Charlie Hickey’s “Seeing Issues” is a fragile crusher of a tune. All through the somber ballad, the 22-year-old artist begs for a stagnant relationship to be enlivened by friction, movement, or that means. “I want you’d fuck with my head, sneak up proper behind me, scare me to dying,” Charlie gently confesses over mushy guitar strumming. It’s a plea for any sort of emotional motion — as a result of to really feel one thing, even worry, is best than feeling nothing in any respect.
The tune has caught hearth as Hickey’s most-streamed tune on Spotify, and when it was first launched in February 2021, it appeared the strongest signifier of his huge potential as a singer-songwriter. What might learn as an earth-shifting breakup or a knee-bent request to not be deserted, the monitor imagines the probabilities of an unrequited crush. This sort of love is fleeting, but Hickey illustrates how huge it will probably really feel if you’re in it. “That tune is about that feeling of constructing one thing up in your head a lot and occurring this entire journey,” he tells MTV Information, “after which realizing that nothing has even occurred but.”
Whereas his lyrics doc all-encompassing intervals of affection or heartbreak, they have an inclination to emerge from observations of on a regular basis life and informal conversations with Hickey’s mates. “How a lot you’ll be able to really feel about one thing that’s actually such a small deal — I really feel prefer it’s sort of a theme in numerous my music,” he says. “It’s the ideas folks have after they’re not attempting to say one thing attention-grabbing.”
“Seeing Issues” has since discovered its method onto Hickey’s first full-length album, Nervous at Night time, out in the present day (Could 20), which is a kaleidoscope of dovetailing themes. It skates over relationships each romantic and platonic, whereas additionally participating with the common expertise of rising up and changing into the individual you’re meant to be. An total emphasis on the transitory spans the mission, as Hickey navigates the areas between the place he’s been, the place he’s, and the place he’s going. There’s nervousness, too, that he may not get there. On the apprehensive “Gold Line,” he muses: “I believe feeling issues is just too laborious / I’ve bought this sense I’m not gonna get what I would like.”
“It undoubtedly is a sense I’ve quite a bit,” Hickey says. “Whether or not it is a few romantic state of affairs or a profession state of affairs or no matter, it is identical to, I am placing a lot on this and this might simply completely simply not work out in any respect.” Beneath, Hickey talks with MTV Information concerning the course of of making his debut album and the catharsis of lastly releasing it into the world.
MTV Information: When do you know you completed the album?
Charlie Hickey: Just a few of those songs date again to earlier than a few of the songs on my EP [Count the Stairs]. So in that sense, the method has been occurring for 3 years, however numerous newer songs on there have been completed proper in time to file the album. It was form of an untraditional course of in the way in which that Marshall [Vore], who’s the producer of the file and likewise did a good quantity of writing with me, would typically be writing and demoing stuff as we went. I suppose we knew we have been executed when the label was like, “All proper, you guys actually must be executed now!”
MTV Information: What impressed the title monitor, “Nervous at Night time”?
Hickey: I believe it is not in contrast to “Seeing Issues” in that it sounds prefer it’s about some tumultuous relationship dynamic but it surely’s actually nearly having a crush. It is like a barely extra mature cousin [to “Seeing Things”]. There’s just a little bit extra lightness to it, or consciousness, which I believe is simply one thing I’ve gained as I’ve gotten older. Just a bit extra perspective on these emotions, despite the fact that they nonetheless come up and so they’re nonetheless actually huge.
MTV Information: The album opens with “Dandelions,” which provides this small-town nostalgia: I cherished the road, “Saying sorry to my sister for taking over area with my little emotions.”
Hickey: I imply, I wrote that tune throughout the pandemic, and I used to be residing with my mother and my sister for all the pandemic. So it was fairly actually simply what was occurring. Possibly it appears like a childhood reminiscence, but it surely was two years in the past.
MTV Information: The tune opens up the album’s themes of rising and transitioning, and the uncertainties of relationships. Was that your intention?
Hickey: I do not assume it was actually an intention. I’ve truly talked about this with Marshall, however a few of the greatest relationship songs are usually not about romantic relationships, and generally you’ll be able to’t inform or you do not even have to know. There truly are numerous platonic or familial love songs on this album or songs about center faculty enemies. I believe it may be attention-grabbing to write down about, a relationship that is not romantic, however you do not even essentially want to offer that away.
