After recently releasing his third single, ‘Keep Each Other Sane’, Leeds-based artist, Charlie Phillips, aka Paperflowers. spoke to LDOI about how he got into music, his inspirations, and the albums he’s been loving recently.
Phillips first became interested in creating music in high school, after beginning to play his dad’s guitar. His parents went on to buy him his first guitar, before he later started to study at Leeds College of Music. “I was always writing my own music but had no way of recording what I had done,” said Phillips, explaining “I enrolled on the Music Production course and decided to invest into some recording equipment. I’ve always written my own music but now I could record it all and make something of it which is great!”
Paperflowers’ latest single, ‘Keep Each Other Sane’ brings a euphoric drive to a catchy indie rock melody, melding lovestruck lyricism with anthemic vocals and rising guitars. His previous release, ‘Living Life This Way’, took a more subtle approach, bringing a coming of age feel to a melancholic track, doused in hazy production.
Speaking about his creative process behind his new single, Phillips discussed how he wrote the track nearly two years ago, after wanting to try a ‘big indie rock kind of anthem’. “I wanted to try and portray a story of how people can doubt their self worth in relationships and how it can affect their mental health. And how together they keep each other going through their hardships, hence keeping each other ‘sane’”, says the artist.
His inspirations for his music come from the likes of Green Day, Boy Pablo, Wallows and DREAMERS, citing that Wallows’ latest single, along with DREAMERS’ 2016 album, as two of his current favourite releases.
So far, Phillips has released three singles under the name Paperflowers, after his debut track, ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ was released in 2019.
Listen to Paperflowers’ discography so far here:
LDOI 