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Charli XCX, Bleachers prepare to ‘ Do America’
Charli XCX has some new toys for her new tour.
“I just bought some money guns,” says the Boom Clap singer, who launches the Charli & Jack Do America tour with Bleachers Tuesday in San Diego. “They fire dollar bills out. That’s going to be fun.”
Charli’s stage on what she calls the “super- poptastic” co- headlining tour will also have inflatables, including a giant guitar and a large lollipop reminiscent of the one that appears on last year’s album Sucker.
Bleachers’ set, on the other hand, was inspired by Queen stages from the late ’ 70s and early ’ 80s, which had large banks of lights that often backlit the band.
“I wanted to light the show in a way that felt like an alien spacecraft was landing in the venue,” Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff says. “It’s all based around a super-’ 80s cam- light show that’s happening behind the stage.”
While Bleachers — Antonoff’s project since spinning off from fun. — gets play from alternative radio with tracks like Rollercoas
ter and Like a River Runs, Charli XCX has been more popular on Top 40 stations, breaking last year with Boom Clap after being a featured singer on Icona Pop’s I
Love It and Iggy Azalea’s Fancy. “Although we do totally different things, we occupy a similar space,” Antonoff says.
Antonoff “definitely comes from a band background,” Charli says, “but he knows how to write a pop song. I come from a pop background, but for ( Sucker), I started playing with a band. We both have a love for great pop music, and that’s the thing that ties this tour together.”
Plus, she says, “we’re both very nerdy and weird people. It gets more nerdy and weird the more we hang out.”
The Charli & Jack Do America tour will run through mid- August, then resume in September for another four weeks. Børns, now on the radio with Electric
Love, will open the show for the tour’s first leg, and singer/ songwriter Robert DeLong will play the second.
Antonoff describes the tour as a mini- festival, and he’ll use it to start a festival of his own, Shadow of the City. Both Bleachers and Charli XCX will play the New Jersey- centric festival at the Stone Pony Summerstage in Asbury Park, along with DeLong, Vic Mensa, the Front Bottoms, Mis-- terWives, Cults and How to Dress Well.
“I wanted to do something super- curated and super- specific to a theme,” Antonoff says. “And the theme is New Jersey. It’s all about the way I grew up.”
With Bleachers’ Strange Desire out for a year now, Antonoff plans on introducing at least one new song on tour and seeing how it evolves. “It’s not even done,” he says. “I haven’t recorded it, and some lyrics are still changing, but I like the idea that people can hear the song grow on tour.”
Antonoff plans to use his down time on the road to record a follow- up to the ’ 80s- inspired
Strange Desire. Charli plans to do some songwriting for her next album, as well.
“I’m probably going to be writing for my new record,” she says. “It’s very much in the beginning process. There are no dates set.
“Me and Jack have talked about writing songs together, not necessarily for either of our projects, but just to write. Could be fun.”
If they do collaborate onstage, though, they’re probably only just now working that out. “It’ll be very spontaneous if something happens,” Charli says.
Even if they decide not to “Do America” onstage together, Charli says, the biggest challenge may be “making sure the audience is not too tired, basically. Watching Jack and me in a row is going to be a bit of a workout.”