist your parents show you when they’re 65 years old and everyone’s like, ‘I don’t know who that is’, and they say she’s released 700 albums, I’m happy to be that,” she deadpans before bursting into laugher. “I don’t think I will be, but unfortunately for everyone, I’m just never going away!
Get the Best Fit take on the week in music direct to your inbox every Friday
