In the Producer’s Chair with Charlie Deakin Davies
It’s no ordinary Sunday morning as I’m walking through Seven Sisters towards Ten87 Studios. It’s a beautiful day, and not for the first time am I meeting Charlie Deakin Davies - our few conversations we’ve had about the music industry have always been fascinating. However on this occasion I was here to interview them officially about their career, but specifically asking them about three songs whose production blew them away.
Image Credit: Lilly Shickle.
Charlie Deakin Davies has been producing records since their teenage years. I first heard of them through their production on Alexa Mullins’ ‘Runaway’ single from 2016. At this level, Charlie also worked with songwriters Zoe Wren, Minnie Birch and Roxanne de Bastion, amounting to more than a hundred released songs to their name. They’ve won awards for their production, including the Pro Sound Award for Breakthrough Studio Engineer and twice winning the New Music Generator award for Producer Of The Year.
As well as producing other artists, Charlie released music under their DIDI name in 2017 and 2018, the mostly self-produced and recorded ‘Green’ EP from their Garden Den Studio. Since then, Charlie has worked at a number of studios, including The Cream Room in Hertfordshire and Soundlab Studios in Essex. Charlie has even been part of a session at London’s Abbey Road.
In celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility in March 2021, Charlie, along with producers Max Blue Churchill and Jesley Faye with artist Andrea Di Giovanni made a landmark short documentary at the world-famous studio. Entitled ‘Abbey Road Equalise Session’, the three producer/engineers spoke about the need for trans representation in the industry, while Giovanni emphasised that whilst identity is significant, it’s your talent that really defines who you are.
Back in 2019, a more long-term position arose when Charlie began working for Gary Barlow at his private studio as an in-house engineer, producer and writer. With the pandemic extending their contract, this meant Charlie’s work also involved Barlow’s latest solo album ‘Music Played By Humans’. ‘Let’s Get Drunk’, a song co-written by Deakin Davies appears as a bonus track. As well, their involvement with Gary Barlow took them on tour with Take That in 2019 and participating in production surrounding its subsequent live release.
Though Charlie has performed their DIDI music live, I’ve only ever seen Charlie on stage once in February 2019 during a one-off set as part of Zoe Wren’s band. Looking back over my concert journal, at the time I had this to say:
‘Towards the end of the set, Charlie started to get more goofy, doing cute little dances and generally playing up to their friends. It was funny. They seem like a totally fun person to be around.’
Charlie is still the same now, the pandemic has done little to diminish their wonderful spirit. This is the first Moths and Giraffes in-person interview. As well as asking Charlie about three songs they enjoy for the production, we talk about their first recording set-ups, working with Gary Barlow and their (at the time) upcoming tour with Second Thoughts. We also hear about a new enterprise called the Trans Creative Collective, the roots of which lie in the Abbey Road session, with an exciting future ahead.
Charlie at Ten87. Image Credit: Lilly Shickle.
Teri Woods: So we’re at Ten87, tell us about this place, how long have you been here?
Charlie Deakin Davies: I’ve been here since like April? I’d been working with Gary Barlow in his private studio for the past year and a half and in February my contract ended with him and I was looking for my own studio but obviously we were still massively in lockdown during that time. So I was looking for a place and then I was like ‘I really wanna be in East London’. I think East London’s where it’s at, and I was living in West London.
I moved without having a studio lined up or anything which was really difficult because I had all these sessions, I was like beg, borrowing and stealing studio time just to do some writing sessions and things like that. And then finally, this place came up and then I did a call-out asking if anyone wanted to do like a studio share and Jess Bartlet and Rookes both were really up for it. So, erm, we’ve been sharing here since like May, April time and we’ve just been modding it and making it our own and adding new studio additions everywhere we can just to make it a bit better.
TW: (laughs) That’s awesome. So we’re gonna talk about three songs that you think are great with their production specifically. And the first one you’ve chosen is ‘Loud Mouth’ by tiLLie, so tell us about that.
