Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: There's a few reasons I wanted the guest we have
Speaker 2: on this episode of Midnight Chats to come on. The
Speaker 2: first and most obvious one was that we're fans of
Speaker 2: Julian Baker and we're fans of her music. The second
Speaker 2: one was that last year I was lucky enough to
Speaker 2: travel around the Southern States of America, taking in places
Speaker 2: like New Orleans, Austin, Nashville, Clarksdale, and Memphis. Beforehand, my
Speaker 2: preconceptions of Memphis were dominated by the city's well known
Speaker 2: cultural landmarks, so Graceland obviously BB King's Blues Club on
Speaker 2: Beal Street, Sun's Studio, but also Memphi. This has played
Speaker 2: such an important part in US history as well. From
Speaker 2: a personal point of view, I was fascinated to get
Speaker 2: to talk to someone from Memphis to find out what
Speaker 2: the reality of growing up there away from that stuff
Speaker 2: is actually like. But also staying on preconceptions. As someone
Speaker 2: who counts famous introverts like Elliott Smith among her major
Speaker 2: influences and often gets described as a singer songwriter writing
Speaker 2: very personal material. Going into this conversation, I thought Julian
Speaker 2: might be quite softly spoken, possibly even a bit shy,
Speaker 2: but as you're about to hear, that's not the case
Speaker 2: at all. She's eloquent, polite, honest, but there's also a
Speaker 2: real fiery passion and determination about her personality, her character,
Speaker 2: particularly on subjects that she really cares about. It left
Speaker 2: me thinking that there will definitely be people listening to
Speaker 2: this who knowingly or unknowingly have an idea in their mind,
Speaker 2: a perception of what they think people alike from that
Speaker 2: part of the world, from the Southern States of America,
Speaker 2: And I think the way that Julienne talks about it,
Speaker 2: being a young gay Christian songwriter who is into hardcore
Speaker 2: punk as much as she is a band like Deaf
Speaker 2: Cab the QT serves as a reminder that we can't
Speaker 2: generalize what a place is like from the headlines we
Speaker 2: read or the cliches that get recycled. It's rarely the
Speaker 2: complete picture of her place anyway. This was recorded just
Speaker 2: over a week ago. Julian came into our office here
Speaker 2: at Loud and Choiet in East London. It was the
Speaker 2: first stop on what was going to be a tour
Speaker 2: of Europe doing interviews about her new album, turn Out
Speaker 2: the Lights Out. Later this month. Only a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, she recorded her debut Album's Sprained Ankle and
Speaker 2: assumed that the audience for it would be basically her
Speaker 2: Facebook friends. So she's come a long way from those days.
Speaker 2: Just finally, I should remind you if you like our podcast,
Speaker 2: please do subscribe. That means you'll get every new episode
Speaker 2: of Midnight Chats published every fortnight on a Thursday at midnight.
Speaker 2: But on with the conversation. This is Midnight Chat's episode
Speaker 2: thirty four with Juliane Baker. You've obviously been to Europe
Speaker 2: a couple of times now in the last few years.
Speaker 2: Does it still have like a charm and excitement leaving
Speaker 2: the States to come somewhere like London to talk about
Speaker 2: your music or play.
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think that's never something that I'll grow used to.
Speaker 3: I mean so, especially because this is a press trip.
Speaker 3: I'm not actually playing any shows, and so it's almost
Speaker 3: more astounding that people care enough to talk to me
Speaker 3: about my music that there's an entire trip to Europe
Speaker 3: dedicated to just talking about the record that I've made,
Speaker 3: not performing or giving any three thing extra, which would
Speaker 3: be the crux of my occupation as it were. And
Speaker 3: I hope it's never like lost on me. I don't
Speaker 3: think it ever will be. I don't think I have
Speaker 3: that kind of disposition.
Speaker 2: Is this like the day one?
Speaker 3: This is day one, not day one of press because
Speaker 3: I've done a couple of bone interviews stuff around this record.
Speaker 3: That's one thing that's really different about I can already
Speaker 3: tell the life quote unquote or whatever of this record
Speaker 3: is that when uh six one three one picked up
Speaker 3: and re released Sprained Ankle and then we started working
Speaker 3: with a publicist, it was sort of after the fact
Speaker 3: the record had already been released. There was no anticipatory element,
Speaker 3: and so everything that came was a surprise.
Speaker 1: As it always is.
Speaker 3: I'm always surprised that, you know, the music is still relevant,
Speaker 3: or you know, grateful and taken aback that people care
Speaker 3: enough about my music to talk to me about it.
Speaker 3: But this time there are interviews leading up to the
Speaker 3: release of the record and kind of building the anticipation
Speaker 3: for me of like, I hope that when this body
Speaker 3: of work is released that it'll be well received.
