Julien Baker

The Nashville-based singer/songwriter opens up about her revelatory new record ‘Little Oblivions,’ which finds her grappling with her views on her Christian faith, sobriety, and role as a public figure. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome the inside the studio on iHeart Radio.
My name's Jordan runt Dog, But enough about me. My
guest today is one of my favorite contemporary songwriters. In February,
she released her new album Little Oblivions, a stunning work
of emotional bravery, inspired in large part by a crisis
of faith. The song's chronicle her difficult last few years,

(00:20):
as she relapsed in the substance abuse and began to
reconsider her devout Christian beliefs. Both her sobriety and a
religion formed crucial pillars of her personal and public identity,
serving as themes for past songs and frequent topics of interviews. Now,
her relationship to both was radically shifting, leading to a
period of self reflection and reevaluation. She canceled a tour

(00:41):
in twenty nineteen and returned to her home in Nashville,
where she reset. She finished out her undergraduate degree at
Middle Tennessee State, and for a time briefly wondered whether
she'd ever returned to her former life as a musician. Thankfully,
she did, and the result was her most compelling work
to date. Musically, she expands on her acoustic past with
a full band sound oun playing nearly all of the
instruments herself. The lyrics tackle the pain of spiritual uncertainty

(01:05):
with phrases that are self aware and at times self lacerating.
An exorcism of private shame. I wish you'd hurt me,
she sings on song and e it's the mercy I
can't take. In addition to her music, she's one of
the all time great interviewees. In conversation, she's insightful, warm,
self deprecating, and eminently fearless. These are the same traits

(01:26):
that make her music so darn good. I'm so happy
to welcome Julian Baker. Thank you, Thank you so much
for taking the time today. I'm so thrilled to speak
to you. I really appreciate it. Oh of course, it's
my pleasure. Thank you for having me and taking the
time to speak with me. It's it's mutual. So many
things I want to ask you, but I want to
start with a question that's been imbued with a whole
new level of meaning in the last year, and that's

(01:47):
how are you? How are you doing today? You know
today I'm really good. I got my coffee. It was
raining this morning, but the sun is coming out. Yeah,
I'm just trying to be happy about the little things.
I don't know if if there's one thing that this
last year has taught me, it's like how to focus
in on and recognize the things that actually do make

(02:08):
me happy in what I can celebrate, because it seems
like there's been a deficit of things to celebrate or
be happy about for a long time. Elements of clarity,
I say, in the not really having a lot of
external distractions, I suppose, Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean for
so much of the last year, for all of us,
it's been about accepting uncertainty in their lives and kind
of allowing it to exist without completely crippling us, which

(02:31):
in a way is a major through line through your
new record, Little Oblivion's accepting that uncertainty and sort of
being okay with it. What's that process been like for you?
Oh man, It's it's been difficult. I mean, I think
it's taken a lot of work in my own personal
life too, except that it's healthier to just sit with

(02:54):
uncertainty or discomfort than to try to medicate or negator
suage it with whatever. You know, it could be anything,
substances or like compulsive behaviors or just downright like suppression,
and uh yeah, I feel a lot more peaceful actually.
And I think I was really apprehensive about this record

(03:15):
for the reasons you mentioned, because it does kind of
touch on kind of touch on. No, it completely concerns
into in totality of the record is about trying to
dismantle belief systems and value systems in your life and
rebuild them from scratch. And I was really apprehensive about
doing press around this record, but I found the more

(03:35):
that I talked about it, the more clarity I actually
have about what needed to be done in my own life. Yeah. Sorry,
my dog is um crawling around under my desk, So
if you hear the little like this noise, it's just
her tail. Though not at all. You and I. You
and I share something during For for my entire life,

(03:57):
I have been completely apathetic to animals. And in the
LA last year a switch went off in me and
I've become I'm desperate for a dog my apartment and
let me have one. I've become one of those people
that actually sees them on the streets and like, you know,
elbows my girlfriend, Like, oh my god, look at that.
So no, that's that Z. I got a dog a
little bit before quarantine, and I don't know what I

(04:17):
would have done without having a dog. But also like, yeah,
I was kind of the same way. I wasn't ambivalent
about animals, but I was just like, cool, they're cute,
moving on. Yeah, they're cute, moving on. Yeah. And now
it's like I cannot stop myself from acknowledging every dog
I see. If I see a dog and we're driving,
I will interrupt any conversation to be like dog is

(04:41):
the same thing with my partners, like, oh my god, yeah,
we've seen like five dogs. You don't have to pour
them all on to me. But yeah, I get you. Well,
I'm glad we have that cassion. I feel less alone now. Yeah,
it's been such a transform in a few years for
you and your relationship to a lot of like, as
you mentioned, crucial emotional and spiritual pillars have changed. Has
your relationship to music changed at all? Yeah? I think so.

