At a glance, the words Bless You & Be Well might read like a soft goodbye, but the second album from Black Country outfit Chartreuse is anything but a parting gift. It’s a document of continuity, laden with emotional insight that can only come about when you’ve been through hard times together and stuck it out.
The band recorded the album in a studio five hours north of Reykjavík, a lake at one door and the sea outside the other, during to weeks when the sun didn’t set and the poker chips were replaced with dry pasta. What came out of that residency isn’t a dramatic reinvention, but something rarer: a deeper version of themselves.
When we spoke, Hattie and Mike were open, funny, occasionally self-deprecating, and always grounded. The band has this rare quality of seeming entirely without pretence – there are no ‘lead’ members, no inflated sense of purpose or cringe assertions. Their videos are understated and their process is democratic. The music that comes as a result of this is always sharper for it.
Harvey (whynow): I wanted to start with Chartreuse, where did your name come from?
Hattie: It was Perry’s sister – she’s a photographer – and she told us about the colour before we even knew about the drink. She said it’s apparently a colour you can’t fully print. I don’t know if that’s actually true, but yeah, that’s what she said. Then we found out about the drink, which is meant to be the elixir of long life, and we just thought that was cool. So we kept it.
Mike: It was cool, but it’s a nightmare to spell. People always get it wrong.
Harvey: It’s a pretty ambitious name! Naming yourselves after the elixir of life, this obscure French word – what about it actually resonated with you on a personal level? Or was it just a cool name?
Hattie: Honestly? There’s no deep, profound reason. We were just really struggling for names. We went through loads of different ones – I can’t even remember them now – and this just stuck. At the time we were like, “Yeah, that’s cool, let’s stick with it.” But yeah, as Mike said, people always spell it wrong, mispronounce it…
Harvey: I wanted to ask about the video for ‘Fold’. With a lot of bands, you get a beautifully shot video, but it can feel kind of disjointed, a bit like someone just threw a bunch of cool-looking things together. But with this, there are clear motifs. Where did the idea come from? And how does it tie into the lyrics, if at all?
Hattie: So with all the videos for this album, we wanted them to just be really simple, like one-shot ideas. We’re not great at acting – in fact, we’re terrible – so we just wanted something that felt natural. We worked with Stuart Baxter, who’s amazing. He’s great at committing to a single idea and making it feel really intentional.
With ‘Fold’, I can’t even remember who came up with the actual idea, but we basically thought: let’s do a fake car boot sale and only sell trophies. It just felt quite ironic and sad that no one wants to buy a single one. Meanwhile, I’m stood there singing at the camera while everyone walks past. It felt like a strong image. There’s no literal tie-in with the lyrics, but it captured a kind of emotional tone that worked really well.
Harvey: So the song itself, you called it an “odd little love song”. What was the story behind it? As I understand, you and Rory have been together for a long time?
Hattie: It came out of a period where Rory was going through something – just a bit of a rough patch – and I felt kind of useless. Like I didn’t know how to help. I just wanted everything to be normal again. And that’s what the song’s about really, that sense of helplessness when someone you love is struggling, and you can’t fix it. But also about being with someone for so long, watching each other grow and change, and still being completely in love.
And yeah, writing that kind of thing when the person is literally in the band with you, it’s weird. You’re exposing something real, and they’re just there, playing drums two feet away. But it came quite quickly, and it seems to have connected with people, which is lovely.
Harvey: Mike, what’s it like for you when a song like that comes in? Do you sit with the lyrics and think about them, or do you treat it more practically?
Mike: I tend to leave the subject matter alone, to be honest. Out of respect. When Hattie brings in a song, it usually starts with a jam, and we just focus on structure, melodies, riffs. It’s quite hands-on, practical. With ‘Fold’, it was mostly jamming. I didn’t know what it was about until much later.
Honestly, I think it’s easier to keep writing when you don’t have to explain everything. You stay freer that way.
Harvey: You recorded the album in Iceland. How did that come about?