Speaker 2: Do you have any idea what you're going to feel
Speaker 2: like after talking about yourself for the next five days?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it's I don't want to use the
Speaker 3: term exhausting, because I feel like that might accidentally convey
Speaker 3: boredom or which is not the case. Like I am
Speaker 3: continuously aware of how blessed and fortunate I am that
Speaker 3: this gets to be my job, but I do try
Speaker 3: to give myself adequate perspective to my art, Like this
Speaker 3: trip entails a lot of discussion of me, and so
Speaker 3: the challenge is finding ways to turn the conversation not
Speaker 3: completely away from the record, but to find ways to
Speaker 3: situate the art that I make inside the larger context
Speaker 3: of the art that I like, the art that I admire,
Speaker 3: the things that I think are socially relevant and pertinent,
Speaker 3: so that it does not become a sort of self
Speaker 3: aggrandizing exercise. Not in a like holier than that way,
Speaker 3: but just in a way that I feel like I
Speaker 3: would not be serving the record itself even well if
Speaker 3: I just talked about me and tried to perform these
Speaker 3: activities or interviews with only like accreditation or recognition in mind.
Speaker 3: I think that's not why I want to do interviews.
Speaker 2: And I want to start by talking a bit about Memphis,
Speaker 2: because I visited there for the first time last year
Speaker 2: during a trip which took my wife and I from
Speaker 2: New York to Nashville, Nashville to Memphis, Memphis to Clarksdale,
Speaker 2: Clarksdale to New Orleans, and ended up in Austin. What
Speaker 2: struck me was the huge difference between those places. Memphis specifically,
Speaker 2: I found really fascinating, not just because of the landmarks
Speaker 2: that people know of, obviously Graceland and the Peabody Hotel. Ducks.
Speaker 2: Did you see the ducks? Duck?
Speaker 3: So that's like on my well, I'll let you finish,
Speaker 3: just to interject that it's so funny to me that
Speaker 3: piece of Memphis lore, the ducks that you know, performed
Speaker 3: a little walk around. But I was in Germany playing
Speaker 3: each other the first time I ever came to Europe,
Speaker 3: and for me, the ducks are cool, but they're like
Speaker 3: a kitchy event.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The top sites to see that's probably fifth on the list.
Speaker 3: And someone in Germany was like, oh, you're from Memphis.
Speaker 1: Is that that place with the ducks?
Speaker 3: And I was like, yes, how did you know this?
Speaker 3: I know, but it's crazy. Did you see the ducks walk?
Speaker 2: We did? So for people that if this is making
Speaker 2: no sense of people, there's a hotel called the Peabody,
Speaker 2: famous place in Memphis, been there for a long time,
Speaker 2: and they have this very quirky tradition of they have
Speaker 2: some ducks in the hotel that live on the roof,
Speaker 2: and maybe once twice a day I can't quite remember,
Speaker 2: the ducks come down in the elevator in the lift
Speaker 2: to the ground floor. Hundreds of tourists gather around. The
Speaker 2: ducks walk from the lift to the fountain, go in
Speaker 2: the fountain for a bit, then they turn around and
Speaker 2: they reverse the journey and they go back upstairs there trying.
Speaker 3: To do this, and they're walked out by was the
Speaker 3: guy there with the duck master. The duck master different
Speaker 3: than duck commander.
Speaker 2: Don't I actually don't know the different levels of.
Speaker 3: Duck No duck. I'm pretty sure duck commander is like
Speaker 3: a bass pro shop like hunting thing. Oh okay, But then
Speaker 3: there's duck Master.
Speaker 2: So it's done in this big ceremonial way. So the
Speaker 2: duck master does a bit of a speech and talks
Speaker 2: about the history of the Peabody. Then the ducks, as
Speaker 2: if they're walking, they actually walk on a red carpet,
Speaker 2: so celebrity ducks, and they make their way over to
Speaker 2: the fountain. Everybody applauds. It's such a surreal thing. I
Speaker 2: must admit I came away thinking, Okay, like did I
Speaker 2: enjoy that? I mean, I enjoyed the spectacle of it.
Speaker 1: I was about to say the spectacle.
Speaker 3: There's so many things in Memphis I think that are
Speaker 3: bizarre enough that you just want to witness the absurdity
Speaker 3: of the fact that it exists. But you were saying,
Speaker 3: so you saw many things in Memphis and what struck you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there was so Obviously when people think of Memphis,
Speaker 2: they think Graceland, they think of maybe the Peabody Hotel.
Speaker 2: Maybe you've only just learned about that, but maybe you
Speaker 2: want to go and check that out. Then obviously Bale
Speaker 2: Street in BB King's Blues Club, and maybe if you're
Speaker 2: more into music, then like Sun Studio, places like that.
Speaker 2: But it's a city that's really characterized by its huge
Speaker 2: kind of historic landmarks, those places. What was the actual
Speaker 2: reality like of growing up in that city.
