Cherelle-Renée Childs
Cherelle-Renée Childs has created a wonderful story told through the songs of her upcoming album Legend’s Ghost. Her music is dreamy and wonderful. I love all the songs in the legend; my favorite is The Portal. When I asked Cherelle-Renée to tell me more about The Portal, she told me: “That was probably the most fun song to record. We have this guy singing in Turkish, and when the girl recorded the improv, I was speechless.”
This is Cherelle-Renée Childs first interview in her native language, English, because she’s been living in Quito, Ecuador since 2007 and speaking Spanish. My first Amused Now featured artist in Ecuador!
I love the story told through Legend’s Ghost. Cherelle-Renée Childs gives us the back story: “I write my music and try to get people from all over the world to help me record it. I’ve been working on this for about 10 years now. It’s one of those stories that you cannot put into one neat story line. It’s about this socially awkward, amazing musical artist. She performs this ritual, based on a completely fictional Pagan religion, where she tries to find her Muse spirit called The Song Weaver. Along her journey, she meets all these Muse spirits called Gatekeepers, who tell her their life stories. It’s all metaphors for the artistic process.”
Cherelle-Renée goes into more detail about The Full Moon at Midnight: “There’s an innocent young girl, who’s trying to seduce this guy that she likes. He just doesn’t feel that way about her and she ends up feeling humiliated. I think a lot of people can relate to that on a personal level, but it has a metaphorical side as well. Sometimes, we (as artists) put our hearts and souls into our work, and when we share it with people, they don’t think it’s very interesting. It can be devastating. There are also songs that symbolize the positive aspects of the creative process as well.”
Legend’s Ghost is very orchestral. The singing voices wind their way through each song, in the same way as any musical instrument. Cherelle-Renée Childs describes the music as: “Gothic symphonic metal. It is theatrical. I see my music as a melting pot of almost every musical experience that I’ve had.”
Cherelle-Renée Childs is mostly classically trained, and she played flute in a hip hop band for a while: “I ended up using that singer from the hip hop band on one of my songs, because I love her vocal style. I started incorporating her way of singing into my way of singing. I’ve had these kinds of experiences with a lot of people. It all gets woven together inside my mind and out comes all this music.”
Legend’s Ghost is more than an album, it’s also a website. To be a part of the Legend’s Ghost site: “I am always open to meeting new musicians. I look for good musicianship. I like somebody who has a certain quality that fascinates me, and I can’t always put my finger on what that is. If someone is interested in being a guest artist, send me the demo. If you’re right for a character that I’m working with, I’d love to work with you. If not, I may write a song for you. I’ve done that before.”
The multi-talented Cherelle-Renée Childs is also a painter. Because I’m a painter, I’m drawn to her paintings, which are surreal and extraterrestrial. “I paint more as a hobby. I learned to paint when I was about 14 or 15. I never pursued it further until I turned 30. I suddenly decided that I wanted to paint again. I realized that I wanted to draw all the crazy imagery in my head. For example, when I was 6 or 7, I used to sit in bed at night and think about the universe and what the edge of the universe might look like. I imagined it to be a big brick wall. I love outer space and I love Halloween. I think most people can figure that out by looking at my paintings.”
Cherelle-Renée Childs advises other artists to take every opportunity that you can, as long as it’s not completely wrong for you. Take it one step at a time and keep moving forward.
What’s up next for Cherelle-Renée Childs? “The CD will be out in the next couple of weeks. I’m working on a new album based on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven. I also have another album that I wrote when I was younger that I want to produce. I’m also a voice-over artist. I did a web series called Ian Something; one episode is up on YouTube. I hope more episodes will be up later. I recently did a short film for children. I played the voice of a rabbit in Africa, who tries to outwit a lion who wants to eat a tourist, in The Gone Forever Tree. That should release this winter through Insane Hamster Productions.”
Cherelle-Renée Childs plans to move back to the US to promote her music. She also hopes to travel to Europe to promote Legend’s Ghost and another artist’s album she worked on.
I wish Cherelle-Renée Childs all the best with all her many projects. Follow the news on LegendsGhost.com.
The Amused Now Featured Artist Series
Cherelle-Renée Childs
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Cynthia Kahn, Founder of Amused Now
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