(05:03):
I mean maybe not necessarily that it's changed, but that
I don't know, it feels more like a returning, Like
it felt like there was something that I needed to
uncover that had become convoluted about music for me because
of being plunged into the world of being a performer
with you know, albeit a regular size, small one, Like

(05:25):
you know, I have this platform and this like public
awareness and like people are aware of my music and
follow it. And while in the scheme of things that
recognition is only mini school, it felt so huge to
me and it happened very quickly, and music became something
that I did with the desire to like positively impact

(05:46):
the world and with an extreme amount of consideration for
the impact that what I said were in my songs
you know, would have on a listener. Also, I think,
you know, just because playing music became for the first
time in my life, my livelihood, I don't know, there's
also a lot of like fear tied up in that
and a risk aversion that comes with feeling that this

(06:09):
is not only my creative outlet where I where I
get to experiment and explore and U enquire into my
own being. It's now what I do so that I
can have a roof over my head and so that
I can pay other people in my life so that
they can live. And that's really like that's a big
shift to undergo and then I think I just kind

(06:30):
of glossed over it because touring, the inertia of touring
is so constant that you're like being propelled into a
new city, in a new situation, in a new performance
space literally every day. So yeah, when I took some
time off of the road, I think it was like
I a would say this, but it was like riding
a bicycle slowly and everything just got kind of like

(06:51):
off balance and wobbly, and I had to stop doing
what I was doing so I could analyze, like why
why am I making music in the first place. And
I think after having some time away from existing purely
as a as a performer and doing music for an audience,
I had the gift of perspective where I recognized that

(07:12):
I was still writing songs even though I thought like,
maybe no one will hear them. I don't know if
i'll make another record again, I don't know if I'll
ever be able to tour again. But I'm still making
songs because it's something into girl to how I process
my emotions and how I understand the world around me
and myself. And I think, I don't know, it's not
I don't want to say a renewed love for music, Like,

(07:33):
I don't want to say that I've developed a renewed
love for music as if I was ever jaded or
disillusioned with it in the first place, because I've never
wavered on. The things I've wavered on about music aren't
whether or not I love playing it, whether or not
I'm going to pick up an instrument again. It's been like,
do I think that I am capable of making music

(07:54):
in the context of being a performer as my job? Yeah,
So now I think I'm just I'm trying to do
a better job of separating those things so that I
can have a healthier relationship with music itself. And it
must have been so great to step back and then
choose to get back into music and to actually know like, no,
this is the thing, this, this is actually something that

(08:15):
that I want to be involved with. And to know
that you made that choice must must feel really I
don't know if empowering is the right word, but must
really renew your faith in the music. Yeah, empowering is
totally the right word. I don't know, And I think
it had a lot to do also with the fact that,
like I collapsed myself with the identity of being a performer,

(08:36):
and then that was the sole focus of my life.
Is like not performing as in like playing a part,
but performing is in hitting the right notes and wrapping
your whole. I'd self worth up in that too, yeah, exactly.
And then when I realized that, if you know, it
was this kind of it was a really painful experience

(08:57):
for like, you know, me to go to really unhealthy
place and watch everything that I thought, you know, that
I built up around my life that I guess felt
like being a successful musician, you know, watching all that
kind of like go away and going back to school
and thinking about maybe doing something else for a living

(09:17):
for a while, Like that was helpful for me to understand,
like I can make music without putting so much pressure
on myself as this entity in public space that also
has to perform. I can just make music because I
believe that the things that human beings create seeking understanding
are the artworks they make are ultimately just a piece

(09:40):
of communication. And that's fine. You can't put that on
a hierarchical scale of like good music and bad music.
But I mean, you know, I believe that I'm not
sure if like hundreds of music publications believe that. But
you know, I should have said this earlier. The album
is absolutely incredible. In addition to so many other adjectives,
it's just such a fear list record. The vulnerability and