Speaker 3: I think there's a duality to the city, but that
Speaker 3: those elements of the past, while they seem like kind
Speaker 3: of static fixtures of history, play into the locals conception
Speaker 3: of the city, right so I had never been to
Speaker 3: Graceland ever, you know, like growing up, I never went
Speaker 3: a single time. There's a thing called Graceland two, which
Speaker 3: is just small sidebar. The man who ran it was
Speaker 3: he actually passed a little while ago, but Graceland two
Speaker 3: spelled too as in this is also Graceland. Was this
Speaker 3: bizarre little house owned by this man who just filled
Speaker 3: it with Elvis memorabilia. And it was like this informal
Speaker 3: kind of cult activity that we would all go to
Speaker 3: Graceland two and if you just knock on the door,
Speaker 3: and I think the thing was you showed up with
Speaker 3: a six pack of Coca cola, or if you don't
Speaker 3: the man at any hour of the night. I had
Speaker 3: friends that would go, like two in the morning, We'll
Speaker 3: invite you in and he will just walk you around
Speaker 3: his home. It's just like a person's house, and he'll
Speaker 3: just show you all his crazy stuff there. But so
Speaker 3: there's a lot of like interesting dichotomy of Memphis where
Speaker 3: there's the normal thing and then the abnormal thing, as
Speaker 3: much as there are like quirky pieces of history there,
Speaker 3: like the Crystal Grotto, which is just like this weird grotto,
Speaker 3: or grace Land two, there's so much just unique about Memphis.
Speaker 3: Do you know about Prince Manga. Oh my gosh, he's
Speaker 3: this citizen who runs for mayor, like with some regular
Speaker 3: that just will never win. He but he runs. I
Speaker 3: like to think that it's sort of like a he
Speaker 3: knows that he's crazy, Like he's in on the joke
Speaker 3: kind of trope where he tells people in press releases
Speaker 3: that he's here from another planet. He is an alien
Speaker 3: scent here, and he'll say things like if I get
Speaker 3: elected mayor, I will provide every citizen with an oozy
Speaker 3: automatic weapon. And but also there's things like there was
Speaker 3: a painting ordinance past about like your house can't be
Speaker 3: certain colors, and you had a party where everyone brought
Speaker 3: paint and threw it at his house and made just
Speaker 3: this bizarre. But stuff like that happens in Memphis that
Speaker 3: seems like this bizarre like Garcia Marquez like magical, unreal
Speaker 3: story and it is one. And I think that this
Speaker 3: is gonna sound cheesy or ironic. But there's something maybe
Speaker 3: I won't use the word magical, like mystic about Memphis
Speaker 3: that is lacking in some other cities that have a
Speaker 3: little bit more commerce, Like I think that there are
Speaker 3: other cities in Tennessee or just around the South that
Speaker 3: have amazing art scenes and a lot of music and commerce,
Speaker 3: and but in Memphis it's just small enough to be
Speaker 3: familial and just big enough to have resources to do
Speaker 3: interesting things. But the primary differentiating factor in the art
Speaker 3: scene in Memphis to me is that, say, in a
Speaker 3: place like Nashville or Atlanta, there seems to be a
Speaker 3: lot more prevalent access to music and venues, and there's
Speaker 3: plenty of places to play, and so there can be
Speaker 3: the music kid lunch tables, like if you've ever seen
Speaker 3: SLC punk, you know, like this, oh you know that
Speaker 3: scene where it's like the new wave kids hate the
Speaker 3: hardcore kids, and the hardcore kids hate the punk kids
Speaker 3: and the pub kids. But so it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: there's like the scream of house scene, and then maybe
Speaker 3: the DM scene, and then the pop scene and the
Speaker 3: country scene. And because of the surplus of resources, those
Speaker 3: people may exist within their esoteric sphere, but in Memphis
Speaker 3: there's it's getting revitalized, but only as a result of
Speaker 3: people saying we desperately need places to play, we need
Speaker 3: a mid cap venue. We don't have a lot of outlets,
Speaker 3: and so all of these different genres and types of
Speaker 3: artists are forced to buy necessity work in like a
Speaker 3: cohesive unit. I feel that the scene there is not
Speaker 3: very competitive. It has to be collaborative because if it's
Speaker 3: not collaborative, no one will benefit from it. And so
Speaker 3: that's the way I always grew up conceptualizing music. You know,
Speaker 3: we would play how shows or shows that art spaces
Speaker 3: where we play an indie rock set, and then we'd
Speaker 3: be opening for like a black metal band, and then
Speaker 3: there would also be a band on that show that
Speaker 3: sounded like just alt country. And that kind of diversity
Speaker 3: but mutual support I think showed me how necessary it
Speaker 3: is to gain perspective and insight from other people in
Speaker 3: the worlds they live in. But there's also just a
Speaker 3: lot of love, like people that see the disparity between
Speaker 3: what we wish we could have resource wise in Memphis
Speaker 3: and what we actually have. But I just think that
Speaker 3: everybody putting so much of themselves into this basket of
Speaker 3: something we can all have together is you know, intrinsically Memphis.
Speaker 2: Before I ask it a bit more about that, going
Speaker 2: back to the guy that runs for mayor, remind me
Speaker 2: of his name, Mungo.
Speaker 3: No, oh, Mango, Prince Mango.
Speaker 2: Prince Mongo. Have you heard of the Monster Raving Looney Party? Okay,
Speaker 2: So in the UK we have our major political parties,
Speaker 2: but alongside that there are other kind of small political parties,
Speaker 2: one of which is called the monster Raving Looney Party.
