Charlie Davidson is a singer songwriter and producer hailing from from the east of Scotland. Having been given a Casio keyboard at the age of nine years old, Charlie’s love of writing and creating lush, sparkling pop songs was born from an early age.

Honing his craft over the years, Charlie began to develop skills in production. What began as basic experimentation using a PC and sound recorder, expanded into full-scale production and laid the foundations for the artist he is today. The result of which has led to Charlie’s music previously being featured on BBC Introducing Scotland, earning recognition as a semi-finalist in the International Songwriting Competition and most recently signing a publishing deal with Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Eliot Kennedy’s Steelworks Songs company.

In this interview spotlight, I chat with Charlie about his music, dream collabs, AI becoming a tool in music, and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Let’s get this hot topic out of the way from the start. What are your feelings on AI as a creative tool? Have you experimented with it? Or released any projects where it was used?

I’m torn on this one.  Making music can take me a really long time – I’ll be releasing an album next year and some of the songs have been 7 years in the making.  I can see the attraction to AI tools that might speed up the process, like quickly creating the drum beat or string section that you want, or mixing a song, etc…but any time I’ve tried using AI myself I’ve not been too impressed with the results.  I don’t think I’m completely opposed to AI being a tool to create music, but I feel like art is expressing emotion, so humans can’t (or shouldn’t!) be completely replaced in the process.  

What is your earliest music memory? Or a moment that sticks out for motivating you to write, record, and release music?

I think my earliest music memory is dancing and singing with my sister when I was a toddler.  My mum tells the story that the nurse came to check on my development and asked if I knew all my nursery rhymes – my mum said no, but I knew the words to every Kylie song…!

I think I probably got really serious about songwriting when I was about 14/15 – Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me” and Delta Goodrem’s “Innocent Eyes” were two huge inspirations in my learning how to play the piano and writing lyrics.  I love that magical feeling you get when you’re writing a song and everything clicks into place  – I don’t think I’ve ever experienced another feeling like it.  

What’s up with this latest release? Any cool back-stories, bloopers, or notable inspirations?

I got married in 2023, and I really wanted to write a song to sing for my partner at the wedding – I had the instrumentation for HeartStop all ready and the chorus was there, but I didn’t manage to write the rest of the song in time.  I did write and sing another song at the wedding which will be on my album – that’s a whole other story…

I knew I wanted to finish this one off, so I asked my friend Jennifer Elle to write with me.  We’ve been friends since we were 5 and have written together for years – she’s an amazing songwriter and we work really well together.  Jen was living in Australia at the time so we needed to work via Zoom.  We usually start off by chatting about our lives and I think we were both feeling like we were missing that carefree fun you can have when you’re younger that gets rarer as you go through life.

We started out with different melodies for the verse that didn’t make the final version but towards the end of the first session we started to find our way, and then after we’d finished the Zoom we were sending each other voice notes of ideas.  We finished the song off in a second Zoom session.  

Once I’d finished up recording the vocals I sent everything over to Tom Barker at Steelworks Studios, who added his magic mixing touch and polished everything up.  

What keeps you going, especially on the “bad” days?

I definitely have frustrating days in making music – I’ve been working on one song for the whole of this year and it has me tearing my hair out!  I usually just try to step back and find the joy again, whether by working on something new or different, or trying a completely fresh approach.  Even if it’s tricky sometimes, I think it’s important that I enjoyed making the music on the whole – otherwise, what’s the point?

If you could collaborate with anyone – dead or alive, famous or unknown – who would it be and why?

I would love to make a song with songwriter and producer Max Martin – what a legend!!  It’s unreal how many hits he’s written and produced over the years, from Britney and the Backstreet Boys to Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift.  

I know it’s hard…but favorite song (or artist) of all time? Or Top 3 if you can’t choose one…?

I would have to say Delta Goodrem, “Lost Without You” – I have over 20 years worth of memories of that song.  I think it’s a perfect pop song, and the production/mix is flawless.  But I also love Delta’s song “Play”, which is all about just enjoying the journey and ties into my answer above!

Where’s the best place to connect with You?

Instagram!  @charliedavidsongs 🙂

I appreciate Your time. Any last thoughts before signing off?

Thank you for taking the time to ask these questions!  I’ll be back with more music soon 🙂