Charlie Green — aka CG5 — has been writing songs since he was 5 years old. And he’s made it big today. But, he doesn’t write songs about his own life. He almost always writes songs about video games.
And, man, does it hit a chord. If you haven’t heard of CG5, it’s likely that the young people in your life have. He’s got more than 9 million subscribers on YouTube, 4.4 million TikTok followers and hundreds of songs.
And he’s neurodivergent. He’s open about the fact that he was diagnosed with autism in 2022, and he says music helps him express himself.
Charlie lives here in the Valley and met up at Grace Records in Gilbert to tell The Show more about his work and play a few songs.
Full conversation
CHARLIE GREEN: I feel like I read social cues a little differently and communicate differently. And that was especially true when I was near the beginning of my life for making music, because I felt like I wanted to make music as soon as I was like 5 years old because my dad showed me a computer program that I could make music on.
LAUREN GILGER: As a 5-year-old.
GREEN: As a 5-year-old. And then I just knew that I wanted to do that with the rest of my life because I hyperfixated so much on that.
GILGER: Yeah. So you get hyperfixated on music as a 5-year-old.
GREEN: Yes.
GILGER: Do you still make songs in the same way? How has your writing process and producing process changed over the, you know, 20 years in between?
GREEN: I think I’ve gotten a little bit smarter since I was 5. I mean, my best songs were written when I was 5. Just kidding. But I mean the process is never the same with everything that I do. It’s really hard to explain to people whenever they ask how has the writing process changed, because it literally changes constantly.
GILGER: That’s interesting. So you don’t like hear something and go with it. You don’t have a lyric first. You don’t have a hum in your head first. It’s like it depends on the moment, the situation.
GREEN: I mean, I’ll have all those things that you just said. I’ll have some melody in my head. Because with what I do, I make a lot of songs about video games, and that’s what people gravitate towards on my brand. With that, I have a topic in front of me.
For example, Five Nights at Freddy’s. I can research it, and I can write a song in whatever perspective I’m in, like somebody about to die in the game or something or you know, the character of the game. I write in that perspective. And if I look at a game, I feel like I can come up with the sound pretty quickly of what
I feel like the song should sound like.
GILGER: Yeah, OK, that makes sense in terms of process. So let’s talk about making songs about video games because that’s kind of where you began. And obviously we heard some songs today that aren’t necessarily about video games too. You also read about your own life, right?
GREEN: Yes. Actually, you know what? All the songs that I sang —
GILGER: Those were about video games?
CG5: Yeah, that’s the thing. That’s the funny thing is that most of the songs that I write about video games, I don’t want people to just think that they’re about video games immediately, especially if they don’t know Five Nights at Freddy’s at all.
I want people to just like the song because of the fact that it’s a good song.
GILGER: All right, so we’re gonna hear a song now. What are you gonna play for us?
GREEN: I’m gonna be singing “Can I Get An Amen.” This song was one of the first songs that brought me out into the realm of what they call nerdcore music, which is songs about video games.
And this gave me my first big push professionally. Right out of high school, was when I decided that I was going to do this possibly full time or give it a shot, because this particular song was growing so much.
So this song has a special place in my heart.
[CG5 PLAYS “CAN I GET AN AMEN”]
GILGER: So talk a little bit about being so open about being autistic, about having this — you identify as neurodivergent, right? And you talk about that. Do you think that brings your fans in? Do you think it helps people relate to you? Do you think it changes the way that you approach it?
GREEN: You know, it’s not like I talk about it all the time. I mean, I think people sort of easily connect with me in that sense. Maybe they don’t immediately know that I’m also neurodivergent, but there’s a lot of people out there that I feel like struggle the same way. And they hyperfixate on whatever they hyperfixate on.
And they’re super talented, but they don’t know it yet. Or they want to do something with themselves, and they feel like outcasts. And it’s really easy to feel like an outcast when you don’t know what’s "wrong with you."
I didn’t really know that I had autism until I was about 22 when I got diagnosed with it.
So I was always wondering, why couldn’t I make friends? Why didn’t people think I was cool? I was trying to socialize, but nobody understood me. And I didn’t really understand how to socialize very well until I was really an adult.
GILGER: And I think that’s so interesting because now you have millions of people online.
GREEN: And they are all my friends.
GILGER: And I’m sure a lot of them think of themselves that way, right? And in a way, they are.
GREEN: We can all relate in some way.
GILGER: Yeah. Like there’s a real connection there, I think, that happens online, even if it’s not the same as like a traditional friend.
GREEN: Yeah. It may not be obvious, but it’s natural.
GILGER: Yeah. What do you think about that. Do you feel like that fulfills that for you? Does it feel like you found friends in a different kind of way online because of the way you were?
GREEN: Oh, absolutely. I do have a good group of friends from the internet. They actually live nearby now. It’s kind of full-circle, though, because they used to be all over the place, all over the country. And I met them, obviously, through the internet, through everything that I do on the internet and through what they do.
They are also musically talented, and I think we can all relate in that way. And it’s just really easy to get close to them. And yeah, I love my friends. I didn’t have a group of friends like that before the internet. I became well acquainted with people, but not really that serious.
GILGER: That’s wonderful. That’s good. All right, you’re going to take us out on a song. What are we going to hear?
GREEN: Yes, indeed. So I’m going to be singing “Somebody Real.” This is a song about a show called “The Amazing Digital Circus.” This is about a character named Gummigoo.
Yeah, there’s some interesting characters in this show. Gummigoo realizes that he’s not a human being. He’s not real. He’s what they call a non-playable character, an NPC.
And he wants to be somebody real.
[CG5 PLAYS “SOMEBODY REAL”]