Mike: It was our first proper residential, just all of us living and working together for a couple of weeks. I honestly don’t even know how it came together, but it was amazing. Walk out the front door, and you’re at the sea. Back door, there’s a lake and mountains. It was mental.
And it was our first time working with a producer in about five years. Sam Petts-Davies. That made a big difference. It felt like a step up.
Hattie: Yeah, and Sam was just a really good energy to have around. Very calm. He’d say things like, “You’re a band. This is how you sound. Let’s go with it.” That gave us a lot of confidence.
Mike: There was no night-time either. It was daylight all the time. We were playing poker at 3am using pasta as chips. It’d feel like lunchtime, but it was the middle of the night.
Hattie: We totally lost track of time. But that helped creatively. You’re not thinking in normal hours. You just keep going.
Harvey: Once you got over the excitement of being abroad, did the isolation and landscape start to change how you wrote?
Hattie: Yeah, definitely. We never knew what time it was, so we just kept going. Sam’s great at getting you out of your comfort zone. If something wasn’t working, he’d just say, “Let’s move on.” That was new for us. On the last record, when Mike produced it, we really went in on every little thing. Probably too much.
Also, being able to step outside into that scenery was so refreshing. You’re not just wandering into a city or whatever – you’re in proper nature.
Mike: Yeah, properly remote. No cars, just a bunch of people on horseback who’d pass by sometimes. Apparently the studio owner let them help themselves to beer from the fridge, so they’d knock on the window now and then. Bit surreal.
Hattie: Yeah, we’d be like, “No, we’re keeping that for later.”
Harvey: So you two are the main vocalists. Do you usually write separately, then swap parts if something’s not working? Or do the songs naturally choose who sings them?
Hattie: It really depends. On the last record, there were a couple of songs that didn’t work with my voice. I couldn’t quite get the emotion across, so Mike would try and suddenly they’d make more sense. It’s fun to hear a song come to life like that. We sometimes help each other with lyrics too.
This time round, we brought in more individual ideas. We don’t always tell each other what a song’s about, but we can feel the mood, and work with that. Some are duets, some are solo. It’s not precious. Whatever makes the song work.
Harvey: How did you all first get together?
Hattie: Me and Rory were already together. Then me and Mike wrote a couple of songs and thought, “Let’s start a band.” I’ve known Perry since I was a kid. We were terrible at the start. Like, embarrassingly bad. But you have to go through that to get better. Now it just works.
Harvey: Hattie, you mentioned your surgery and the break you had to take. You said you felt guilty – where was that coming from?
Hattie: We had to take about seven months off. We’d just finished a tour with Palace, and then I had the operation two days later. I felt bad that we couldn’t do anything for ages, and the others just had to wait around. But they were all so supportive. Writing about it helped. It was too big a thing to leave out.
Harvey: Did it change your songwriting?
Hattie: Not really. I’ve always written in the same kind of way. I think it’s changed me personally a bit, but not creatively. Mike says the only difference is I’ve got a crutch now!
Harvey: Mike, how did you handle that period? Being on pause?
Mike: Honestly, if there was a good time for it, that was it. I got a new job, my girlfriend left me, so I had a lot of time on my hands. Worked out okay in the end.
Harvey: That’s a good way of seeing it. So the album comes out 29th August. Bless You & Be Well – where did the title come from?
Mike: It’s from one of our oldest songs. I wrote it when I was about 20, early days of a relationship. It’s kind of a jealousy song. My brain wasn’t fully formed yet – still mushy. But “bless you and be well” felt like a good phrase. Bit of a backhanded goodbye. Kind, but final. It stuck.
Hattie: It felt positive. And we wanted this record to feel that way. I think it suits the tone, and it’s a phrase that makes you want to know more.
Editors’ Picks
Keep up to date with the best in UK music by following us on Instagram: @whynowworld and on Twitter/X: @whynowworld
- Album Interviews
- Black Country Music
- Bless You and Be Well
- Chartreuse
- Communion Records
- Indie Bands UK
- Songwriting
