Charlie Green, better known by his fans asCG5, built the foundation of his musical career around video games, with indie horror titles like FiveNights at Freddy’s andPoppy Playtimegenerating millions of views across his YouTube channel. The 25-year-old artist has collaborated with other popular game-based artists like The Living Tombstone, he’s got his ownversion ofFriday Night Funkin, and his vocal qualities have even become a meme on TikTok.
Game Rant sat down with CG5 to talk about his international Under the Spotlight tour, his fandom-based music, his recent shift into a more mainstream sound, and his thoughts onthe indie horror genre. With the recent release of his newest song “OCD,” he also gives a glimpse into how the disorder has affected his personal relationships and now serves as a basis for a lot of his music.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Making Game-Based Music is Harder Than it Sounds
Q: From your fandom-based music catalog, it seems like you’ve got a lot of interests. How do you come across a game, a show, or a meme and decide that’s something you want to make a song about?
CG5:Well, there’s always something new that’s popping on the algorithm. Some of these things that pop are games, new internet shows, or TV shows that pique my interest in writing a song about because of their luscious stories. I like to do research on these topics that aren’t quite about me, but these are topics that are presented for me, right in front of me, if that makes sense. I just love writing about things that are put in front of me. Like, if you were to give me the topic of writing a song about an egg, just for no reason, then I would write a song about an egg. In fact, I have.
Q: Is it just things you stumble across?
CG5:My friends tell me about it. I become interested in a certain topic that I come across by looking on the internet for a new thing; it’s part of my job. For example, right now I’m writing a song aboutMurder Drones, which is an internet show created by Glitch Productions that got quite popular recently, so I’m making a song about that with an animation to go with it.
Q: One of the most impressive things about your music is your ability to get into a character’s headspace and tell a story from their perspective. Can you talk a little about your process for getting inside the minds of these characters?
CG5:It’s a lot of research. It’s a lot of paying attention to the character and being like the character. When I write a song aboutAmong Us, it’sabout an Impostor. I pretend to be the Impostor, or I need to pretend to be somebody who is paranoid about who the Impostor is in the group of Crewmates. Just all these different points of view that I have to kind of adapt to in a way. I feel like it’s pretty easy for me if I’m into the character, if I’m into the story, if it’s really exciting and cool or horrific and terrifying, and I get in the zone pretty quickly when the topic is right in front of me.
You do a lot of indie horror-type stuff, and a lot of times you’re telling the story from the villain’s perspective like with the song “Sleep Well.”
CG5:Well, forSleep Wellactually, it wasn’t from the perspective of Catnap. It was from the perspective of a scientist who made it out alive from past events of the factory blowing up from the inside because of all thecharacters coming to life and killing everybody. The Smiling Critters’ perspective is there, of course, just alternating between perspectives, such as the scientist telling the story. Then, when the Smiling Critters come in, it’s the present time. You’re part of their Hour of Joy when they start singing, so it’s as if I’m singing about my previous days as a scientist.
Q: So you need to feel some sort of connection with the character?
CG5:Sleep Wellwas kind of interesting because I didn’t want to write from the perspective of Catnap. He may have been a sentient being, but he was created by somebody. He just throws laughing gas into everybody’s faces. I just thought, obviously, there’s a deeper background here where the people who worked on these products of danger have a story. I wanted to share what I think would be the story of somebody who made it out alive when the factory was blowing up from the inside.
Q: How do you decide, when you’re sitting down to write a song, which of the many types of music you’re versed in that the song’s going to follow?
CG5: I snap in pretty quickly. I’ve been making music for about 20 years and listening to a lot of different music from the ‘80s and onward, mostly in the ‘80s, cinematic soundtracks, and what have you. There’s always something that I have heard before that inspires me to do something for the style of a song immediately. For example, when I was making “Lyin’ 2 Me,” I wanted it to be from the perspective of a detective who was trying to find who the Impostor was, so I wanted to make it in this old style of the ‘50s combined with current pop, electronic stuff. The character gets the song going for the style.