Speaker 2: And as you were talking about him just there, that
Speaker 2: reminded me of that. And these are people that generally
Speaker 2: run in elections, run for office, but in a kind
Speaker 2: of will often have fairly kind of daft policies and
Speaker 2: also maybe wear fancy dress and things like that. So
Speaker 2: for example, you know, you might see some election footage
Speaker 2: of somebody being you'd be watching an politician wearing a
Speaker 2: suit celebrating their victory, and behind them there'll be a
Speaker 2: woman dressed as a tomato or it. When Theresa May
Speaker 2: got back in during the general election, the most recent one,
Speaker 2: there was a guy sort of dressed his second Lord
Speaker 2: buckethead and he had a huge bucket on his head.
Speaker 2: He actually went and appeared on some US like talk
Speaker 2: shows after the event because the internet went absolutely bonkers
Speaker 2: over this this guy that turned up with a bucket
Speaker 2: on his head and it just hearing you talk about
Speaker 2: this guy reminds me of that, the kind of how
Speaker 2: even the most like serious of processes can be kind
Speaker 2: of the sprinkle a little bit of just surreal humor
Speaker 2: or madness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'd love to think that it is a
Speaker 3: humor and sort of a commentary on the system itself,
Speaker 3: that it's a farce intended to show the absurdity of
Speaker 3: the rest of the process, almost like modest proposal style,
Speaker 3: you know, like they don't actually mean this, But I
Speaker 3: think in some cases, I don't know, man, Prince Bongo
Speaker 3: might actually mean it. You might actually believe that everybody
Speaker 3: would be better off on planet Zorp or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know. With Memphis, you discussed it there, like the
Speaker 2: how the city is evolving, What's what's a what does
Speaker 2: a person from Memphis call themselves?
Speaker 3: Are there Memphisan?
Speaker 2: Memphian sounds cool, right? What do Memphians think of the
Speaker 2: development and the regeneration or just new generation of other
Speaker 2: kind of comparable comparable cities, So somewhere like Nashville. So
Speaker 2: when I traveled from Nashville to Memphis, there seemed like
Speaker 2: there was a big difference because when you stood on
Speaker 2: the kind of hill looking down into downtown Nashville. It's
Speaker 2: just cranes. All you can see. Is this development work happening?
Speaker 2: They can't seemingly be building flats or whatever it is
Speaker 2: apartments quick enough. I liked Nashville, but it felt very
Speaker 2: modern compared to somewhere like Memphis. Where Memphis felt like
Speaker 2: it had you got a real sense of history of
Speaker 2: the place, possibly a little bit more. I don't know
Speaker 2: if the word is real, but Memphis just felt like
Speaker 2: I had more character. How do Memphians feel about the
Speaker 2: development they see in the other big cities around them?
Speaker 2: And does it have I mean, you mentioned it there
Speaker 2: that the development of Memphis seeds to be coming from
Speaker 2: within rather than external. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that would be fair to say. That's
Speaker 3: a good way to put it. That Also, I don't
Speaker 3: want to relish and enjoy that you said Memphis seems
Speaker 3: more real than Nashville. So I've lived in both places.
Speaker 3: I moved from Memphis to around Nashville to go to school,
Speaker 3: and then I moved back home when I started touring,
Speaker 3: and now I've moved back up to live closer to
Speaker 3: my partner, and I enjoy both cities. Honestly, Tennessee natives,
Speaker 3: I think will come to each other to rescue. But
Speaker 3: there's an interesting sibling rivalry between Nashville and Memphis, and
Speaker 3: I find that, first of all, Nashville, it's something like
Speaker 3: tripled in size in the last five years. People that
Speaker 3: have lived there for a long time always comment upon
Speaker 3: how the city is just unrecognized from five even ten
Speaker 3: years ago. And I haven't lived long enough there to
Speaker 3: be able to compare, but I think you're right. Nashville
Speaker 3: is so much more modern, and it seems because it's
Speaker 3: commerce and industry based that it's very geared towards like
Speaker 3: young urban people. And gentrification is a problem everywhere, but
Speaker 3: particularly I think in Nashville, because you talked about the construction,
Speaker 3: and I gave like a grimace because I experience the
Speaker 3: repercussions of the construction every day when it takes like
Speaker 3: an hour to get two hundred feet on I sixty five.
Speaker 3: But all these flats are being built, and I know
Speaker 3: in my heart, like all these flats are going to
Speaker 3: be built for the innumerous transplants, and then rent will
Speaker 3: not go down, like supply will increase, but demand is
Speaker 3: just going to keep increasing, and so the housing will
Speaker 3: not become more affordable, which makes me a little sad.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, it's largely because a lot
Speaker 3: of industries, particularly in music, like I heard that the
Speaker 3: Big Three are like moving to be more present there
Speaker 3: in Nashville, and there's just a lot of like music
Speaker 3: and like big music industry, like major label stuff going
Speaker 3: on there that I think draws more people to relocate there,
Speaker 3: since it's not quite a New York or La yet.