MTV Information: Inform me about “13.”
Hickey: That tune is nearly being in center faculty and being mates with boys who have been imply to you. I’ve truly had numerous conversations about that tune with folks as a result of it is a actually imply tune. I do not know if this even comes via, however I do have this consciousness that we have been all simply children and it is not that deep. However this narrator within the tune is certainly working via some stuff and is perhaps indignant in a barely irrational method.
MTV Information: Nicely yeah, they’re not that huge a deal now, however when you’re in these areas, these scars will be deep.
Hickey: And I believe there are moments that you simply notice issues as you grow old about relationships that make it tougher so that you can keep indignant, after which there’s form of this letting go. It is nearly disappointing, as a result of anger will be such an exhilarating emotion in a method, or a extra palatable emotion than unhappiness. It’s sort of laborious to let go of, and I really feel like, in that tune, there’s form of this wrestle with greedy on the final straws of that indignant feeling.
MTV Information: I wish to speak about “Mid-Air,” which does speak about a relationship, however I’m unsure if it’s platonic or romantic. I cherished the road: “I believe we’re two sides of the identical coin spinning in midair / On the lookout for someplace to land or some face to indicate.”
Hickey: That tune is about my sister truly, so completely not a romantic tune. I used to be describing this to somebody just lately — I believe it is a few relationship the place there’s mutual caretaking.
MTV Information: There’s one tune I believed sounded significantly quirky in relation to the remaining, and that’s “Springbreaker.” You might have the larger songs and the ballads, and this one simply stands out.
Hickey: I knew you have been gonna say that! I believe it is humorous: that is truly the oldest tune on the album, so perhaps you’ll be able to inform that I wrote it in a barely totally different place in my life the place I used to be in just a little little bit of a distinct writing mode. However I do assume once I hear it again, it nonetheless feels cohesive to me. It does sort of learn like a wild-card tune, perhaps simply because it is musically much more advanced and there is a little little bit of an R&B, soulful factor to it… which truthfully, none of that was actually intentional. However I actually just like the area that it holds on the album.
MTV Information: On the tune, you are singing about having an infatuation or affection for somebody who perhaps has a extra charmed life than you would possibly, but in addition would not appear to offer you any consideration, or the eye that you prefer to. Is that modeled after somebody specifically?
Hickey: I believe that is one other form of crush tune. It is bizarre: like, numerous these songs have been written earlier than I had skilled numerous the relationships that I’ve. So that they’re just a little extra in my creativeness in some methods, however I believe that one’s only a mixture of various folks. I believe it is extra a few feeling moderately than an individual.
MTV Information: All through the album, there are these rigidity factors between relationships and, as a more in-depth, “Planet with Water” feels just like the one the place you are giving in to them.
Hickey: No, it completely is. It is undoubtedly in the identical universe as “Gold Line,” however perhaps it is additional down the road previous that “uh-oh, what is going on on,” feeling and extra like, “yeah, I am fucking in it.” It’s undoubtedly the people tune, or the “I Will Observe You Into the Darkish.”
MTV Information: Which songs on the album have been the simplest and hardest to write down?
Hickey: “Dandelions” got here out fairly rapidly. I believe I wrote that tune in just a few hours in my bed room, after which Marshall and I picked aside just a few issues about it, however that one was fairly painless. “Planet With Water” was very concerned. We spent numerous time on the lyrics. Surprisingly, “Nervous at Night time” I keep in mind being a extremely, actually concerned course of as effectively.
MTV Information: Why was that?
Hickey: I do not know. Generally it is identical to, one thing would not really feel fairly proper. Marshall has the tendency to form of be like, “OK, that is good, however you are able to do higher,” which I actually recognize. And I’ve began to be that voice for myself just a little extra. It isn’t good to labor over issues endlessly, however I do like that feeling of being like, I believe this was the perfect I might do.
MTV Information: Are you nervous for this to lastly be out?
Hickey: 100%. I imply, simply the truth that it has been such a very long time coming, it is form of like, now I’ve actually put out all that I’ve bought, I’ve bought nothing else to offer in the intervening time.” It’s sort of a scary factor.
MTV Information: You’re simply releasing it and having no concept what occurs subsequent or the way it’s gonna be acquired.
Hickey: Yeah. I imply, I am feeling actually excited. And I’ve to remind myself often that it is a actually good, comfortable factor.