For “Sleep Well,” I wanted it to be a lullaby sort of thing. “Come Along, Down with Me,” or an amount of"Pure Imagination" fromWilly Wonka. All these things are just in my head immediately and I snap in real quick, which is why I’m able to put a song out about a certain topic so quickly. I have all of this music in my head, all these ideas in my head immediately.
Taking the Show on the Road
Q: You’ve compared your international tour to a story-based Broadway show, with a beginning, middle, and ending. Without giving away any spoilers, can you describe what fans coming to your show can expect to see and hear?
CG5:When I create songs, it’s always about stories, so I decided to create my own story because thefans just love loreand a good storyline to follow along with. Everybody loves a beginning and an end, a series, and a finale, and I wanted to bring that into my show. There’s going to be a special character alongside me in the performances of these shows, and he’s going to have evil intentions of taking over the show. I have to put a stop to it, so that’s as much as I’ll say.
Q: I’ve also seen that your father is joining you on this tour.
CG5:He’s the character.
Q: In addition to that, your wife, Emma, has appeared in a couple of your more recent music videos. What’s it like getting to share all this success with your family?
CG5:Well, I just got married almost four months ago to the love of my life, Emma Fox, now Green. We have been very happy, and she’s been coming on tour with me and filming things, like filming my performances and blogging everything. Her being with me has been the greatest blessing throughout this entire tour; she has kept me sane through the exhaustion of the tour.
I’ve done 10 shows so far and am about to go onto my 11th. I have, as of now, 14 or 15 to go, and I cannot do this alone. I cannot do this completely alone, and I have to have my wife with me right now. I mean, if she has to stay home at some point, then so be it, but she’s been with me most of the time. She’ll always be with me in my heart because I love her so much, and she’s just helped me a lot. I’m grateful for her to be alongside me during this tour.
Q: It also seems like she might be the inspiration behind a lot of your more recent non-fandom-based music.
CG5:For sure. My new song “OCD” is actually about past relationships and particularly a little bit of the relationship I have with Emma, the beginning of all of it. I have significant Relationship Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or ROCD, and I had no idea what it was.
I needed to know what was going on in my head and if it was normal or not before I actually came across Emma in my life. I had to go through a lot of intensive therapy during my relationship with Emma so that I could stick to it so that I wouldn’t just run away immediately. I had a history of running away, instantly, because of that OCD, and I didn’t know what it was until I met Emma. I never really had a real relationship – just a lot of people I saw, met, and hung out with, I kissed and hugged, realized that maybe it wasn’t going to be for me, but I did it pretty quickly. I thought it up pretty quickly. I just needed to run away.
There was something about Emma that just made me think that I couldn’t, I shouldn’t run away. Even if I wanted to, I shouldn’t because that running away was from the OCD. The therapy gave me a way to give love a chance. I found Emma and now we’re so happy, but with every experience comes a song, and that’s why I wrote “OCD.”
Q: Around 2020, you released a string of non-fandom-based songs that were more mainstream. With “Forbidden Feeling"and “OCD,” it almost feels like you’re taking more of an introspective look at certain issues.
CG5:Well, if it’s inside my OCD, it’s inside my head. Also, “Forbidden Feeling” was about a relationship that I wanted to be in but felt like I couldn’t be in. I guess that had some OCD involved. I wanted to hold onto it, but there were so many reasons why I couldn’t love her, so many reasons why I shouldn’t stay in the relationship. But I was holding on for dear life. That was a deep one. I wanted to make it sound happy to contradict the lyrics and the story, so yeah, introspective songs have been my strength because of all the experiences I’ve had recently.
A Clash of Genres
Q: With the rise of your more mainstream type of music, can gaming and other fandom fans still expect you to keep making songs based on games, memes, and TV shows?
CG5:Yeah, absolutely. I’m still having a battle with which one to do more consistently right now. I know that I need to keep doing the game stuff for a little bit longer because that’s what people expect from me, and I’m going to give it to them. I’m going to scrape the bottom of that barrel.