CDD: Yeah! I think it’s interesting because with the songs I’ve chosen, they’re quite pop and I feel like I go through pendulum swings of like loving really alternative music and loving really pop music. And I think because of the past couple of years of the environments I’ve been in, I’ve really sort of appreciated pop in a way that I’ve never before? And I think what I really like about tiLLie and that song in particular is the fact that it does the hybrid really well? I think it does the pop thing but it also does the real drums and a real thing that I’ve noticed is that guitars and drums are coming back, massively. Like it’s just so noticeable and the fact that it’s in pop music is just, like, cool. Especially with Billie Eilish’s new stuff as well, it’s just so much heavier. I’m just really excited for that sort of thing but yeah I think tiLLie just does a really good blend of sonics with that track really. Yes I really like that song, the person that did the track was Benjamin Greenspan. And he did loads of Transviolet stuff.
TW: Going further back, let’s talk about your first microphone and recording set-up. What do you remember about that? What was that?
CDD: So, my first actual set-up was my Beats HP laptop on a set of drawers, like a bedside table. With two old school computer speakers either side and then I had a beanbag for a chair, and that was my legit producer set-up and I was using Audacity.
TW: Weren’t we all?
CDD: Yeah! (laughs) And I actually recorded like an EP of myself using that set-up and then, I upgraded a bit and I got a USB converter and the way I was using that was I was using like a live mixing desk and I was taking the stereo feed out of the mixing desk and then putting it into the stereo feed of the USB converter. So I had to get the levels right on the desk.
TW: So what you’ve ended up with is a stereo mix and you have no multi-track at all?
CDD: Yeah! I often wouldn’t need more than two anyway so I would just pan channel 1 to the left and channel 2 to right. So I’d only have two mono inputs. Or what I would try and do was genuinely multi-track. So if I was recording a vocal I would just use the thing, or like if I was recording guitar, I would put two mics on the guitar maybe and just record that to the click, and stuff. But it was such a rough set-up, using that kind of thing. And then I had like hi-fi speakers, you know? Upgraded but still, still it was a hi-fi set-up. Erm, and then I just really kicked it up a gear, which is up a gear from that- It’s actually right there, it’s just hiding away. A Tascam US-1800 I think is the one I was using. And it was really good because it has eight in-outs, so I could start recording bands!
TW: ‘I’m 8 track now!’
CDD: Yeah! Exactly! Exactly, and then I went up and I got the Focusrite 18i20 which is under there. I was using these AKG C-1000’s as well, and they were just not a vibe.
TW: I remember using those in school, whenever we recorded at GCSE level, they were like ‘Yeah, it’s really sophisticated, we put two of these at each end of the hall and then we record the bands playing live’. Like, even we knew as sixteen-year-olds that it was cringe then.
CDD: It’s just like ‘Yeah you’ve really got that stereo image of the room’.
TW: Of the boom of this huge recital hall.
CDD: At least it documented the existence of a performance. (laughs)
TW: Kind of? With muffled distant vocals and boomy drums and no guitar. (laughs)
CDD: Oh that’s tragic.
TW: So in your teenage years you worked a couple of times with Roxanne de Bastion who just released her latest album.
CDD: Yeah!
TW: What was it like to work with Roxanne de Bastion?
CDD: It was lovely, I think that the original times I started working with her was through Folkstock, because my Mum had done a couple of compilation albums and things like that and Roxanne was on that. I think the first track we ever did together was a track called ‘Butterfly’.
TW: Yeah which was on one of the compilations.
CDD: Yeah! It’s one of the- I would say is the most experimental production of a released track that I’ve ever done, and that was such in my early days. I literally think I was seventeen, or maybe eighteen when I did that and I was really, really proud of it. I mean I mixed back in the day, but as someone who’s better at mixing now, I’m a bit like ‘Ooo! Could’ve mixed that better’, but you know, you live and you learn.
TW: Yeah of course!
