Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Charlie Faragher. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Charlie , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is my debut record I just put out. Since high school, I’ve always listened to music solely in the form of an album and always had this dream in the back of my mind to one day release a record that had the qualities of some of my favorite records growing up: each song has its own vibe, they hit you in a different way and take you on a journey of their own, a lot of the records I loved were 10 songs 37ish minutes which to me was the perfect length, and they felt true and unique.

The reason I made this record was because for the longest time, I was afraid to write my own music- let alone sing my own stuff. I have been singing for as long as I can remember, but I never had any real lessons and I never considered doing it in a presentative way. But in high school, I fell in love with amazing songwriters’ music like Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Harry Nilsson, Jeff Tweedy (to name a few) and started to wonder if I could ever write a song like that because of how powerful their music hit me.

Then, in the summer of 2021, I was fortunate enough to meet songwriter/producer Mike Viola who showed me an entire new avenue I could go down in my career. Through Mike, I learned how much I loved the process of producing and bringing songs to life- a job I never considered before. I realized he was doing what I always wanted to do from the drum chair- but tenfold. Then, while learning from him and assisting him while he was working on records, I fell in love with his music and the way he wrote songs. For anyone who hasn’t heard his music, they 100% should. For me, it was the greatest lyric writing I had ever heard because it was so real and honest about his life and how he felt. There was no sugarcoating it- it was raw and the music/production to support it exemplified that as well.

From then on, I had a huge passion and desire to get into producing music and I really wanted to produce other artists. I also fell in love with songwriting and during the winter of 2022, I wrote a lot of music. The problem was, I had no proof that I could write nor produce since I had never done it before. So, I decided to spend 2023 writing, producing, and recording a record that I could release and show everyone that I could do this and it was something I was interested in.

The next problem became the fact that I needed someone to sing these songs. For better or for worse, I decided to sing them since I knew how I wanted them to sound. And I didn’t put any autotune or pitch correction on it because the main thing I cared about was the emotion of the music getting across- whether it via the songwriting or further enhanced by the music/production beneath it.

In November of 2023, I released my 10 song 41 minute record entitled “Daniel Cross”.

For those interested in the reason behind the name, When I was a kid, I never used legos or played video games: I spent my time pretending to be in an imaginary band and we would go on tours and do shows together. The band was called The Campers and my stage name was Daniel Cross (for some reason I really wanted all the members’ names to start with D so I was Daniel in this band but Charlie Faragher also had records out in this imaginary world, but this world never realized Charlie Faragher and Daniel Cross were the same person… kids’ imaginations are wild).

Anyways, for awhile, I was planning on just putting the record out under Daniel Cross because I was honestly very afraid people wouldn’t like it and I wanted a buffer in case people that proved to be true- I also didn’t want people to feel forced to like it because it was mine, or to at least allow people to find it on their own and then one day reveal that Daniel cross is me. But, I decided instead to acknowledge both my young imaginary dream of being Daniel Cross while also my real dream of having my own record under Charlie Faragher, and be confident that whatever I put out, I want to be proud of and embrace as my own and not be afraid to say it is my work. So long story semi-short, that’s why it’s called Daniel Cross.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started playing drums when I was 2 years old, being brought up in a musical household: my dad has played bass for Elvis Costello for the last 20+ years and is a well-known session musician in LA. I grew up going on tour with him whenever I could go and also tagged along for lots of the sessions he did around town. I was hooked from a young age and wanted to be around it as much as I could.

I grew up being a diehard Beatles fan and then it stemmed to other 60s influences such as The Who, The Band, The Rolling Stones, and a lot of the music in that era.

For high school, I went to Hamilton High School in LA because they had a revered jazz program there. I had never listened to jazz before then, but my dad really wanted me to learn how to read music (which I would have to do to play in the big band) and it was the only opportunity I knew of where I could play music at school- which was a prospect I couldn’t resist. I ended up not only getting into jazz music, but really found an appreciation for music in general while there.

From the drumming standpoint, jazz taught me so much about dynamics and trained my musical ear to a high level because you have to constantly react to what the other musicians are improvising on the spot- a situation I became very comfortable in. From the music standpoint, I had never been around so many music-minded people, so there was music constantly being played from all my friends and new music being shown to each other all the time. This was when I really fell in love with the process of listening to full records and learned so much about music I hadn’t dug deep into before. I was listening to 2-3 records a day (of all styles of music) and learned so much about music which in return influenced and improved my drumming more than anything else.