(10:01):
the honesty, it's just so admirable and it just really inspiring.
I mean, I hope that that's something that you feel. Yeah, no,
I mean, releasing this record I was, you know, I've
already said I was pretty apprehensive about it. But in
some ways it's been quite liberating to put something out
that felt I don't know. It felt like a departure

(10:23):
from my old music for me, but then in the
grand scheme of things, it's like, no, it really just
it still sounds like my songwriting. It's just like now
there's drums. But it did feel very I think maybe
what was more meaningful to me was the lyrical content
being so explicit in a way where it was like,
I don't know, trying to dismantle publicly the ideas that

(10:47):
maybe people who listen to my music had had about me,
and trying to unsaddle myself with the identity of being
a person who practiced the sobriety perfectly, a person who
ractus is kindness, perfectly a person who's like in any
way like well put together, and it's like to expose
those things felt almost relieving to me. You know, there

(11:10):
was a great quote you gave, and I hate reading
quotes back because that always sounds like something a prosecutor does.
But there's an amazing quote I really stuck with me
is that this record is about letting go of the
prospect of ever being a fully good person. And I
I a part of me smiled at that because I thought, cool,
join the club, Like that's an incredibly high bar to
to set for oneself, and to to kind of let

(11:31):
yourself off the hook has got to be liberating as
a human and certainly as an artist. Yeah, And I
think it also like it enables me to focus more,
like when you see like letting yourself off the hook,
it is kind of like that. And I think that's
it's kind of a double edged sword of a revelation
because I think there is a period in my life,
especially like throughout the writing of this record, when I

(11:52):
was really in the trenches of like figuring out sobriety
again and figuring out faith again. Like there was this
point I think where I felt the most nihilistic manifestation
of that, Like I was letting go of the fact
that I was constantly concerned with like how the things
I were doing were not enough, or they were not

(12:12):
good enough, or I could be a better person, and
constantly evaluating all of my actions in this way that
was really like defeatist, because there was always going to
be some way that I had fallen short of my values.
And then when I realized like, well, I'm just a
human and nobody's perfect, I think I went through this
phase of just like, well, then why don't I just

(12:33):
do whatever I want? Because I'm like you know, and
I feel like that's common to people when they have
an existential crisis or a crisis of faith. It's just like, well,
if the rules are made up and subjective, then how
about I just feel good? How about I just feel well? Yeah,
And then you find out that so many of the things.
I'm trying to explain this articulately, so forgive me, but
you're more articulate than I will ever be, by the way,

(12:55):
So I just pleased. I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying
really hard. So like now it's not so much as
me letting myself off the hook is just like practicing
compassion for myself that allows me in many ways to
be more compassionate to other people too. But I think
what I had to learn with all of the things

(13:16):
that I was convicted about is that, like I think
I had an ideological belief that I don't know, being sober,
being straight edged, or being a vegan or praying every
morning was like this thing that I did to like
purify and perfect myself. And now it's more like, I
don't want to spend my life with a crippling addiction

(13:39):
because it actually doesn't feel good. Like, sure, it feels
good sometimes, and then most of the time it just
makes you sick and full of regret and unable to
do the things you want to do in your life.
And so it's like instead of coming to these decisions
about the way I live my life from a point
of like, well, it's the good thing to do, it's

(14:01):
the better thing to do to be sober, it's like
I now know that it makes me feel better, it
improves my quality of life, and I can make decisions
about how to better be in the world that pertain
to like my happiness, which is something that I just didn't,
you know, like, I just didn't include how a decision

(14:25):
affects my own happiness or health very much into my
evaluation of what was morally right and wrong, because a
lot of my conceptualization about doing the right thing involved
self denial and sacrifice. And Yeah, reframing it that way
was really helpful for me. It sounds like a lot
of ways, it was like your decision to go back
to music, I am choosing this. This is what I

(14:45):
was doing before, but now it's because I want to
and not because I think I'm supposed to. Yeah, exactly,
Totally one of my favorit retracts on the album, and
I'm probably gonna say it's about six different songs because
it's so hard to choose because it's such an amazing
album Relative Fiction, which to my ears, sounded a lot

(15:08):
like that battle between the sort of I guess, for
lack of a better term, public life and and and
and private life. It sounds like that was a really
a beautiful way to to illustrate what what you were
just mentioning. Oh, totally, I and I that song there's
actually a like a rip off or like a slightly
modified John Steinbeck quote. I remember I was talking to
one of my friends about I don't know about how