Speaker 3: And Memphis, I think there's a little bit of bitterness
Speaker 3: because we feel neglected. We feel like we're you know,
Speaker 3: a decent size, like major city, and yet everything seems
Speaker 3: to come to Nashville. When people move, visit open businesses,
Speaker 3: it goes to Nashville, and Memphis gets forgotten. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, like I was saying earlier, with having less
Speaker 3: resources at our disposal as a city, I think everyone
Speaker 3: there in Memphis that doesn't leave it comes to the
Speaker 3: realization that if something is going to happen, it has
Speaker 3: to happen utilizing just what we have. And so people
Speaker 3: in Memphis I think have this attitude that's very defensive
Speaker 3: and proud of like we have the Grizzlies there and
Speaker 3: their motto is grit and grind, because I think that
Speaker 3: the football team, oh, no, Predators. The Predators are a
Speaker 3: hockey team in Nashville and that's gotten really popular. But
Speaker 3: the Grizzlies are a basketball team and their moto is
Speaker 3: grit and grind. I think a lot of people in
Speaker 3: Memphis identify with that idea of like there's no one
Speaker 3: that is going to or maybe there's not no one,
Speaker 3: but there's less people coming into Memphis externally pouring investment
Speaker 3: in and so I think that, oh gosh, she said,
Speaker 3: you know, like necessity is the mother of invention, Like
Speaker 3: having less to work with makes people more motivated to
Speaker 3: create something wholly and new or with whatever they have,
Speaker 3: and sometimes that can be a blessing. And like the
Speaker 3: way you craft things or the way that things come
Speaker 3: about as a musical community or growing organically is a
Speaker 3: little bit more stable and more unique because it's not
Speaker 3: being constructed from an outsider's point of view of what's
Speaker 3: going to be theoretically lucrative and successful. It's just how
Speaker 3: things are happening naturally. That's most advantageous for the city.
Speaker 2: I mean, we already talked a little bit about those
Speaker 2: places that people know Memphis for but presumably as a
Speaker 2: teenager writing your first songs or whatever, you weren't hanging
Speaker 2: out at Sun Studio. You were kind of in your
Speaker 2: own neighborhood. So what were the places that were there
Speaker 2: for you tell us a bit about the places that
Speaker 2: you were hanging out.
Speaker 3: Well, one of the places that I feel like was
Speaker 3: really significant in my musical history was the skate part
Speaker 3: a skate park of Memphis is not there anymore. It
Speaker 3: got shut down. There's this whole thing about like some
Speaker 3: kid went in there and didn't sign a waiver or something,
Speaker 3: and then he got his thumb ripped off on the
Speaker 3: ramp and sued the skate park for a significant amount
Speaker 3: of money and then got forty k tattooed on the
Speaker 3: missing thumb, which we all thought was very Memphis and
Speaker 3: very tasteless. But I don't know how true that is.
Speaker 3: That's just like the Midmath, which I think is like
Speaker 3: just fun. But when I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, I
Speaker 3: used to go see hardcore bands and people play at
Speaker 3: the skate park. And the skate park used to be
Speaker 3: booked by this organization in Memphis called Smith's Seven, And
Speaker 3: there's a whole bunch of local bands there. It was
Speaker 3: a real culty thing, but that had this unusual level
Speaker 3: of success because there would be local bands like you know,
Speaker 3: seven Dollars Socks or Wicker whomever, nights like these that
Speaker 3: would play and to hundreds of people, and because the
Speaker 3: skate park was a venue where national, like nationally successful
Speaker 3: but still esoteric kind of hardcore bands would play, would
Speaker 3: come like it gave it was a good middle rum.
Speaker 3: Then after that shutdown, they started having shows at the
Speaker 3: house and it was interesting because it was still just
Speaker 3: his house, but the kind of recognition in the city
Speaker 3: that Smith's Seven still had. You know, I saw a
Speaker 3: citizen Turnover, Daylight bearver Shark played there, like, which are
Speaker 3: all kind of particular to a certain kind of you know,
Speaker 3: musical taste. But that was cool too because the first
Speaker 3: time I ever went to a house show proper, you know,
Speaker 3: a house show where you're not a twelve year old
Speaker 3: that doesn't quite understand how house shows are, and you're like,
Speaker 3: there's a chip and dip platter at a punk show,
Speaker 3: right like now, that.
Speaker 1: That was me.
Speaker 3: That was me. I Like, we had a show, me
Speaker 3: and my drummer, Matt, And when I was like in
Speaker 3: middle school, and I was like, my mom made tacos,
Speaker 3: Like that's not how it's supposed to work. But I
Speaker 3: went to a proper house show for the first time
Speaker 3: at this place, and it was just wild to see
Speaker 3: these kids screaming into a microphone. And you know, they're
Speaker 3: not the way that I had imagined artists being. You know,
Speaker 3: they were people, they were my friends. I went to
Speaker 3: high school with them, and yet everybody knew the words
Speaker 3: of their songs. And what's more, it's like they were
Speaker 3: on a living room floor. Even at the skatepark there's
Speaker 3: a raised stage, and so it kind of perpetuates that
Speaker 3: separation between performer and audience. You have your roles and
Speaker 3: there's a stratification that's a parent there. And I would
Speaker 3: go see these bands, you know, to where maybe they're
Speaker 3: not playing the FedEx Forum, but to me under Oath
Speaker 3: or whoever is like the idols of my world, and
Speaker 3: they're separate from me, and they're inaccessible and untouchable. And
Speaker 3: then that's completely destroyed when you go see a house
Speaker 3: show and all of a sudden, I remember they played
Speaker 3: this like Manchester Orchestra cover and everybody grabbed the mic
Speaker 3: and was like standing around in a circle just singing
Speaker 3: into one SM fifty eight that was being held out,
Speaker 3: and it was bizarrely like a like a revival, like
Speaker 3: a hymn sing like just where nobody in particular is leading.
