Shame’s Magnetic Front Man Charlie Steen Is Taking Life “One Crisis at a Time”

The young British post-punk band Shame wrote and recorded a musically adventurous second album, Drunk Tank Pink, all about isolation and internal conflict. And then COVID happened.

Charlie Steen remembers it well. He and his bandmates were in the luxe surroundings of La Frette Studios, a 19th Century mansion-turned-recording facility outside of Paris, ten days into recording their second album, alongside prolific producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Simian Mobile Disco). “I remember [guitarist] Sean [Coyle-Smith] looking at the news on his phone,” Steen recalls. “It was talking about this coronavirus in China. And we didn’t really even think about it at the time.”

Like everyone else, Shame had to grapple with plans upended and an uncertain future. Once restrictions lifted, they created a string of imaginative music videos, released monthly throughout autumn; showcased many of the new songs in a live performance shot at London’s Brixton Electric; and played a secret, socially-distanced gig to support their home base, Brixton’s The Windmill.

The album, out today, is named after a color used in holding cells that’s said to have a calming effect on inmates; Steen chose it as the shade for his bedroom in a new flat in London in late 2018. The singer had returned home after two nearly non-stop years on the road, and suddenly had to readjust to “normal” life, triggering what Steen calls an “identity crisis.” Soon after forming in 2014 in their mid-teens, Shame made a name for themselves in their native South London and beyond with multiple tours of the U.K., then Europe. After their first album Songs of Praise blew up in 2017, they played somewhere in the vicinity of 300 gigs over two years, from Coachella to Glastonbury, South By Southwest to Japan’s Fuji Rock, Brazil to Iceland. Heady times and hedonistic nights mixed with regimented schedules—not the sort of existence that has a quick and easy off-switch.

On Songs of Praise, Steen used wry observation and trenchant turns of phrase to write songs about different characters and the world around him, but the new album looks inward – songs about “heartbreak, dreams and the subconscious” from an artist who had been left, for the first time in a long time, to his own thoughts. Steen’s recalibration to mundane home life gave rise to “Nigel Hitter,” the band’s most recent single, with the refrain “it just goes on and on and on;” “March Day,” a track whose peppiness belies its bed-ridden lyrics, and “6/1,” on which the singer seems almost at war with himself, though the track feels more thrilling than tortured.

Meanwhile Steen’s band – Coyle-Smith, guitarist Eddie Green, drummer Charlie Forbes and bassist and resident savant Josh Finerty – is more accomplished and adventurous than ever. While there are songs that harken back to Praise and its post-punk fury – lead track “Alphabet” and the pummeling “Harsh Degrees” – there’s also the new wave vibes of “Water In the Well” that seems to channel Coyle-Smith favorites Talking Heads and a fraught “Born in Luton” which finishes in a guitar squall. Agt the center are two songs informed by Steen’s relationship with an ex: “Human, for a Minute,” mid-tempo and surprisingly vulnerable, and “Snow Day,” a multi-movement piece of stürm und drang that may be Shame’s finest five minutes to date.

With his wild gaze, devilish grin and mix of self-deprecation and swagger, Charlie Steen is one of rock’s most compelling young figures, and he’s more than ready to get back out there. Steen always has something to say, and he didn’t disappoint when GQ caught up with him this week, almost three years to the day since the release of Shame’s debut album.

This new record has been finished since March. Was it hard to have to sit on it for so long because of the pandemic?

We were originally planning to put it out in September, but you know what--it seems like a long period of time, but looking at it in context, it becomes understandable. We put all of this time and energy and effort and a lot of ourselves into writing and recording this record and we wanted to do the release justice. We didn’t want to rush music videos, rush artwork. And we were able to do videos with Tegan Williams, who did the cover photo for the record, and then work with Ja Humby on this live video. So, in a lot of ways I’m happy we waited.

That live “Born in Luton” video – it was part of a larger, full set at Brixton Electric?

That’s what we did with the director Ja Humby, of Molten Jets, he was the person behind King Krule’s Live on the Moon [2018]. And so, we have a whole 40-minute video, which has its own narrative. That will be going out to everyone who orders the record. He’s somebody that we’ve been wanting to work with for a period of time now.

As time went on, how did the pandemic affect you or your family, or any of your band mates’ families?

I think it’s gonna leave a scar on everyone. I don’t think there’s anyone who will come out of this unscathed in some way or another. Others are obviously more wounded, but I can’t lie to you, it’s been a very difficult period in various ways. We know a lot of people who’ve passed away, and it’s just been a very hard time, but I do think also that one thing it’s installed is this sort of survival mode that kicks in. And, speaking from my own personal experiences, I can’t dwell on things too much. You know, I don’t do hindsight, I don’t do the “what ifs” – I’m just sort of, “Whatever we have to do, do it.” And I’m still very grateful that we’re in a position to even be releasing our second record, and we’re all really proud of it. So, I think everyone is gonna have a whole new perspective on everything when we come back. There’s so much going on in the world at the moment, it’s pretty overwhelming. And then on the positive side of things, which is so important not to forget, there’s been a lot of incredible things as well that have happened in this period. You know, the level of support we have seen that’s come out for so many different things.

It’s interesting that this record, which was all written and recorded pre-pandemic, deals with these themes of isolation – you’ve called it an “identity crisis.” That was a function of you coming off two years of tour in early 2019, but it could be seen as almost prescient now.