CDD: But yeah, no, me and Roxanne go back I don’t know, like nine years now? We’ve known each other for so long and I work with her a lot with various trade bodies and organisations and things like that. But yeah recording her was really fun! Like, it was really fun.
TW: Your next track is ‘Sucker’ by Ellie Dixon, so tell me about that.
CDD: Yeah so I came across Ellie Dixon originally because the second year that I won the NMG Producer of the Year, she won Best Female Solo Artist of the Year, and so that’s like how we first logged each other. But we didn’t ever talk or anything like that. And then I think I was listening to New Music Friday and ‘Sucker’ came on and I was like ‘Oh my god! This is such a good song!’ Like I was literally ‘This is such a sick song!’ Then I was like, ‘I wanna work with her’. So I just reached out and was like ‘Yo, we’re both Cambridge-y based, both won the NMG’ and she was like ‘Yeah, I know who you are! Let’s hang out. Let’s do a session.’
Again I think there’s something about this hybrid sort-of tight pop that is not bubblegum. It’s pop in the sense that it’s catchy and it’s feel-good, but it’s not overbearing and annoying? I think that she manages to capture this really amazing energy and musicality. I also really like ‘Green Grass’ as well which is her newer single, and you know it just goes off and has a cool middle 8 section of just harmony stacks. I don’t know I just like that musicians are doing that again because she has a very large control over the production of her music. You can hear that and I think that leads to a much more interesting and creative space for musicians when they know a bit more about their own production. I just think it’s a really well written and really well produced song, if I’m honest.
TW: More recently in your career you’ve worked with Gary Barlow, on his latest album as well.
CDD: Yeah!
TW: ‘Music Played By Humans’, so tell us about that experience.
CDD: In 2018, I won the European Pro Sound Award for Breakthrough Studio Engineer of the Year, which was really, really amazing. And I met Fraser T. Smith there, who, I don’t know if you know who Fraser T. Smith is but he is a legendary producer, so like Adele, Ellie Goulding, Sam Smith, Stormzy. And he was like ‘Oh you should come to the studio sometime.’
And it turned out that his engineer was Manon Grandjean who I was friends with because I’d known him through like the whole music scene and everything. So like I went to the studio and hung out and it was really fun. And it turned out that Fraser and Manon were working on Craig David’s album, and Gary was writing it with them. So they had like this crossover and apparently Gary asked Manon ‘Oh do you know any like producer/engineers that write songs, play guitar and use Logic.’ And Manon was like ‘Yeah I do!’
TW: Exact fit of that. (laughs)
CDD: Yeah! And then I got this message from Manon basically being like ‘Hey, been working with Craig David’s album with Gary Barlow and blah blah blah, would you be ok with me giving Gary your contact information?’ And I was like ‘Of course!’ And then he got in touch and I did an interview on the Friday and then I was working with him! I got the job on the Monday and I was in the studio with him, Craig David, Jin Jin and Ryan Carline on the Tuesday at Metropolis, and like Clean Bandit were there and everything. It was just like, ‘This is my life now’.
It was such a weird thing because, I don’t know, there’s so many times in life where you just have to take those risks. And I was working at Soundlab Studios before that, and I hadn’t had anything lined up and Soundlab was great, I had so many amazing experiences, meeting some really great people and I worked on BlackBox for ages. I just learnt so much more about music and music that I wouldn’t have naturally been working on. So it was amazing. But I was like, ‘It just doesn’t feel right’. I don’t have anything lined up, I don’t have another studio, like I don’t have anything, I just need to leave. And everyone was like ‘What the hell? Like, just stay at the studio.’ And I was like ‘No, no, I feel this thing, I’ve gotta leave’.
And so I did leave, and I think it was three weeks between me leaving and then this whole thing happened, and so I was instantly straight out of leaving that other studio just working with Gary. And I was meant to work with him for a year, but then with the pandemic and everything, he kept me on for like a whole other year, which is just really nice and it meant that I ended up working on the album, and I don’t think I was originally meant to be writing songs with him.