Speaker 3: Everybody just decides this is the song we're gonna play.
Speaker 3: People from the crowd were like getting on the instruments
Speaker 3: and there was like no clear organization. Also, nobody was
Speaker 3: drinking or doing anything, which I've been to house shows
Speaker 3: where that's not the case, and that's fine, but it
Speaker 3: blew my mind even more that there was no substance
Speaker 3: that was instrumental in this behavior. It just people needed
Speaker 3: to scream and get their feelings out and have their
Speaker 3: friends recognize their thing. And then those are where I
Speaker 3: played some of the best shows I ever played. Imagine
Speaker 3: being fourteen years old and having someone stick a microphone
Speaker 3: in front of you and a room full of people
Speaker 3: say like, your voice is important and what that does
Speaker 3: for your validation and your musical confidence and your self concept,
Speaker 3: and for them to say, like, you don't have to
Speaker 3: be destructive to be a part of an aggressive music scene,
Speaker 3: Like you can make punk music that's just about your
Speaker 3: friends and getting through the challenges that you face, and
Speaker 3: I don't know, I think that that really informed how
Speaker 3: I still regard music and the live experience as an
Speaker 3: exchange rather than a theatrical spectacle.
Speaker 2: Skipping forward, make now you've performed with the likes of Paramoure.
Speaker 2: Last month you shared bills with hardcore band Still so,
Speaker 2: do you think those formative experiences are playing those shows
Speaker 2: mean that it's giving you a certain level of confidence
Speaker 2: to go and play to audiences that are varied.
Speaker 3: There are like two components to how I want to
Speaker 3: answer that question, which I apologize for being so verbose,
Speaker 3: but it's like yes and no. Some of the best
Speaker 3: experiences I've had have been playing for crowds that do
Speaker 3: not seem like they would readily consume my music, but
Speaker 3: it's also dispelled. You know, back when I was in
Speaker 3: the Star Killers and we made music that was somewhere
Speaker 3: between I don't know, Sunny Day Real Estate meets Circus
Speaker 3: Survive and also Wilco Like we were very we had
Speaker 3: a lot of interest, you know, but we would open
Speaker 3: for serious like punks who actually had grown up, you know,
Speaker 3: ten years before us and had way more quote unquote
Speaker 3: cred than we did. Or you know bands that were
Speaker 3: actual metal bands, and I think these bands are gonna
Speaker 3: hate us, and they're gonna be like, get off the stage?
Speaker 2: What are you?
Speaker 3: Who put you on the show? And I remember one
Speaker 3: of the best experiences I ever had playing was this
Speaker 3: band called Run Forever from Pittsburgh and they were like, oh,
Speaker 3: we love you guys. I was like, really, because you
Speaker 3: guys are so cool and I'm so young and lame
Speaker 3: and my mohawk is so dumb compared to yours. And
Speaker 3: they ended up being like some of our best friends.
Speaker 3: And that kind of started to dismantle this concept that,
Speaker 3: you know, the lunch table idea, that everybody stays in
Speaker 3: their musical lane and that there's no crossing those boundaries.
Speaker 3: And so by the time I was doing music full time,
Speaker 3: I was like, who cares put a DJ on a
Speaker 3: metal show? No one's gonna care. I played a show
Speaker 3: with Touche and More in Anaheim a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: and that was scary for me because I think growing
Speaker 3: up in Memphis was great, you know, because of what
Speaker 3: we've already talked about in the connection and confluence there.
Speaker 3: But I realize now having toured and done DIY tours,
Speaker 3: that you know, I booked in places I wasn't aware
Speaker 3: of the vibe that that's I was a little spoiled.
Speaker 3: People are more sectarian in some places, and that's because
Speaker 3: they want to save space where they feel like they're
Speaker 3: going to get what they're expecting. And that's fine, but
Speaker 3: so I was like, I don't know how the scene
Speaker 3: is here compared to where I'm from. I played my set,
Speaker 3: it was really quiet, and I thought everyone was bored,
Speaker 3: and then I went back and sat down at merch
Speaker 3: waiting for touche to go on, and this guy, this
Speaker 3: huge muscular guy and like a snap back and like
Speaker 3: a ripped off band tea came up and a great
Speaker 3: set and I was like, oh, thank you, you're six
Speaker 3: feet tall, like I was afraid everyone would be bored,
Speaker 3: and he said, nah, dude, honesty transcends genres. And that
Speaker 3: is one of my favorite pull quotes from any show
Speaker 3: I've ever played. I was like, I did not expect
Speaker 3: to have this wisdom dropped on me at a two
Speaker 3: schet show in Anna I'm California by a dude wearing
Speaker 3: a harms white snap back, like I just did not,
Speaker 3: and it was cool, Like those things make me so
Speaker 3: happy and remind me that the core necessity, the thing
Speaker 3: that people cling to in that music that I did
Speaker 3: is its passion and it's neat, it's a brutal expression,
Speaker 3: and I think as long as there's that, as long
Speaker 3: as there's that honesty and vulnerability, that's what people really
Speaker 3: cling to, you know. I mean, there are certain people
Speaker 3: that just want to hear an awesome breakdown and do
Speaker 3: like a scissor kick. That's me sometimes, but I think
Speaker 3: people are a lot more willing to give things a
Speaker 3: chance now. I don't know. I like that, I like
Speaker 3: playing varied shows.