I know what you mean. If I was to summarize the lyrics on Drunk Tank Pink, I would say that to simplify it is – learning to enjoy your own company. That is what the record documents, lyrically. And in the context of going through the pandemic and reflecting on the themes of isolation and internal conflict, in a lot of ways, what I was learning in that period was to be on my own, and the difficulties that come with that. When we were touring, you’ve never got privacy. But I wouldn’t have wanted this to be about life on tour. It was more being back at my flat in London and seeing my mates who were equally confused about their aspirations, and there was just a general feel of uncertainty in conversations, in the early hours of the morning. A lot of the lyrics are inspired from what I think is the most honest hour of the day, when you’re about to fall asleep just lying there with yourself. That’s when it feels sort of brutally honest. And you’re left with your aspirations, or your regrets, and just this sort of self-analysis.

This was at the end of 2018, when you got back to London?

Yeah. We did our last show in Paris, came back to London for Christmas, which is always wicked. And then I moved into an old nursing home in Peckham, with Sean’s cousin, Henry, and it used to be the washing machine room. And we took out all the washing machines, and sanded down the walls, and put in these plywood structures, and the space was massive. And then this closet room became my bedroom, and the final thing I did was paint all the walls and the ceiling pink and the lampshade was pink and the carpet was pink.

I had never heard before about pink being a color that they use for holding cells – apparently for psychological reasons?

Yeah, we hadn’t heard of it until after we recorded the record! Which actually made it make even more sense. Camilla Pink is a shade of pink which is supposed to repress violence and anger. And they put it into prison cells and juvenile hall facilities and classrooms in schools, and then in the Midwest of America, the shade got the nickname “Drunk Tank Pink”, because it was painted in all of the drunk tanks.. And with me having that pink bedroom, it wasn’t something I ever really thought about. But with what the album is confronting, it just all seemed to tie together sort of serendipitously.

“Nigel Hitter” is interesting, because at first I thought the song did refer to being on the road, but in fact it was more drawn from you coming back home and dealing with the mundanities of everyday life?

Definitely, when we came back, I had to go down to the shop to just get milk or something like that, and you’re just like, “Whoa!” Or you make your bed when you wake up in the morning. And you’re like, “Wow.” You never make your bed when you wake up in a hotel or something, you just leave! There’s a book I read – it’s interesting but it used to be on our GCSE curriculum – which is an exam you take in the U.K. when you’re 15, 16 – and it’s called Slaughterhouse-Five.

Of course, Vonnegut.

There’s one part of it that’s great, when the American gets captured by the British soldiers, and the British soldiers are trained to, when they wake up in the morning, make their bed, do 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of reading, polish their boots, shave. And although I don’t agree with a lot of English rhetoric such as “stiff upper lip,” I really do agree with that concept of, when your mental state is starting to fade, it can be reflected quite easily in your physical appearance, and in the way you live. And as you were saying, it’s those mundane, everyday activities that felt really extraordinary to me, and they still do. I guess it’s sort of garnering back some sort of control.

Hadn’t you gone through a break-up before working on this record too?

Yeah, some of the songs on the record are about heartbreak: “Human, for a Minute” and “Snow Day,” which I’ve sort of been joking about because when we started the band, I never wanted to write about heartbreak. I mean everybody fucking does that. And then you go through it, and you realize why everybody’s been fucking doing it for a thousand years! [laughs]

“Human, for a Minute” is interesting because it’s mellower and more vulnerable than you often are, lyrically. That idea of, “Why don’t you stay, just for today.”

That was one of the real challenges, lyrically, with this record. With the themes of learning to enjoy your own company, it became very internal. And it became quite exposing, because before anybody else hears these songs, all the band hear the lyrics. And so, when we were doing “Human, for a Minute” live, it’s very challenging to stand in front of the guys when we were demoing and sing those lyrics, because they know the context of who it would be about, or what you were talking about. But you always want lyrics to be honest. I felt like it would be false If I tried to continue on with the lyrical themes of Songs of Praise.

And I have to ask you about how “Snow Day” came about because it’s the centerpiece of the record, such a highlight, so dramatic, with so much going on – it begins spoken word, there’s several “movements” all packed into five minutes. It’s cinematic, at first it feels nihilistic, then hopeful.

It came together when we were up in Scotland [on a writing trip, with their friend and artist Makeness]. Lyrically, that idea about walking up a hill, halfway up a mountain [“At the top of this hill I sit down/ I dismiss everything I see in front of me/ All mountains crumble and turn to dust”] – we would walk up this hill every day. And it became lyrically quite a good vehicle to use, as a subconscious dream theme. I think — of those themes, of heartbreak, dreams and the subconscious – this is the pivotal moment of the record for them. And, musically it was one for the band where they really put their all into it, and were ambitious and reached into a territory that we really hadn’t gone into before. We’re all really proud of that song.

Your music isn’t overtly political, but in the three years since your last record England has had Boris Johnson and Brexit, America has had the nightmare of Trump, we’ve all had the trauma of COVID – are you able to hang on to any optimism?

I’m optimistic, in the way that the survival instinct mode is telling me to be. To keep going, and to stay motivated. But I’m not fantasizing that there’s gonna be smooth sailing, that there’s just gonna be a lightbulb moment and the sunshine comes out and everybody is singing kumbaya in the fucking Hampstead Heath, or whatever. [laughs] I would like to think it would get better because surely it can’t get any worse, but then something comes along and then you’re back to thinking, “Well it can’t get any more worse.”

In my current situation, the way that I am personally dealing with things is like, one crisis at a time. In my own personal experience, it’s a real rabbit hole, isn’t it? And not a great pit to fall into, when you start looking at everything together and then suddenly it becomes, in your mind it’s like there’s no way out, no escaping it. But if you just are looking at one thing at a time – and it’s gonna be hard, there’s no doubt about that – but one thing we can take heart in is the incredible amount of support from many places we’ve seen. I mean the government is fucking useless, disgusting. But the people, and so many communities have really come out to help and support each other. Where there’s a crack, there’s always light, I guess.

Originally Appeared on GQ