But we just ended up writing together loads! And we ended up writing this one song called ‘Let’s Get Drunk’, and then Ryan also worked on that with us as well. And it was just a really good vibe. And then we actually recorded it in the studio and there was an orchestra recording it, I was like trying not to cry! Being like there’s an orchestra playing on a track that I wrote with Gary Barlow! At British Grove! I was like ‘What is going on!’ It’s so weird.
There were so many amazing things that happened with Gary. Just absolutely ridiculous opportunities, and also I got to go on the Take That tour as well, which was, just to see a show with such a high production value, like, I’ve never been involved in a show that has such high production value. And just to see everything that goes on is just unbelievable. Erm, but yeah it was such an interesting period of my life, getting to work on that stuff.
TW: So was the Take That tour, were you part of front of house or…?
CDD: I was just there. I wasn’t doing anything-
TW: What- on the whole tour?
CDD: No, no, no, just a few of the dates and stuff like-
TW: Oh, right!
CDD: I did help mix the live DVD for that though with Ryan, which was good.
TW: With you being at Ten87, what’s become of the Garden Den Studio?
CDD: Well for a while it was a little bit derelict. But I’m happy to say that it is back, full running as a studio again through the one and only Helefonix.
TW: Full time!
CDD: Yeah, full time! Honestly. Well because Joe Rose as well, he was using it as a rehearsal studio because I actually built a stage in there. So one side is a stage and the other side is like a studio. So it’s funny now because Joe practices with the PA set up on the stage and then the other side has like the studio bit and so it’s quite a nice space really.
TW: Kind of a separate control room and-
CDD: Yeah, it’s still just one long room, but it like- they both have their-
TW: Their respective corners.
CDD: Yeah it’s nice to know the whole place is being used and there’s like a giant mirror across the whole back, so you can see, like, you know, how silly you look. (laughs)
TW: So your third and final song is ‘Beautiful Faces’ by Declan McKenna, so tell me about this one.
CDD: Well, ‘Beautiful Faces’ by Declan McKenna was my most listened to track of 2020 and my most listened to track of 2021 so far is ‘Sucker’ by Ellie Dixon, so, like- (laughs) Again, band music! It’s just so good! I just think Declan just carries this energy, and like has just got that anti-chorus, it’s the best anti-chorus in rock music I think I’ve heard where it has that sort of the break in it. It doesn’t just go down to bass or whatever, it takes out the bass! It’s just got guitars and then some of the bass comes in, you know? Yeah, I think Declan is just an incredible musician and like- Because I’ve known of him for, I don’t know, maybe six years? It’s just been a really interesting trajectory to see everything he’s done and just, smashing it really.
When you have an artist that already has good music out, especially when they’re a new artist, you’re always a bit tentative over what their next releases are gonna be because you’re like, ‘Is the magic gonna be gone?’ But I honestly think that ‘Zeros’ and ‘Beautiful Faces’ is just such a step up from the previous albums. So it’s very reassuring that he’s only gonna get better. (laughs)
TW: You worked recently on the Helefonix album ‘Nature’s Grace’ on one track where you were sort of restoring a vocal track, so tell us about that.
CDD: I definitely can’t take credit for like anything on the album because she’s just done it so on her own. The only thing that I helped out with is I have this software called RX 8, and it’s just really good for cleaning up audio. So she had these samples of her Grandparents, and my Great-Grandparents, and I just went through and tried to sort out the audio so you could actually hear the quotes and things like that. It was quite difficult because there were so many sounds and noises and stuff. But hearing the track back and hearing, like, how clear it sounds, that’s really nice to actually have got to bring that back into this world. You know, their voices, just to be heard and listened to.
TW: Because that was recorded in 1992, so I suppose that’s perhaps degraded quite a bit over time, on videotape, so-
CDD: Yeah! I didn’t even realise it was- I love that you know that and I don’t. That was before I was even born. Oh my god. I didn’t know that. Thank you for telling me about that.