Speaker 2: What effect did it have on the way you write
Speaker 2: songs knowing that there was an audience waiting to hear
Speaker 2: your music this time round. With the first album it
Speaker 2: was out there, it kind of like gathered the life
Speaker 2: of its own, its own momentum. This time there's like
Speaker 2: a kind of a build up to it. And when
Speaker 2: you sat down to presumably write these songs, you knew
Speaker 2: that there was going to be a certain amount of
Speaker 2: people listening to them. So did that have any effect
Speaker 2: on the way that you wrote or possibly none at all?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think that's another thing that I was hyper aware
Speaker 3: of while creating this record, because I didn't so I
Speaker 3: didn't like take two months off and sit down and say,
Speaker 3: now I will write a record. I just accrue these
Speaker 3: songs as voice memos and various levels of completion, you know,
Speaker 3: during the tours that I've been on virtually since spring
Speaker 3: Ninkle has been released, and then I had some time
Speaker 3: last fall to kind of demo them out, and once
Speaker 3: I had demos of twenty a little over twenty songs,
Speaker 3: maybe so many, so I'm want a voicemamo, like one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty or something, and it's like.
Speaker 2: Kind of creative streak.
Speaker 3: Dude. I was like crowded, like we went to a
Speaker 3: riot fest, and uh, I was just like crouched in
Speaker 3: a bathroom somewhere because I didn't bring my guitar, and
Speaker 3: I was just like and and then the bass part
Speaker 3: goes like this mmmm, like just trying to remember its
Speaker 3: song ideas, which is something that I started doing. This
Speaker 3: is just such a tangent. But I watched when I
Speaker 3: was like eleven, like a vlog of Immigan Heap talking
Speaker 3: about songwriting, okay, and she was talking about recording voicemamos
Speaker 3: into her flip phone which dates the video. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was like, that's a brilliant idea. I could save all
Speaker 3: my ideas in real time. One of these days I'll
Speaker 3: get like, you know, logic or something, But so I would.
Speaker 3: I would think for you know, possibly months about is
Speaker 3: this the best, most refined, final iteration of the song?
Speaker 3: And I had so much more time to consider it
Speaker 3: as well as you know, I know that I have
Speaker 3: the investment of a listenership and the support of a label,
Speaker 3: and I have these tools at my disposal, and it
Speaker 3: made me want to do the best thing. Make the
Speaker 3: most ideal art, not make the art that everyone else
Speaker 3: would think was most ideal, but take the songs that
Speaker 3: I wrote and do my very best to make them
Speaker 3: the highest versions of themselves. So that you know, these people,
Speaker 3: the listeners who have given me their time and who
Speaker 3: have valued my music and enabled me to live this life,
Speaker 3: would feel when I released another record that the record
Speaker 3: was worth the twenty odd dollars they spend at a show,
Speaker 3: was worth what they pay for a CD, because it
Speaker 3: effectively communicates that I put every part of myself and
Speaker 3: all of my energy into this music. You know, I
Speaker 3: just don't want to give out something that's you know, subpar,
Speaker 3: not as in like the subject matter, but just in
Speaker 3: the execution. And so there was a little bit of
Speaker 3: pressure to perform for that. And it seems like admitting
Speaker 3: an awareness like that of a listenership or an audience
Speaker 3: is almost a taboo subject because there's artists who perpetuate
Speaker 3: this mentality that you can create art in a vacuum,
Speaker 3: that you can say, I don't care what anybody else thinks.
Speaker 3: I make art for myself and myself solely. It is
Speaker 3: pure self expression and none can influence me. But I think,
Speaker 3: while that may be true, that's just not how I
Speaker 3: make art, and I can't admit that and be honest
Speaker 3: about it. Actually, last night I was reading this like
Speaker 3: article thing that Amanda Palmer wrote, and I thought she
Speaker 3: phrased it so well. She's like, people say it's bad
Speaker 3: to make art for others and that you should only
Speaker 3: make art for you, But I think I make art
Speaker 3: for me for others. And I was like, oh, wow,
Speaker 3: that's what I've been trying to say in lengthy paragraphs
Speaker 3: put into one sentence, you know, like, I make art
Speaker 3: this pretty much one hundred percent autobiographical, but I want
Speaker 3: it to be worthful and able to be utilized by
Speaker 3: others and meaningful to them. And so it's not like
Speaker 3: I don't construct these songs with no listener in mind.
