Warren Charles Band plays "Weapon of Choice" at Piano Bar

Weapon of Choice (live)

Warren Charles Band plays "Less Than Three" at House of Blues

Less Than Three <3

Music from new WARREN CHARLES album "Head in the Clouds" coming November 2012!

My Moment of Weakness

Horn Arrangement by Dave Woodford
---------------------------------
Trumpet - Lee Thornburg
Sax - Dan Ring
Sax - Dave Woodford

Standing in my Way

This rock tango is about trying to get someone off your mind

Everything Reminds Me of You

Ever open up to someone for the first time right before they break up with you? Yeah me too. Six times...

Lovesong #6

"Not sure if I want to remember what I can't forget." This song is about forgiveness, and it's based on a true story. 

Leaving

Have you ever thought about breaking up a wedding?

Forever Hold My Peace

"You can go with this, or you can go with that..." Listen to our big band cover of "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim

Weapon of Choice

STORY BEHIND THE SONG

Have you ever woken up from a dream and tried to will yourself back in it?


"Girl of my Dreams" was inspired by  a real dream (perhaps a contradiction in terms). There was this French girl. I never found out her name, but she was almost certainly based on Mireille from French in Action, an educational series on PBS that I studied in middle school. Anyway, she came to New York City looking for her little sister who had run away from their abusive stepfather. Somehow I could speak French fluently in the dream, so I helped her follow clues around the city. In the end, we found her sister in a youth hostel, their dad found us, I got the crap kicked out of me, and then I got a kiss. I woke up wishing I could go back to sleep (and speak French) but of course that didn’t work out, so I started writing this song instead. I cranked out the chorus and a couple verses, but I got a little too attached to the details in the dream. I got stuck and put it on the backburner. 

Years later, I took a trip to LACMA to see a Magritte exhibit with my family. One of his famous works, La Trahison des images, caught my attention.  It’s a painting of a pipe with the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” written underneath it. Even though the painting unmistakably depicts a pipe, it’s only a painting. This got me thinking about “Girl of my Dreams” again. The French girl is not actually the girl of my dreams. She’s just a projection of some fantasy. She’s not real. This was enough to get me going again. I wrote new verses imagining meeting a girl at a museum who had everything I wanted, but who wasn’t real. The album version is some mixture of the rewrite with some details from the original dream.

The title of our album (Head in the Clouds) comes from a lyric in "Girl of my Dreams." We thought it worked well thematically. Several songs on the record are about relationships in which we see what we want to see even though there are real reasons they don't work out. We'd rather leave our heads in clouds than face up to the problems. We'd rather go back into the dream. The album artwork plays on this theme. We took images from each song and assembled them in the style of a Magritte painting. Take a look at the cover. Can figure out which image goes with each song? 

Girl of My Dreams

Warren Charles covers "Paddling Out" by Miike Snow

Come see us play this live at Molly Malones!
Thursday Feb 28th @ 9:30PM
575 S. Fairfax Blvd.

Paddling Out

A road song about the tradeoff between freedom and loneliness...

Nomad

Read this article by the Onion. It pretty much sums up this song.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/but-if-we-started-dating-it-would-ruin-our-friends,11473/

Better Than What You Got

Indie pop/rockers Warren Charles are an emerging band based out of Los Angeles. They combine the piano-centric, left-of-center sensibility of Ben Folds Five with Cake’s love of darkly humorous lyrics. Brothers Warren (Peter) Jacobson and Charles (Lucas) Jacobson take turns up front singing songs that range in style from ragtime all the way to funk. 

Peter and Lucas have been writing and performing together since they were young. They grew up in New York City where both learned to play instruments at an early age. Peter was classically trained in cello and piano while Lucas studied electric guitar via classic rock. Anxious to pursue music together, the brothers moved to Los Angeles as soon as they finished college. Peter attended Cornell University where he majored in economics and English, and Lucas graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in mechanical engineering. 

Warren Charles released their debut album When Chandeliers Sway in 2009. Since that time, the brothers have gigged in and around Los Angeles and embarked on several college tours. They’ve performed in front of the Library of Congress and even played two shows during NFL games at the brand new Cowboys Stadium.

Now, after years of writing and months in the studio, Warren Charles is proud to present Head in the Clouds. Like its predecessor, it was recorded and mixed entirely to tape and celebrates a variety of styles. While some of its songs feature elaborate orchestral arrangements, the album never ventures far from the band’s core: brothers, lyrics, piano, and guitar.


warren-charles

Popular tracks