Charlene Kaye life and biography

Charlene Kaye is a young American Indie Rock singer-songwriter based in New York City. Born in Hawaii and raised in Hong Kong, Singapore and Arizona, Charlene’s love of music started with classical piano training at age five. At 13, she began teaching herself punk songs on her mom’s nylon guitar and was further influenced by her sister’s love of classic rock bands such as Queen and Led Zeppelin. After graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in English, she moved to New York City to pursue a career in music. Things have been nonstop for the ambitious songwriter-performer ever since.


Charlene Kaye (KAYE) has achieved success largely via the internet (Kaye is also known to be good friends with people such as Team Starkid and “Glee” star Darren Criss). She opened, and played guitar in the backing band, for Team Starkid on their national tour in November 2011.


Charlene has also done collaborations with Darren Criss, including the songs “Skin and Bones” and “Dress and Tie”. The song “Dress and Tie” was also featured in a promo for the NBC series “Chuck”.

Charlene is very involved with her fans, and she is near constantly travelling and touring. In the summer of 2011 she launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the album “Animal Love”, setting a goal of $20.000, however enthusiastic fans made the net of $33.535.

A number of singles from the album were released, before the official release on May 1st, 2012. Animal Love hit #15 on the iTunes pop charts the day of its release.


"Animal Love" 2012 single:



In April 2014, Kaye joined the collective San Fermin replacing the former vocalist Rae Cassidy. She toured behind the band's previously released record San Fermin and later, as a full member, recorded the band's following two records, Jackrabbit (2015) and Belong (2017). In April 2019, the band announced that, after five years, Kaye was leaving to pursue her solo career.

Her final performance was on April 26, 2019, at San Fermin's special concert to promote their new live record Live At The Fillmore (2019) and their documentary film No Promises.


While touring with San Fermin on their Jackrabbit tour, Kaye began a new solo project under the name KAYE. Her first release was a pair of promotional singles, "Honey" and "UUU", in July 2016. She released a five-track EP on September 29, 2016, titled Honey. This was followed by three non-album singles, "Parakeeter" (November 2016), "Cheshire Kitten" (July 2017) and "Bamboo" (September 2017). In April 2019, Kaye was focusing on writing and recording music as KAYE full-time.


Albums released:

Animal Love (2012)
Dress and Tie (2011)
Charlene Kaye & The Brilliant Eyes (2010)
Things I Will Need in the Past (2008)

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