Speaker 2: Final couple of questions as an artist, now, who's going
Speaker 2: to go and have to go and talk to people
Speaker 2: for the next week about the new record that you've
Speaker 2: made and yourself and inevitably be a bit asked about
Speaker 2: being American and all of the incredibly complicated and entangled
Speaker 2: issues that face America in the same that it's exactly
Speaker 2: the same in the UK, like the last couple of years,
Speaker 2: when you get asked general questions about America and the
Speaker 2: state of America and of being American, it is that
Speaker 2: a difficult thing to really kind of convey because it's
Speaker 2: so nuanced. It's a bit like when people when I
Speaker 2: was in America last year, obviously, the news of the
Speaker 2: UK leaving the European Union was big global news, and
Speaker 2: the first thing people would say to you if you
Speaker 2: got into a taxi or met somebody in a cafe was, oh,
Speaker 2: you guys hate Europe now, right, And you're kind of like,
Speaker 2: I could spend the next ten hours talking to you
Speaker 2: about this and how complicated it is, and how different
Speaker 2: strands of just how difficult this is, situation is, and
Speaker 2: all of the factors that shape it. Is it a
Speaker 2: difficult thing to answer questions about being American and all
Speaker 2: of the various issues that face the country right now.
Speaker 3: Oh man, Well, I'm working on many things as a
Speaker 3: person and as a citizen. And wow, that sounds so
Speaker 3: press kitty response, But it's because I'm buying myself time
Speaker 3: to try to say the most articulate thing. I'm working
Speaker 3: on not issuing difficult topics with people because I am
Speaker 3: a person of very intense political beliefs, which, like any
Speaker 3: of my close friends, I'll tell you to the degree
Speaker 3: that it's annoying. But I am also a super diplomatic
Speaker 3: person by nature, and I feel like I don't want
Speaker 3: to like argue I don't see the productivity of hatefulness
Speaker 3: within a discussion. But I'm trying to work on just
Speaker 3: being more vocal about things because since you know, even
Speaker 3: before the most recent election, far before that, it just
Speaker 3: started to sink in how necessary and crucial it is
Speaker 3: to be able to use your voice or any platform
Speaker 3: that you have to promote the ideologies that are most
Speaker 3: just and to try to bring people's attention to things
Speaker 3: that are important and trying to avoid controversial issues or
Speaker 3: you know, saying that I don't want to talk about
Speaker 3: the state of American politics to me feels like an
Speaker 3: easy way to skirt around difficult issues that ultimately is
Speaker 3: only something to be done to preserve my own comfort.
Speaker 3: And there are so many people who are not privileged
Speaker 3: enough to ignore or disregard or check out of politics
Speaker 3: because politics is the is, you know, part of their
Speaker 3: lived experience. They cannot depoliticize themselves, and I can't, like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm speaking about obviously like people of color
Speaker 3: and immigrants, and I benefit from an immense amount of
Speaker 3: privilege because I'm just a white person and like as
Speaker 3: a queer female, Like, that's something that's not visible immediately
Speaker 3: to people, depending on what your status on flannel is.
Speaker 3: That was a joke. I'm sorry, It's not immediately visible
Speaker 3: to everyone. And so I understand that I'm afforded a
Speaker 3: level of like safety and refuge from I can choose
Speaker 3: to engage somebody about my politics, but I don't have to,
Speaker 3: but I would.
Speaker 2: Rather do it.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not annoyed when people ask me about
Speaker 3: American politics. I went to Australia last November, and when
Speaker 3: we would do interviews, it was like the inevitable question.
Speaker 1: So the election, huh, let's just talk about it.
Speaker 3: And I think that I welcome those things because they
Speaker 3: give me a chance to, you know, as I was
Speaker 3: discussing earlier, to use the platform I've been given to
Speaker 3: address and really grapple with issues that need to be
Speaker 3: talked about that cannot be ignored. And I would rather
Speaker 3: do that than tell you my top ten favorite places
Speaker 3: to eat in my city. I'll do that later. I
Speaker 3: would rather say, like, there's some really not okay things
Speaker 3: going on in America and I know that, and it
Speaker 3: also gives me a chance to show hopefully that like
Speaker 3: not every American person is the way perhaps you perceive
Speaker 3: them to be, and that there is a strong resistance
Speaker 3: to the conservative and potentially hateful mentality that's you know,
Speaker 3: cropped up and highlighted by the media in America unfortunately.
Speaker 3: But you know, that's something that became aware to me
Speaker 3: like almost instantly on the last record, like now that
Speaker 3: I have a chance to talk about it, you know,
Speaker 3: Trump was not at that point president, but it still
Speaker 3: was like sinking into me that one of the best
Speaker 3: things about any level of recognition is the ability to
Speaker 3: use these moments as a tool for discourse about things
Speaker 3: that have you know, that have to do with more
Speaker 3: than just Julian Baker and Julian Baker's cool or uncool music.
Speaker 3: You know, like I just try to listen more, talk less,
Speaker 3: talk about the things that are important as much as
Speaker 3: I can, and let myself shrink, you know, in the
Speaker 3: conversation so that other things can be brought to light.
Speaker 3: Hopefully that's what I'll have a chance to do.
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