One of the biggest surprises of this year’s Sziget Festival was probably Call Me Karizma‘s concert. The American musician performed at the festival on August 11, the same day as Yungblud and Imagine Dragons, on the Europe Stage after the headliner’s time slot, at 11pm, however, his show was Main Stage worthy. Durning the first few songs, his audience filled up only the first few rows – probably most people were just trying to make their way out of the crowd after the headliner’s show -, however, after a few more songs, he attracted such a huge crowd that even he was surprised by it.
Most of the set was made up of songs from his latest album, „Francis”, that came out a year ago, however, he played songs from „The Gloomy Tapes” volume 1 and 2, as well, and he said he’s working on „The Gloomy Tapes Vol. 3” right now. He released the first single from the record, „My Head”, a couple of days before Sziget, and today, his new song, „Look at Me Now” arrived. This is probably the one that he would show to a person that doesn’t know him yet.
We sat down to chat with the singer after his concert, and he told us about his album „Francis”, his upcoming new record, touring, success, he shared a message with his Hungarian fans, he promised that from now on, he would come to Hungary with every European tour he does, and of course, we taught him a little bit of Hungarian, as well – exclusive interview with Call Me Karizma from Sziget Festival.
Okay, so first of all, wow!
Hey, thanks!
Your show was incredible!
I’m glad you got to interview after the show so you know if I suck or not!
I mean, Noah told us that you were gonna be more pumped after the show.
Yeah, it was great.
So, how did you like it?
It was great.
Did it meet your expectations?
Oh, for sure. Because after Imagine Dragons, you don’t know if people are gonna be like, I’m gonna go to bed. I didn’t know if people are gonna come. When the first song started, it was like, one fourth filled, and I was like, oh shit… Then more and more people kept coming, and at the end, it was a couple of thousand people, it was crazy. I was very excited.
Yeah, it was a great show.
Yeah, thank you so much.
You’ve been here in Budapest for a couple of days now. Did you get the chance to take a look around and explore the city a bit?
Not how as much as I want to, because first day we got here, me and my wife’s bags got lost.
Yeah, I heard that.
But it was so funny, Air Serbia, it’s all good, they fixed it, but if my bag didn’t show up, I was gonna wear just underwear and a white t-shirt that said „Air Serbia lost my bags”. I was kinda hoping for that, because that would go viral. So we spent most of our time looking for our bags, and then my guitar player lost his bag, too. Sorry, his guitar. So we had to borrow a guitar for the show.
It’s been chaos since we got here, but hopefully, we’re staying till Tuesday, then we have the Frequency Festival coming up.
I think you should look around. We have a beautiful city.
I wanna go on a boat tour on the river, for sure. I’d love that.
Great. So you just released your new single, „My Head”. First of all, congratulations on it, it’s a real banger.
Thank you.
Can you tell me a bit about the background of the song like what inspired it and what is the message that you’re trying to get across with it?
I wrote that song probably a couple of years ago. I just had a bassline in my head, so I just wrote the whole song. My friend, John Gomez, who actually produced songs like „Dead Body” and „F U Till I F U”, my bigger songs, he’s more like the pop side of things. I brought the song to him, and we made it right that day. I don’t know…
It’s basically about trying to escape from someone you love, it’s a bad relationship, but you keep going in my head over and over. Just a love song with some rock twist to it, you know.
You released your latest album „Francis” almost a year ago now.
Yeah, it’s crazy.
I’m wondering, what is the most important thing that you learned during the creation process of this record?
I don’t know…
I named it about Francis because it’s my middle name. The middle name is kind of like the middle child, no one really cares about your middle name, and that’s how I kind of felt in the music industry and about things.
There are bigger artists than me so I kind of felt left out, and that was kind of the idea for this. A lot of the songs are very personal about that record so that’s kind of where I came from.
Okay, and how is your new album shaping up? Can you tell us anything about it?
So, „The Gloomy Tapes” volume 1 and 2, I have some of the songs like „Rockstar”, „Monster”, „Serotonin” on those. I’m working on „The Gloomy Tapes” 3 right now, that’s what I wanna put out next. I’m 100% solo artist now. I don’t have any label or anything, which is the best because I can do whatever I want.
