Charlie Lim - Slick Soul Singer

 

 

Having studied, lived and performed in Australia for years, Singaporean musician Charlie Lim is returning to familiar grounds to sing at Singapore Day. As a first-time performer at Singapore Day, he said, “To be honest, I don’t know what to expect. Having the sense of nostalgia and performing alongside some Singaporean icons and celebrities will be pretty interesting. It’ll also be a bit funny to actually see Phua Chu Kang in the flesh.”

 

Charlie was exposed to music since the age of 3, when his mother taught him how to play the piano. Growing up, he played with many bands on the guitar and piano, and sang in school and church. His parents also brought him to musicals and it sparked  in Charlie a love for music.

 

“I would listen to piano recordings and learn the melody by ear, and then figure it out on the piano. That’s how I started out with improvisation and moved towards jazz and that sort of thing.”

 

Charlie calls himself a perfectionist, and thinks he probably has a bit of an obsessive compulsive disorder. To him, a good song has to have a combination of good lyrics, melody, production, arrangement, and must “ultimately be a paradox of something so personal that is yet so relatable”. He said, “The artist needs to reach into this very personal, vulnerable core and express it through song in a way everyone else can take and relate to at a universal level”.

 

There were times Charlie wanted to give up. However, the people around him kept him motivated, and he now describes music as his “purpose in life”. He said, “It’s something that I can’t help but do. I don’t think I can do anything else better. If I can touch a few people with my music then that’s my job. I think about that and take a step back, get some perspective about how important music is in society, and so I stuck with that.”

 

Singapore is still home to Charlie despite the long years away. “I grew up in the East side (in Singapore). After school or after church, I used to head to Roxy Square and play Counter Strike.” He said, “A lot of things have changed but it’s still a sense of familiarity. It’s all a very nice, self-contained bubble.”

 

He is also very appreciative of his Singaporean fan-base. He said, “The fact that I can leave and come back and people are still so welcoming, I feel very humbled. I’m very grateful that the fan-base keeps growing and spreading by word-of-mouth. Things just grow organically and I take it as a good indication that I’m doing this right.”

 

Fans can look forward to a few singles to be released this year, and a double-EP to be released next year. Charlie said, “One’s gonna sound more electronic, indie and DIY, while the other one is more organic folk singer-songwriter stuff. Hopefully the voice and the song-writing string it all together.”

 

In the meantime, be sure to catch Charlie Lim’s performance at Singapore Day this year. If you haven’t already, register now!

 

By Sim Yu Xiang