CharlieonnaFriday on Success of His Single 'Enough': 'We're Building Something Really Different'
The last year for Charlie Finch has not been typical for a 19-year-old. Instead of starting college, he's been in recording studios, traveling the country, and, most recently, hearing his song on the radio for the first time.
Finch, who goes by "charlieonnafriday," started making YouTube videos when he was 7. A love for making content grew from there, leading him to TikTok when the pandemic hit during his junior year of high school. He's since amassed more than 1.5 million followers on TikTok, where he teases his new releases to build momentum before they drop.
If it hadn't been for the pandemic, it's possible he wouldn't be where he is now.
"I was kind of like, how serious do I want to take music in high school?" he tells PEOPLE. "Are these kids gonna judge me? What are these kids gonna think of the music I'm putting on the internet?"
With school fully virtual, Finch didn't have to worry as much about what his peers would think as he started sharing the music he was making. It helped him realize that any judgment from his peers "didn't matter," because he was doing what he loved.
"Quarantine really put it into perspective for me," he says.
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Finch first realized his love of music in eighth grade, when a friend's older brother's at-home recording studio opened his eyes to a new passion. "I was just obsessed with it," he says.
It was similar to making videos for YouTube, as he had been doing for several years at that point, but offered him the chance to do something new. He hopped on one of the brother's beats, and that was that. "I have been doing that every day since eighth grade — since that moment, pretty much."
After several years of collaborating, his friend's brother left for college, and Finch started to learn how to keep the process going on his own.
In February 2021, he released his first single, "After Hours." It was over a year later that he started gaining traction for the song online, as he dropped his debut EP, ONNAFRIDAY, this past April. While it was a slow build at first, "After Hours" has since amassed over 47 million streams on Spotify alone, and it was the catalyst for his breakthrough TikTok success.
A clip from one of his first performances, a local show in Seattle last spring, propelled Finch into the stratosphere. As he sang the song's chorus, "My mama told me be home by the hour," he paused to give a sweet shout-out to his mother in the audience. The video has been viewed over 8 million times.
From there, Finch and his friends, who accompany him at all of his shows and help him record content for TikTok, have focused on capturing moments from live performances. Clips from other live shows that have continued to propel him to new heights online: his most viral video yet, where three audience members sing along to his latest single, "Enough," has been viewed over 40 million times.
That performance — held in Iowa in mid-September — was what opened Finch's eyes to his newfound reach. "We had done shows in Seattle, and it's our home, and we packed a room and saw a bunch of people singing our songs, and it was cool, but to go to somewhere completely random that we've never been to and see a similar thing happen — that was like, 'Whoa,'" he says. "We've never been here and they're all singing our songs. It was crazy."
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"Enough" has proved his most successful follow-up to the traction of "After Hours." It was nerve-wracking at first, Finch says, to try to recreate the same excitement for a new song. Worries about becoming the dreaded one-hit wonder filled his mind. But as he and his friends worked the angle that they knew drove engagement — videos of him performing — "Enough" quickly proved to be just as promising as his debut single. With over 26 million streams worldwide in the three months since its release, it's clear that Finch has a keen sense of the recipe for his success. Now, he's focused on broadening that scope.
"We're building something really different and really special," he tells PEOPLE. "I think it's gonna be something completely new."
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As he continues building on the momentum he's seen so far this year, life is moving faster than ever. He just moved to Los Angeles, and when he sits down with PEOPLE, it's the first time he's been in Seattle in months. Being at home and seeing his friends is a welcome change of pace from his latest run of small-venue performances and pushing out content to try to build his following.
Seattle is also home to Macklemore, a friend and mentor of Finch's. "It's good to have a person from Seattle, from the same place I'm from, that has been through a lot of these things," he says of the Thrift Shop singer. "It's just good to have a role model I feel like — a person you can talk to about this stuff."
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Now, Finch is gearing up to drop a new single, "Same Friends," a song dedicated to his tight-knit group of friends. The same people that he was with recording "After Hours" in his room two years ago are the people that now join him on stage. "A lot of things have changed, but I still have my same people around me," he says.
It's the people he surrounds himself with that he's focused on as his career continues to blossom. As Finch experiences each new achievement — like hearing himself on the radio for the first time earlier this month — it's his close friends he's celebrating with.
Three years from now, he says sees himself with the same people — but hopefully on "bigger stages" with "new songs and new fans."
"I just want to have fun with my friends," Finch says. "All the things on the internet, like TikTok and everything, are just as important but, for me personally, the most fun s— is just being onstage and turning up with my friends."