TW: You’ve also got your own music in DIDI and I know that you were recording some of your own music last year, so what’s become of that?
CDD: So I really do wanna release it! I’ve been working on lots of other people’s albums. There’s an EP that I’ve got coming out actually that I’ve fully produced completely remotely. I’ve never met her in real life and it’s Maisie Johnson and it’s like a country, like acoustic EP and we’re just doing the final mixes now. I’m really excited for that to come out because we did it all on like a Rode NT1 and into her Focusrite 2i2 and we did it all online and I’m just like ‘Actually sounds really good!’
TW: All recorded in her bedroom, yeah?
CDD: Yeah! Basically I took over the screen and then we used Audiomovers and so she would just be in her room and I was like doing the computer like a weird hacker. (laughs) As if I was sitting in her room with her, but like I wasn’t.
TW: Like a ghost in the machine.
CDD: Yeah exactly! But with the DIDI stuff, it has been a bit of a whirlwind because I had an EP prepped before I started working for Gary and basically when I started working for Gary, such an amazing opportunity. But the job was 24/7 and I had to cancel a few of my shows because it clashed with some of his shows and, you know, it’s that weigh-up of what do you think in this moment of your life is more important? And I just felt like I needed to hold off.
And then I was like ‘Ok I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do this’. And then the weekend I had booked to do the recording was the first weekend of the official lockdown. And I was like ‘Right.’ And so I ended up getting to record in October. So I actually have a whole EP recorded, it just needs more attention. And the reality is I’ve sort of held off from releasing stuff because since changing my name and my general identity and everything, when I look back at the DIDI stuff, I think it’s a real good snapshot of my life, but I don’t feel like that feminine person that is very presented in a lot of the DIDI stuff and it’s trying to work out like what the hell I do about that. Do I just keep it? Do I delete it? Do I make a new thing?
But the EP I’ve got is really fun and I’ve been working with this other band called Second Thoughts recently and I think it’s just really, really invigorated me for being like ‘No I wanna play with my band!’ You know? Like, it’s fun, like doing music! So I don’t think it’s something I’m gonna stop doing, erm, yeah I really wanna release an EP. I think it’s just finding the right time and the right headspace for it?
TW: Well my last question is about Second Thoughts, so you’ve been gearing up to do a tour with them. How did you meet them? Are you guys ready to- to do this thing!? (laughs)
CDD: So I’ve been friends with Clara FT for like four or five years now! We’ve just been doing music on and off together through that time because she’s a cellist and she’s an amazing bassist so she’s actually done loads of session work for me. And then I had a meeting with the band like last year before she was in it and I was giving them some advice and things like that.
And so I got to know them then, and then in April when the bassist of the band left, Clara coincidentally ended up being the new bassist for the band. So I just knew more about what was happening in the band and then it turned out that they were gonna be going on tour and they needed a sound engineer. So it was just very natural for me to be the sound engineer and it was really weird timing because I was like ‘Oh I really wanna do more live sound, like I really wanna work with a new indie band and I wanna get them great boards, make a really good sound, you know, like have a great time!’ And it was something like- (makes a phone alert sound)
TW: Here it is!
CDD: ‘One of the people you love working with is now in a band and they need a sound engineer that they’ll get on with!’ So that kind of happened and I’ve just like ended up collecting job roles like Pokémon doing this. And so it’s been really fun, but I’m like the driver and the sound engineer and like, you know, all the-
TW: The band stylist.
CDD: (laughs) Yeah honestly! So, but it’s really exciting and I think it’s very exciting to be with such a new band that is doing so well, so quickly. And to see where they’re gonna end up and I wanna be part of that journey and also we’ll just see what happens because life does such weird things! (laughs)
TW: So outside of Ten87 and outside of Second Thoughts, are you doing any other work at the moment?
