“The music industry is like this secret club,” Charlotte Brimner scoffs, wrinkling her nose like the idea’s a bad smell.
“I don’t like that, that it’s not accessible to people.”
It’s a chilly morning Zoom call and Brimner, AKA Dundee pop starlet Be Charlotte, is catching me up on the year of her career that’s passed since we last spoke.
It’s been eventful, to say the least.
After walking away from her deal at Sony’s Columbia Records in 2020, she’s been grafting non-stop, and this year Be Charlotte released two singles – Will Anybody Be Out There? and It’s Only Love – with the latter recently featured in Rolling Stone India.
And just last month, the Dundee-born musician made the leap on “something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time” and launched her own label, Enough Records.
It’s a bold move to snub a major label and go it alone, especially for someone so young. But with 11 years in the music industry under her belt, Brimner has a lot more experience than your average 25-year-old.
And this 25-year-old knows what she’s about.
Major label ‘wasn’t for me’
“For me, [Columbia Records] just wasn’t the right environment,” she confesses.
“I quite quickly realised that, if I’m totally honest, but I wanted to give it a go and see what it was like.
“I was hesitant to say a lot about it before because everyone has totally different experiences,” she says diplomatically. “And me doing [the original deal] meant I can be a full-time artist, still, which is amazing.
“So there were lots of good times, but in the end I just realised it wasn’t for me.”
Moving out to Berlin for a couple of years “to be closer to the label” proved difficult, but in the words of Stereophonics, you gotta go there to come back – and coming back was all the proof Brimner needed that her future lay in Dundee.
“Being back in Dundee made me realise that like ‘yeah, this is where I need to be’,” she explains, and the warmth in her voice conveys just how fond she is of her home city.
Since her music took off back in 2016, Brimner has been advocating for young women in the industry, and being back on home turf gave her solid ground on which to put that passion into action.
“I’ve always in the back of my head had this idea of I’d love to help other artists, and I guess I needed a way to channel that a wee bit,” she explains.
After successfully running songwriting camps aimed at women and nonbinary creators, she decided to bring forward her ‘someday’ dream of owning her own record label.
‘Bit of a rollercoaster’
“I had always thought I’d have to wait until I was older or, I dunno, that I couldn’t do this at this age or stage in my career,” she laughs.
And though she’s glowing with enthusiasm now, she admits that it took some determination to get through the initial wobble of uncertainty.
“When I first stopped working with [Columbia], I felt empowered and great. I’d made the decision, and I thought: ‘Right this feels good.’ Then your own thoughts start to creep in… and it was a bit of a rollercoaster moment.
“But then I just thought: ‘No, let’s do it!'”
Now Enough Records, co-founded with her former manager Louie John Lowis (of Hector Bizerk), and funded by some investment by England-based charity Youth Music, has one simple message for its artists: You are enough.
‘Trying to create something I wish I’d had’
“I didn’t want a name that was really specific in terms of genre or gender, I just wanted something that could describe the whole thing,” Brimner explains.
“So we brainstormed for ages and ended up landing on Enough, in terms of ‘you are enough, we are enough’.”
It’s not lost on either of us that this conversation is one happening all across the wider music industry, with young, female artists at the forefront of the dialogue.
Megastars like Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift have all been vocal in recent years about the lingering misogyny and exploitative practices of record executives, bookers and management.
And as someone who first entered that musical landscape at the tender age of 14, Brimner admits part of the drive to launch the label came from personal experience.
“I’m trying to create something that I wish I’d had,” she explains. “But I’m also trying to create something that doesn’t really already exist, particularly in the Scottish music industry.
“There’s a lot of chat about [the way young female artists are treated in the industry], but for me, with the songwriting camps and now with the label, it’s about taking something that’s a negative and actually trying to do something about it.
“And that’s something that’s focused on the music but also on the wellbeing of people – making sure they feel good ‘enough’ to make the music and play the gigs – rather than on the stats.”
‘In Scotland, you feel removed from music industry’
So far this year, Brimner and Louie have signed two artists to the label – SAY Sound of Young Scotland award-winner Berta Kennedy, from Greenock, and Carluke singer-songwriter Cara McBride.
“With Cara, I saw she was posting loads of videos online. I heard her voice there and absolutely loved it,” Brimner explains.
“Before she started working with us, she was kind of just posting loads of covers, and she had her own songs but just wasn’t really sure what to do with them – so having her on has been really exciting.
“And with Bethany (Berta Kennedy), I found her on Spotify and then I invited her to a songwriting camp at the start of this year. Then I went to see her live and just thought ‘Oh my goodness, I love this’.”