I also started my first band there called “True Sole” which was an instrumental jazz-influenced group with my friends Ben Farahi and Jacob Shneiderman. Ben and I have remained constant collaborators: we later formed a jazz fusion group entitled “Unsalted Butter” and put out an EP during the pandemic of all original music under the name “Farahi Faragher Collective” called “What’s in the Pantry?” (I guess we were always eating lunch when band and/or song names were being discussed), which we engineered, produced, wrote, and arranged all on our own in my home studio.

I am currently finishing up college at USC as a Popular Music major at the Thornton School of Music. Through USC, I have had opportunities to produce music, write music, play many gigs as a drummer with the fantastic artists here and outside of school, arrange songs, and had the opportunity to compose film scores to a few student films made by students in the film school.

So all that to say, I have an equal love for playing drums, producing, songwriting, and film composing.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I entered high school, a school that I went to wanting to be in the jazz program, I had never listened jazz music and I hated it every time I tried to listen to it. My dad would drive to school and try to put it on so I could get into it and I would just pretend to audibly fall asleep and snore until he put on something else. I really struggled with getting over that hump and tried many of the famous records but I found the super long solo sections so boring and didn’t even relate to the drumming very much. All I wanted to do was listen to the Beatles or anything other than jazz for that matter. It wasn’t until sophomore year that I came across two records that forever changed my musical approach:

1) the record “Clifford Brown and Max Roach”- while listening I still wasn’t overzealous about any of the songs I had heard but at least Clifford’s soloing was pretty beautiful and melodic. Then, the song “Joy Spring” came on and I shot up like a cannon. It was the most beautiful melody I had heard and it was so musical. And the solos were so melodic on that song and something about the melody on the A section to this day always puts a smile on my face. I had finally found the key to getting into jazz music from a melodic standpoint. I then listened to all of their records and kept following that avenue and ended up leaving high school as a fairly melodic jazz drummer whilst finding the appreciation and heart for jazz music

2) In regards to the drumming in jazz music, going from The Beatles/The Who/The Band to records like “Kind of Blue was a pretty big jump in terms of the drumming. At the time, I couldn’t get into it and didn’t understand why the drummer never did anything fun. Even when drummers soloed, it wasn’t interesting to me. Then I came across a drummer named Philly Joe Jones and his record “Showcase”: the first song on that record blew my mind. The way he played drums- whether during the melody, under a soloist, or when he did a solo of his own- was so electric and I could hear the connections between the rock music I loved and jazz for the first time ever. This record literally taught me how to start playing jazz drums and my playing took a significant leap because of it. Otherwise, I don’t know when I would’ve started clicking with the genre.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I’m a really big podcast guy, and there are tons of great podcasts I listen to that have greatly influenced my views on life and music simultaneously:

1. Sodajerker on Songwriting (songwriters/artists/producers sometimes as well)
2. The Trap Set w/ Joe Wong (drums)
3. I’d Hit That Podcast (drums)
4. Soundtracking w/ Edith Bowman (music for films)
5. Wong notes w/ Cory Wong (all musicians)

And podcasts with great interviews that I learn from in terms of the process/journey that all types of people go on:
1. WTF Marc Maron Podcast
2. 4. The Great Creators w/ Guy Raz
3. Old Man and the Three w/ JJ Redick (basketball but the stories of their work ethic and second to none)
4. Smartless
5. Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
6. The director’s cut (interviewing directors of movies)

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charlie_faragher/
• Other: Daniel cross links/credits
• SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/2OiPHBqwXetJPs7AS3S1oc?si=f8XFQAoARZGB9Wr9G_l3fw
• APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/album/daniel-cross/1712586496
• YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lhR98dXr6V9en5q-j1fVT5udc3FNJ8dmc&si=UDlNQTWtRXf1hrOr
• Credits: Charlie Faragher- Vocals (all tracks), Drums (1-3, 5-6, 8-9), Wurlitzer (1, 3-5, 10), guitar (7), percussion (1), additional organ (9) Ben Farahi- Guitars (1-3, 5-6, 8-9) Will Easley- Bass (1, 3, 5-6, 9) Davey Faragher- Bass (2,8) Sebastian Lorenz- Guitar solo (5) Dalton Hayse- Keys (8) Organ (9) Cover photo by Nikoli Partiyeli All tracks written, produced, and arranged by Charlie Faragher All tracks mixed and mastered by Will Easley

Image Credits
Nikoli Partiyeli Hunter Shepherd