Charlie Anastasis, the bassist for the alternative rock band Liily, recently chatted with Top Shelf Music to discuss the band’s plans for 2023. Liily kicked off the year with an electrifying performance at Miley Cyrus‘ New Year’s Eve party, signaling a promising start to what promises to be a momentous year for the Los Angeles-based group. Read on to discover what the future holds for Liily and the passion and drive that fuels their sound.
I read once that you weren’t happy with the music you had out and you had to do a restart as a band. How do you collectively decide when a song is done and do you feel like all the songs on your recent album are as perfect as they could be?
- Charlie Anastasis: It’s less about us not being happy with the music we had out and has more to do with us just being teenagers and not having any solid footing on reality and what we wanted to actually do. We love everything we have done as a band and only want to continue to do this and keep changing shit up. As far as finishing songs is concerned, I have no fucking idea how we have even finished anything. I can barely write a song let alone finish one. It is an absolute mystery to me that some people can complete a song in a day.
You recently performed at Miley Cyrus’ New Years Eve show, which is a massive achievement. What was your first ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe this is happening for us” moment as a band?
- We have been lucky enough to have a few of those moments but that was definitely the topper.
With more and more labels, festivals and promoters focusing on social media numbers… what do you think is more important for bands just starting out, perfecting a good live show and hitting the road or using social media as much as possible to get their music out there? Is it more important to grow on social media or just focus on making killer music?
- I really don’t know. My gut tells me that if you have really good songs and are exciting enough live then everything will be alright. But I also don’t think that’s the whole truth anymore. There is absolutely a reason to have a discourse with the internet that’s engaging because that’s the world. I don’t think that’s more important than being a really great live band but it has its merits for something. I don’t really know what though, yet.
My first experience hearing your music was when your single “I Am Who I Think You Think I Am” came out. I remember thinking the song must kill when you play it live. My question is, When you write music do you consciously focus on what it will do to an audience when you perform it live or does the song just form in the studio and the rest just translates later?
- We were born a live band and we will die a live band. So it’s really hard to make a song that is mutually exclusive from a live performance. Not that I don’t enjoy songs that are harder to pull off live, but there is a huge disconnect for me when it comes to making music like that for this band.
Is there an album from a band that inspires you that you consider to be perfect from start to finish?
- Any Other City by Life Without Buildings is perfect. Sue Tompkins is possibly the coolest vocalist I have ever heard.
Aside from a tour with Fidlar, what does the rest of 2023 look like for Liily?
- If we can finish some damn songs, we will be releasing them one after the other every day for the rest of time.
If you were given a box with all of the things you ever lost in life, what would you look for first?
- My sense of humor
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