CARLS are a Charleston-based rock band that is completely made up of people named Carl. Except Jonathan, the bassist. I had the chance to link up with CARL!, guitarist and frontman, to talk about the band and share their latest music video for “Vacation Joyce.”
CARLS will perform at the new James Island venue The Rickhouse this coming Saturday, January 25th with Rooks & Raven, Lo-Fi Brewing on February 21st with Gods, and at Frequency Fest by Holy City Booking in late March.
Watch the video for “Vacation Joyce” by CARLS below, and read on for my Q&A with CARL!
CARLS – “Vacation Joyce” Video (2024)
Q&A with CARL! of CARLS
Extra Chill: Who is CARLS, and how did they form?
We actually made a helpful video all about it: www.carlstheband.com/about
CARL!: The cliff notes are as follows:
Cast:
- CARL! – vocals, guitar, tax lawyer, dabbles in furniture making
- Karl – lead guitar, waste management consultant, originally from somewhere vaguely European
- Carl? – drums, bio unknown, refuses to tell us his his middle name
- Carla – vocals, keys, PHD candidate in psychology, likely only in the band for research purposes
- Jonathan – bass, certified accountant, Julliard trained musician, after many applications has been allowed to play bass provided that he also audits our quarterly profit and loss statements
CARL!: I (CARL!) met Carl? at a pottery class. We bonded over our mutual love of Huey Lewis and Prince. We started playing together in Carl?’s attic. Mostly Motorhead and Madonna covers (surprisingly great combo!). It sounded pretty good but it needed some ripping, white hot guitar wizardry so we asked Karl to come by. Karl brought Carla with him, which was a lovely surprise, because now we had someone who could properly sing like Lemmy Kilmister. Eventually we allowed Karl’s accountant, Jonathan, to come play bass. He’s not named Carl, but he can lay down a pretty good groove.
What’s with the body suits?
CARL!: Fashion baby! Also, shitty dance moves look way better in a body suit. It’s science.
Tell me about the new single, “Vacation Joyce.” Where was it recorded, what inspired it?
CARL!: We recorded the basic rhythm tracks with our friend (and audio magician) Matt Zutell at Coast Records. Big shout out to him! Then I took those tracks home and we laid down a buttload of overdubs and little bells and whistles to get it sounding as CARLS as possible. Then the tracks went back to Matt and he mixed the hell out of it. Matt Garber at For the Record (also delightful and extremely good at what he does) mastered the hell out of it. And we ended up with a marvelous little ripper of a tune. It’s on Spotify right now, go check it out!
CARL!: The inspiration for the song was very Charleston. I was driving into downtown on 17 through West Ashley. At a light an old Chrystler Sebring convertible turned in front of me and behind the wheel was this lovely middle-aged woman. She was wearing what was clearly a homemade hat with the words “Vacation Joyce” written on it.
CARL!: So the song is what I imagine might be that lady’s story. How she goes from being boring ole work Joyce up in Buffalo (I like to imagine she was from a cold, dreary place) and comes down here to Charleston and morphs into Vacation Joyce. I think of it as a superhero origin story.
How about the music video? You mentioned “the requisite CARLS silliness”.
CARL!: Well if you can’t tell, we don’t take things all that seriously. So when it came time to make a video, we endeavored to make sure it was as weird, silly and just generally fun as possible. The elevator pitch was basically this: Vacation Joyce comes to Charleston, parties with the Carls, they run afoul of the law and they end up Thelma and Louise-ing it over a cliff. And along the way there’s some Benny Hill style chase scenes.
CARL!: Our friend, and resident photographic mastermind, Brett Heatley of Heatly Design, ran around town and knocked it out of the park shooting everything with us on a very fun Saturday afternoon. After that I edited all the nonsense together and there you go. Hope everyone digs it!
Is there a CARLS album in the works? If so, can you share any details?
CARL!: For right now, we plan to just keep popping out singles every couple of months. I don’t know how much sense an album makes for a relatively unknown local band. I barely invest my time listening to a whole album from really famous, gigantic bands. I think it’s just kind of the modern era. And from a creative standpoint, just doing singles is kind of really freeing and awesome. You can go whatever direction feels inspiring and you don’t necessarily have to worry about how it fits in stylistically and thematically with a bunch of other songs. You’re just trying to make the best possible thing you can make at that moment. We really dig that way of working.
CARL!: Eventually, I’m sure we’ll go back and bundle up some singles and put them out in an album format for anyone who wants to consume them that way. But for this year, at least, we’re just going to keep churning out tunes every couple of months and see how that goes. Stay tuned!
On a scale of 1-10, how chill is CARLS, and why?
CARL!: I think we’re just like anyone else – it depends on the day. For example, earlier this week, I was working on a pretty big deal (a regional bank merger) but the lawyers for the buyer decided to be real dicks about whether or not the target bank had properly calculated its Section 382 net operating losses. So we had to have a big fight about it for a while. I was definitely not chill during all of that. But yesterday the deal finally closed and I’ve been super chill since. Kind of how it goes for all of us, I think.
Anything else you want to mention?
CARL!: Yes, shows. We’re playing this new James Island venue called the Rickhouse on Saturday, January 25th. That will be with our friends Rooks & Raven (lovely people and a great band). Should be very rad. Upcoming after that we have Lofi on 2/21 with the fine gentlemen of Gods. And we’ll be taking part in Frequency Fest at the end of March. Lots of other shows in the works for the rest of the year as well. Come party with us! We can talk about whatever you want – Huey Lewis, pottery-making, the player empowerment era in the NBA, carryforward losses on your Schedule C. You name it!
CARL!: Oh and stay tuned for more singles and more videos. We have a LOT in store!