Grace + Charlotte
Tulsa, OK
words by liz | photos by emma
First things first: Grace and Charlotte are two of the coolest bffs ever. I met Grace while in line for a concert last spring so of course, I’ve been keeping up with her social media since then. Not long after following her, I noticed the same girl showing up in her snaps and Instagram photos- a friend named Charlotte. It appeared as if they did everything together. I remember scrolling past a video of the two singing Electric Love by Borns (whose show Grace and I were in line for!) and I knew, I knew, these girls were onto something. Their voices work just as beautifully together as they do on their own and I could say the same for their personalities. I often found that Grace would finish Charlotte’s sentence or I’d ask a question about Grace and Charlotte would answer. They talked more about each other than about themselves and I loved it. While very much alike, Charlotte and Grace each give off their own unique sense of style and character yet share a genuine love for creativity and burning passion for social justice and youth culture.
Take a quick peek into the minds of these gals.
Honey Punch: What do you want to do with music and where do you want to be?
Grace: This is where we are different!
Charlotte: It’s funny because her parents really want her to pursue music as a career and our music teacher really supports her in that too- but she doesn’t necessarily want to.
G: I like science and math a lot. I really want to travel so I think the idea of traveling and helping people with medicine type stuff would be really cool! But I also do love music. I’m always thinking “Is there a way I can incorporate the two?”
C: For me, I really just want to pursue music and everyone else is telling me, “You should just pick a steady career!” But I don’t want that.
Is your family supportive of you wanting to focus just on music?
C: They’re more supportive lately. It’s not that I don’t want go to college, I do! Mostly I don’t have to go in the real world yet. They’re pretty supportive in comparison to people’s parents who are like “You have to be a doctor.” But, yeah I definitely want to do music. We are doing battle of the bands and it started as a favor for my friend who is setting it up and needed another act, but I eventually want to make an actual band outside of school.
As young females in music, do you ever feel like you’re not taken as seriously as males or older people making the same moves in music as you are?
G: Yeah, I feel like as girls we are always invalidated in one way or another. And teenagers in general, too. Like when teenagers want to get into politics or something people are like “You don’t know anything, you’re young.” And I’m like “Just because we’re young doesn’t mean we can’t have an idea! And just because we can’t vote doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care!”
C: The reason I love things like this and Rookie magazine is because I’m obsessed with youth, especially right now. People are always like “Oh teenagers… acting all angsty.” But I feel like we are the most important thing right now. We are next. People invalidating our opinions makes no sense. I think our generation is going to make a change for sure. As for being girls, I think that we get cheated sometimes. I know there are some bands here that are all boys and think they’re all that but they’re actually just sexist. People see girls in a band or making music and just think “Oh, that’s cute.”
What do you think about the expression “It’s just a phase" or "You’ll grow out of it”?
C: I get that so much, especially from my family. But I think that’s just because they’re confused about me.
G: Sometimes I just don’t think they understand- like with sexuality. We are both pansexual.
C: –and my parents weren’t always supportive of that. Our parents are both pretty fine with it now, but I still feel invalidated when it comes up in front of adults because I know that it’s not “normal.” It’s a new thing for people to be so outspoken about.
G: Especially being queer teen girls, and I’m a queer Latina teen girl. It all goes back to hearing the whole “It’s a phase thing.”
C: I think it’s really hurtful to tell someone it’s a phase…I don’t know if that’s really angsty teen thing to say, but it goes to an extent. I understand if you’re 8 and listening to Green Day, but I would also never tell my 8 year old “it’s just a phase.”
G: Just let it manifest into whatever it wants to manifest into.
How do you balance caring too much and not caring at all?
G: When you first asked that, I thought about song writing. With songwriting, I don’t think I’m very good. I think she’s better, but we also have different styles. But eventually it comes to a point where you have to be OK with a certain lyric or chord progression even if someone tells you it’s not good enough.
C: Songwriting- I was just talking to my friend about this. It was before I put out my song on the internet, but I asked “How do you not feel like… cringey about other people hearing your lyrics?” It’s like reading someone your diary. For a long time I had it ready but I didn’t put it out because the lyrics were personal and I thought they were embarrassing. I was scared people would be like “You’re trying to be too deep” and say other stuff like that. I think you just have to get over that. It makes me think about fashion, too. I used to be really nervous about I dressing how I wanted to. So, I did it once and I got weird looks but then I was fine. I do it every day now.
G: I remember when she first wore her go-go boots to school.
C: I was so nervous!
G: She was calling waiting for me to get to school and like “I’m so scared, walk in with me!”
C: There were so many people that I wasn’t friends with and I don’t like when people stare at me. And they think I do this for attention but I just think it’s cool. So yeah, I think you just have to learn not to care. For me I just have to do something once and then it’s good. But it’s a hard balance. I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard but you also can’t brush off everything and be like “I don’t care about anything” because that’s not realistic.