I’m creating a song aboutMurder Drones, and that’s an internet show that just ended. People are really excited about me making that song. I put out a TikTok about it immediately, and it quickly outperformed all the videos I made around the promotion of my song “OCD.” That’s the kind of thing that people expect from me, to create something about a thing, and that’s instant promotion for that song.
It’s a blessing and it’s a curse because I would like to do more mainstream music more often and put out another album, but the timing is not quite in my favor at the moment. There’s still more work to be done on the game side, and I would like to see what happens moving forward. I’m still releasing singles about myself, but I’m also doing this game thing, which I really do enjoy. I love it when topics are presented to me and I write songs about them, so it’s kind of a double-edged sword really.
Q: You enjoy one, but you’re wanting to move into the other too?
CG5:It’s like a fight with enjoyment. I don’t know. It’s always changing because I love the attention that the game stuff receives, the community that comes from it, the togetherness, and all of that. And then I love the mainstream stuff because it’s not about a property, it’s just about me, and people care about a song because it’s about me. I don’t really know right now. I’m just doing what I need to do. That’s the short answer.
Q: A lot of your fandom-based music has centered around indie horror titles likeFive Nights at Freddy’s,Bendy,Baldi’s Basics,andPoppy Playtime. What is it about these sorts of titles that makes such a good base for musicians?
CG5:Well it’s a thing that’s already poppin’, and people want to hop on it immediately. They put themselves in a good position to continue to do that, like I have, but if you want to keep that audience – and people are watching this song aboutFive Nights at Freddy’sthat you made – you have to make it good, you know? Even though it’s going to get those initial views because it’s about the property, you have to make it good if you want it to get more views, if you want those fans to keep coming, if you want the fans to respect your other works.
I think if you want to keep that audience forever, then get better at making music. I mean, that’s the evil way of saying it. That’s the mean way of saying it. But there are a lot of creators who are making songs about these games, and if we all continue working hard and making something great, then we can keep those audiences. They’ll learn to respect our other works that aren’t based around properties. That’s why people have gotten on theFive Nights at Freddy’s train. It’s a really cool story, and it’s really fun to write about. So that’s it.
A lot of fans were excited to hear a song by The Living Tombstone, who you’ve collaborated with on a few musical projects, in the end credits of theFive Nights at Freddy’smovie.
CG5:I was one of them.
Q: Any chance we’ll be hearing an original CG5 song in any of the sequels?
CG5:I would really enjoy that if that were to happen. I hope and pray that Blumhouse will notice me for the second movie.
Q: You started making music on your dad’s computer when you were 5 years old. What advice do you have for young, independent musicians trying to make it on the internet?
CG5:Make bad songs ‘til they sound good. Take critique from people. Don’t be stubborn. Show your friends who may not know how to make music the song and take their critique because they’re listening to music. They don’t have to know everything about creating music. It doesn’t matter if they’re smarter or stupider than you. They listen to music, so they should listen to your song and tell you what they like or don’t like about it, and you’ve got to take that advice because you are your own bias. You could be as stubborn as possible, but your songs will never get any better because you never took critique.
Q: Are there any other projects you’d like to talk about?
CG5:I’m working on putting together an ARG (alternate reality game, not to be confused withaugmented reality game) for a marketing campaign around a song, which is my first attempt at doing something of my own original piece based on horror, but it’s going to involve a secret VCR and stuff like that. It’s going to be a series of videos. We’re looking to put them out next year. We’re going to see what happens with that, but I love exploring new opportunities. I think an ARG would be a cool thing to work on and make my own.
Q: Anything else you’d like to say about the tour?
CG5:Well, I’m performing “Only in Ohio” but only in Ohio, so I’m not performing that song any other place except for Ohio, which I think is going to be quite funny. But it’s also going to be my first time performing that song for an audience, and I don’t know how it’s going to go. I wonder if there are going to be people that boo, but I don’t give a crap about that anymore. But thanks for buying tickets!
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