UNC student and singer-songwriter Charlie Brown talks his roots and his faith

Charlie Brown, a UNC student and singer-songwriter from Banner Elk, is in the final stages of creating an album based on his “middle-of-nowhere” roots and inspired by his upbringing and faith. He hopes to debut it at Cat’s Cradle in May. 

Staff writer Emily Pite spoke with Brown regarding his inspiration and the process of creation for his work. 

The Daily Tar Heel: How did you decide to record your first album?

Charlie Brown: I’ve been playing music my whole life. The songs written are just an accumulation of the last four years being at UNC. It’s nine songs that I’m putting on the album. But I definitely set out to record an album when I came to school. I joined the music program here. I’m a music major, and as I’ve got further along in college, it's become way more of an interest of mine to pursue music full time.

DTH: What motivated the music in your album? 

CB: The music in my album was really inspired by the town that I grew up in. I’m from middle-of-nowhere western North Carolina, up in the mountains, and that area, to me, provokes my imagination. It's a place that I really love, and I missed a lot while I was in school. It's steeped in this Appalachian culture. Playing music for me was a way to connect to home while being far from home. The songs are also faith-inspired, as well, in the themes and part of the background of the music.

DTH: Could you tell me more about the Kickstarter and the support that you received?

CB: I’ve been playing music around the Northeast and Southeast region of the States over the last three years, so I’ve gotten to play in front of a lot of people. I created a Kickstarter campaign where a lot of those people could support me. I also created a video for that, where I focused a lot on my hometown. The town I’m from only has about 1,000 people in it. So because I was born and raised there, a lot of people from the community were excited about the project and wanted to support me, which was really wonderful. I also played a concert to help raise awareness for the project. The support has been incredible and overwhelming — I didn’t expect to get so much as quickly as I did. People were excited to jump on board.

DTH: What was your experience of being a musician and a student at the same time?

CB: It wasn’t as much of a struggle as it may seem because I have such great fortune to study music. Since I came here, I studied trumpet first and then switched over to guitar. I’ve been playing guitar for the last 10 years, but I started studying classical guitar in the last two years. From a musical standpoint, a lot of my ambitions as a creative artist and as a student really lined up. I got to hone my skills really precisely, but there are not a lot of classes in our curriculum that are geared toward creative music, so a lot of the performing and writing side of things I had to do on my own terms. But there are a lot of great performance opportunities based on campus.

DTH: What performances have you done, and what do you hope to do in the future?

CB: I performed a lot with an organization called Young Life — that's the ministry. They do camps all over the country and all over the world. So I started traveling mostly in the Northeast and Southeast camps for middle school and high school students. And recently I’ve done more local shows on Franklin Street and in North Carolina. For my album release, I hope to play at Cat’s Cradle in May. I’m going to be moving to Durham next year with Durham musicians. So I’ll be moving there and setting up tours and travel a bit, and hopefully play studio sessions and things of that nature.

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