Although both signings were artists Brimner discovered online, she recognises how easy it can be for talent to get lost in such a saturated global platform.
So Enough Records, which is currently based out of Magic Box Collective studios in Dundee, is starting out with a strong focus on boosting Scottish talent first.
“I think when you come from Scotland and most of your traditional music industry is based in London, you already feel physically quite removed from that,” Brimner observes.
And the gap between bedroom creative and working artist isn’t just geographical. Oftentimes, it’s about who you know, and that nepotism (and the resulting elitism) is another barrier Brimner wants to break.
“If you’ve grown up in an environment where you don’t have access to somebody in the music industry, it can just feel so difficult,” she goes on. “And for me, this is just about trying to bridge that gap.”
‘You can only access with a special key’
To level the playing field, she’s planning to add a ‘send-in’ feature to the Enough’s website before the year is out, meaning artists can put their best foot forward on their own time, and own terms.
“I think everyone deserves a chance and an opportunity, and that was one big thing about the label for me,” she effervesces.
“Instead of the industry being a closed group that you can only access with a special key, let’s just help each other and ultimately, have a good time.”
So far, Enough’s mission statement seems to be ringing true, as both signed artists praised the supportive atmosphere that Brimner’s created.
“The opportunities I’ve been given since signing with Enough Records have been amazing!” says 21-year-old Cara McBride, who just last month played her first-ever sold-out headline show.
“They’ve helped me develop myself as an artist and given me the confidence to perform to a live audience.”
Likewise, rock and hip-hip-inspired producer Berta Kennedy, 24, credits Enough’s “ethics” in helping her achieve recognition at the 2022 Scottish Album of the Year awards.
“We’ve been working with them for quite a few months and it’s just so nice to know that other people are as excited as we are,” Brimner says, puffing up with pride.
“Because in a usual major label setting, you know, there would be a marketing department, an A&R department, a product manager… all these different things.
“And we’re just that in one. So there’s a lot that goes into it.”
Body image struggle
But Dundee’s pop princess has more than Enough to keep her busy these days. She’s still grafting away on her own music, and making time to Be Charlotte again after a quieter couple of years during the pandemic.
She stopped releasing new music for a while, she explains – not because she wasn’t writing it, but due to her own crisis of confidence.
In a candid Instagram post last weekend, she opened up about how struggles with her body image had played a part in her putting off new releases.
And her tendency towards artistic perfectionism – “sometimes it can be hard to say something’s finished” – combined with an inability to play live due to Covid restrictions prevented Brimner from feeling like the musician she is.
“I’ve always said, from the very beginning, that as an artist I feel like I need all the parts – writing, recording, releasing and gigging,” she says.
“And by not releasing any music, I was taking one of those parts away from myself. It makes you think ‘Who’s going to be there when I release music again?’”
But after listening to a long interview (“I love a podcast, so I do!”) with Scottish superstar Lewis Capaldi, where he expressed some of the same anxieties, Brimner was convinced to get back in the game.
“It’s mad to think that even at his level, he’s still got those same worries and fears about releasing new music again – because obviously his has gone straight to No 1!” she laughs.
“So it’s reassuring when you hear other artists talk about that sort of thing, because you can go: ‘OK we all feel this way, let’s just do it!’”
Rolling Stone ‘madness’
If Brimner thought no one was going to be ‘out there’ listening when she dropped her latest tracks, she was sorely mistaken.
Her latest single, It’s Only Love, was picked up by music giant Rolling Stone India just one day after its release.
Included in a list of “should-be hits” that honour the legacy of pop queen Madonna, the boppy, optimistic tune is in big-name company, with the likes of Beyonce and Maisie Peters also featured.
“It’s mental, it’s madness!” Brimner exclaims when I reference the article. “I was actually away on holiday with my family, and I got a notification for a Tweet saying: ‘You have been mentioned by Rolling Stone India’.
“I really thought they must have meant someone else. The song had only just come out, so it was pretty amazing.”
Between the songwriting camps, launching her own label, and finding her artistry again, it seems like there’s never been a better time to Be Charlotte.
So when can fans finally expect an album?
“I’m definitely going to be releasing another song at the start of next year, and then potentially a body of work later next year,” she teases.
“In the meantime,” she says, sliding effortlessly into her new role as label exec, “Berta Kennedy’s got a new single coming out on November 23, which is called Travel At Peak Time. So keep an eye out for that!”
- Be Charlotte is set to play an intimate acoustic set at Gallery 48, Dundee, on December 15 2022. All ticket proceeds will go to Dundee-based charity Just Bee.
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