CDD: Yeah! So, it’s actually been really exciting! Back around March time, me, Max and Jesley were part of this collaboration with Abbey Road for Transgender Day of Visibility, which is an absolutely absurdly amazing opportunity to have. We just basically brainstormed this idea and then we were like, ‘Why don’t we do a documentary?’ And we’ve got a week to do it! And I was like contacting Abbey Road and they were like ‘Yeah sure!’ And we had to contact Universal and they were like ‘Yeah sure!’ And they ended up being the first studio ever to do anything on Trans awareness. It’s the biggest trans thing I’ve ever been involved in. But I think it might be one of the earliest things that’s really ever happened in the music industry in that capacity.
But after we did that, we could not believe the response that we got. It was overwhelming. And so many people were just so interested to see what we were gonna be doing in the future, involving that, because now we have a bit of a platform and we know that there is the support within the industry. So we were like ‘We need to do something about that.’
So the core people in this team are me, Max Blue Churchill, Jesley Faye, and Nelly Rodrigues. The organisation is called the Trans Creative Collective. And in essence what that is, originally it was a directory to combine and to let anyone who is working in the arts connect with each other who come from a trans background, potentially. But our whole thing is that it’s inclusive, not exclusive. So, no matter what your background is, or how you identify, you are so welcome to be part of the directory as long as you are understanding of trans rights, of you know, disability or understanding of different cultures and different things like that. So it’s basically a list of like really solid people that if you work with them – you know you’re gonna be safe. And you don’t have to worry that they’re gonna say something transphobic or homophobic or racist or something like that.
TW: That’s so refreshing!
CDD: Yeah, when we made a mock directory up, and we were like thirty people in the first day, all trans people who work in the music industry! I just didn’t think that would be such a thing, and I only think it’s gonna grow from there, but we’re now making the directory more official.
But we’re gonna be hosting events, so, I don’t know if you knew much about Normal Not Novelty when that was around the first time. Basically, Red Bull had their studios and every month they would run three workshops simultaneously in engineering, music production and DJ’ing, and you just get to go for free. And you would just get taught for a couple of hours about these things. And, it was for women only. Now, that’s great, but, it just made a couple of us feel a bit uncomfortable. You know, most of these things come from an amazing place, they mean well, but I think that the world has evolved now to a point where we can be more inclusive of gender minorities, and that’s kind of where we feel like we’re filling the void.
So we’ll be putting on educational events, but we also are gonna put on gigs and we’ve got mentoring schemes. But then we also are gonna be having these little mixers, which again, anyone is welcome. They’re just gonna be like socials and there’s gonna be arts and crafts and stuff, and it’s where you can try out any name you want, any pronoun. You can just change it four times throughout the night because you’ll have name tags and then anyone will just use it and because you know it’s a safe environment, people are just gonna be really lovely about it, and then you can go away and it just stays in that space. You can either decide, actually I really like that name and now I wanna implement it outside of this, but also no one’s gonna judge you or incriminate you or anything with that afterwards. It’s just a fun place for everyone to have some expression.
So that’s a project I’m really, really excited about, and we’ve been having meetings with very established bodies, and we’re just getting green-lit like the whole way through. I think that there’s just a massive void for this. There is zero trans representation within the music industry on the industry level. And it looks like TCC are kinda coming through with that. So, that’s what I’m really bloody excited about to happen in the near future.
--------
To listen to a sample of the production work Charlie Deakin Davies has done, including their DIDI music, check out their Spotify playlist here.
For more information about Charlie and their career, check out their official website.
Follow Charlie on Instagram @charlie_deakin_davies, on Twitter @charlie_DIDI and on TikTok @charlied_d.
--------
Follow and interact with Moths and Giraffes on Instagram and Facebook @mothsandgiraffes, and on Twitter @mothsgiraffes.
We have a Spotify Playlist! Featuring almost every artist we've written about on Moths and Giraffes, find some new music here.
For submissions, or if you’d just like to send us your thoughts, don’t hesitate to contact us via our social media accounts, our contact page, or via email at mothsandgiraffes@outlook.com. We receive a lot of emails though, so please bear with us!