I’m gonna put out „The Gloomy Tapes” volume 3, and I think „My Head” is technically the first single from it. Almost all the songs are done and it’s like, we’re finishing them up and mixing them.
We have a really cool feature on it. It’s a band, the Landmvrks, I don’t know if you remember them, they’re hard rock and they’re fire. I saw them for the first time at Rock For People, on the same stage, just on a different day. I was like, I need them on my song. That’s the only feature we have on it, but it’s shaping up really well.
If you had to describe the album using 3 words only, what would you say?
Hmm…
Raw, it’s very raw! Emotional, and I would say forever. I think it’s an album that’s gonna be around forever. People are gonna be listening to it 20 years from now.
It’s not dated. You know? Like, some people are making pop-punk, and this and that, which is cool for now, but I think it’s music that will last a long time, people are gonna come back to it.
This next one is probably a hard one. Which song of yours would you show to a person that doesn’t know you yet?
That’s tough. Umm, honestly, it’s probably the next song. It’s always the song I just made because I think that’s my best song, you know? Because I make it and I’m so excited about it. So I don’t really have any past songs I’d probably show anyone, it’s probably like, hey, I gotta show you this song I just made. That’s me.
And if you had to pick a theme song for your life, what would it be?
I don’t know if it’s a theme song, but one of my favourite songs as far as the songwriting… Oh God, what’s the band named?! We’ll put it on the screen, or something. But do you know that song, „a heart don’t break even”.
Yeah, yeah, I know but I don’t know the band’s name!
That’s one of my favourite songs ever written… It’s maybe The Script, but don’t quote me on that.
We’ll look it up.
I remember growing up, VH1, MTV, that music video was on all the time, and I was like, I wanna write a song that good.
Alright, and you’re on tour right now, so let’s talk about concert and touring a bit. Do you have any pre-show rituals that you always do before every concert of yours?
I always try to do a vocal warm up. I used to not do that, but my previous guitar player’s, he’s super cool, but he’s got another gig, and he always said it’s very important to warm up your vocals. Ever since then, I feel like I started to give a better show and after the show, I don’t feel as bad.
So warm up the vocals, push-ups. Always push-ups. Gotta look good when you go out there!
And what’s one thing that you just can’t leave at home when you’re travelling on tour? When the airlines don’t lose your bags.
Oh my God. Well, honestly, headphones. Headphones, AirPods, listening to something, some podcast.
Alright, now, you’ve been in the music industry for quite some time now. If you had a time machine, and you could go back in time to when you were starting out, to give your younger self just one piece of advice, what would it be?
I’d say, focus more just on the music of it. I just realised that’s what all that really matter at the end of the day.
There’s Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and there’s always this new thing about being almost like a social media person first, and although that is important, I think the biggest artists in the world didn’t really come from social media to music. They always just had great music and then they blew up on social media later. I think in 20 years, Instagram probably won’t exist, TikTok will be something else, but people will go back to the music. I mean it’s all good, that’s what I focus on now, but always focus on that. I wish I were focusing on that more.
What does success mean to you personally? How would you define it for yourself?
That’s tough, because you always want more.
You never really have success, but today, this was like the biggest success of my life, because I just got to put on a show for a few thousand people, which a year ago, I would not have thought would happen.
Or even a couple of weeks ago, before I did Rock For People… These are the two biggest shows of my life I just played back to back.
When I was younger, making music, I never would have… Success, then, was playing for 5 people at a coffee shop.
It’s always just the next thing, and I think chasing that is what gets greatness.
And finally, is there a message that you would like to share with your Hungarian fans?
I’ve never been here, so if people keep asking me to come back, and after this, my message to them is is I will make sure I come to Hungary every Europe tour.
You have to!
That’s the message to them, because after that reaction… And first of all, I didn’t even realise how many people knew the music.
Oh, they did.
I started playing „Monster”, or some of these older songs and everyone knows them, and I was like, oh my God. I can never skip this country again.
And I think you gained a lot of new fans today, as well.
I think so, too. It helped that Yungblud was here, he’s left lane, kind of, and that’s great. I’ll play with him again in a couple of weeks in Italy, and I think it’s great to be able to get up in front of those fans. It’s amazing. I saw some people with Yungblud shirts on take photos of me, so it’s really cool. I’ve met him a few times, he’s a great dude, so it’s really cool to be able to play for some of his fans.
