Charlie Winston's 'Essential Balance' on the Coast

Although he no longer sports his short-brimmed trilby hat, his tweed jacket (worn over a white shirt) still gives him a slightly dandy, so British look... Even when combined with red Bermuda shorts and blue sneakers! It's been nine years since Charlie Winston made the choice, as he explains to us in near-impeccable French, to settle on the French Riviera , in Villeneuve-Loubet. For the beautiful eyes of a woman from the Côte d'Azur, originally from Cagnes-sur-Mer, who became his wife and the mother of their two children, aged 8 and 11. " We met in 2011 in Los Angeles," he rewinds, "and for two years, she followed me on tour! We didn't have a fixed address. We then lived in Paris for a while, before settling into a house in London. Constantly filled with a bunch of musicians and friends. Family life wasn't easy. And for her, who grew up with the mountains, the sun, the beach, it was difficult to live in this grayness, while being confronted with a very different mentality."

His circle of friends from the Côte d'Azur

So, it was off to the French Riviera, where the hobo (vagabond in English) finally settled down, and his guitar, in 2016. And he had to adapt in turn: "It took me a while to understand the differences between the two cultures. And now I'm very happy, because I now have my own friends here, not just my wife's. It gives me an essential balance, between two tours. The only thing I miss compared to London or a big city in general, is musical creativity, being able to attend a lot of concerts. But I worked on myself to accept that my existence had changed, including from this point of view. Life is a mystery... We think we control it, but we don't!"

His childhood in a permanent festive atmosphere

And he added: "When you accept that, it's easier. You know, I was raised with the idea of bringing joy to those around me. My parents were singers, so I grew up in a hotel where there was always a very festive atmosphere, because there were two performance halls, two restaurants, and two bars. I attended weddings, theater performances, concerts, and even cabaret shows with French Cancan dancers, during the French-themed evenings where we ate snails and frogs' legs." A taste of his life on the other side of the Channel . And an atypical childhood, a life as an "acrobat" focused on the public, which undoubtedly explains his propensity and his ease in establishing a fast-track connection with it.

A new opus at the end of 2025

As we have seen once again since the start of his sold-out tour, which will bring him back to our country on November 15th to La Seyne-sur-Mer. Multi-instrumentalist – guitar, bass, drums, piano – just like his musicians, Charlie Winston carried the audience away with his generous energy and his heady melodies, between catchy rhythms and intimate ballads. While waiting to make us discover, by the end of the year, his new opus: Love isn't easy . Of which a first single, Never enough , was released in May. After more than two years spent on the road, Charlie Winston has indeed immersed himself in the studio to write his sixth album. Surrounded by François Lasserre on guitar, Louis Sommer on bass and Noé Benita on drums, Charlie has concocted this intimate journey carried by luminous grooves.

Love in all its forms

In this opus, this sensitive artist explores love in all its forms: the love we share, the love we build, and, above all, the love we learn to grant to ourselves. "This album tells a love story. Not a fleeting romance, but a deep relationship that slowly builds. It evokes the beginning, the middle, and the potential end of two people's story. But it also speaks of self-love. After all, isn't that how the quality of all personal relationships is measured? And achieving it requires a lot of patience and courage. The easy way is to give in to negative actions dictated by fear."

Learn more

Charlie Winston. Saturday, November 15 at 8:30 p.m. Tisot Cultural Center. Price: €27.50. Information: +33 4 94 06 94 77. www.la-seyne.fr

A more complex personality than one might imagine, Charlie Winston reveals more than meets the eye in song. Three tracks provide the proof.

1) "Exile" (from the album "As I am", produced by Vianney in 2022)

"It's a song that evokes three things in my life. First, exile, when I settled on the French Riviera with my wife, who grew up here. It was also a form of exile from my music, because I'm much more famous here than I am in England. I have a friend who came to see me in Roquebrune-sur-Argens, when I gave a concert there. He expected to see 500 people, he was blown away to see thousands! It was difficult for me to understand, to let go, to break in a way with my childhood. Now it's done, I've become an expatriate. In this song I confess that I'm not really a British subject anymore, that I am ''Frenglish''. And I'm proud to speak your language, even if it's easy for me, given that my wife is French. This song speaks, finally, of my success in a family of musicians, another form of exile."

2) “Like a hobo” (taken from the album "Make way" , released in 2007)

"People often ask me if it's boring for me to still sing this song, even though it's really a song that I've never tired of performing. And I'm very happy about it. Just like Boxes , taken from the same album, it says a lot about me and my life. About my values, those that were passed on to me by my parents. Starting with tenacity."

3) "Uncounscious" ("As I am")

"This song evokes what was truly a miracle in my life, a rebirth. In 2016, I left music. I could no longer imagine returning to the stage with all the terrible back pain I experienced during the tours. I tried everything to solve this problem, medication, massages, yoga. But in fact the problem was not in my body, it was in my life, it was in my head, in my traumas. As it happens to each of us at least once in our life to have a psychosomatic problem. Especially in the middle of our lives, because there are many more responsibilities. And I overcame the pain thanks to a method that consists of going back to the emotional origins of it to better free ourselves from it."