(15:31):
I was just feeling kind of direction list because for
so long my life had been governed by a very
specific set of principles, and when I started to question
and really interrogate and change those principles, it made me
feel kind of like pessimistic about ever knowing what the
right thing is to do or being like a fully

(15:53):
healed person. And yeah, my friend was just like, there's
this John John Steinbeck quotes like now that you're not perfect,
you can just be good. And man, I don't know
it made it's still it gives me like a visceral
emotional reaction to hear those words. And like, that's if
you had to sum up like relative fiction in a sentence,
that's the song. I mean that quote literally, like is

(16:15):
why I wrote that song, Like thinking about that principle.
That's an incredible line. Yeah, it's just you know, trying
to permit yourself to be imperfect so that you can
get outside of the cycle of self hatred, which actually
makes it harder to be a healthy kind person. You know,

(16:36):
perfections a moving target anyway, Yeah, sure, exactly, It's funny
how how forgiveness is such a crucial tenet of you know,
Christianity faith, but self forgiveness is the hardest thing in
the world. Yeah, And I wonder if people like the
reason why I think forgiveness is so hard as a
person who has unfortunately made a lot of hurtful mistakes

(16:59):
and thinks a lot about the concept of forgiveness and
if I will ever really feel a certainty of being
forgiven by like my friends or whatever, or by the world.
I think what's so uncomfortable sometimes with people about forgiveness
is that they mistake forgiveness for absolution, right Like, so
I think, and you know, this could change because emotions

(17:22):
or emotions and feelings or feelings. But like if right now,
I feel like I'm at a place where I can
look at this catalog of all the mistakes that I
have made and the I don't want to say the
wrong things, but like the destructive things that I have done,
and I can look them without excusing myself for them,

(17:42):
but still show compassion yourself. Yeah, exactly, It's like I
still have to hold myself accountable, just like you know,
if I forgive somebody else for something that they do.
I still hold them accountable for their actions. And I
think sometimes like accountability and forgiveness get a little money
in people's brains and they're Yeah, the work you do,

(18:03):
I mean, it touches so many people, myself included. I
just I wanted to ask you about your writing process.
I mean, is it like a daily practice for you,
like some people run, some people do do yoga or meditation,
or is it something that you go to when when
you feel inspired and you sit down and go to work.
I've been trying to think of how to describe it,
but like it seems like, especially lyric writing, is an

(18:26):
ongoing practice. Like just in my life, I find myself
trying to let myself be sensitive to and aware of
the poetic or symbolic or meaningful things that happened just
in life or in conversation. And so it's like a
lot of my writing process is just gleaning images from

(18:47):
my life, just from what's happening around me in the
conversations I'm having, Gathering material and then trying to assemble
them into a narrative, playing my instrument and trying to
do not just practicing old songs, but like improvisational and
just kind of fiddling is a daily practice for me,
just because I don't know, I'm I know that I
have an obsessive part of my personality, and so I

(19:09):
try to pick up my instrument and do commit myself
to either writing a song or practicing skills or learning
something I didn't know about. A guitar battle I have
every day because you know, I want to keep learning
and bettering myself. But songs come together in a much
less structured way, you know, I don't like I know
there's some songwriters that are like, Yeah, I write a

(19:30):
song every day just as practice, and I could never.
I could never. It would be a dumb, bad song
that I would have to cannibalize and frankenstein back together
as some mother's soul. I read that that you wrote
a thesis on synesthesia, which is something that I believe
that you is something that's a part of your your
writing process. Can you talk a little more about that.
I'm not sure from describing right but basically assigning, I'm

(19:53):
going to get this completely wrong with assigning colors to
sounds and vice versa. Yeah, what's really so cool. This
is the most on brand thing for me to say
is that I told one person in an interview that,
and then I started having this internal crisis of like
do I really experience sis? Do I experience this phenomenon?

(20:13):
Because in my thesis, one of the things this is
so like me to be like, is this actually true?
Like is what I'm saying true? Can I verify it?
It's a mental event, So like, no, I can't, But
I don't want to sound like I'm just like making
up stuff. But basically, in a part of the thesis
that I did, it was about syniesthesia, but it was

(20:34):
also about how people there have been like linguists, like
linguistic analysts, who like try to create a parallel, like
a formula parallel between the arrangement of music and like
language and grammar. And while I do believe that music
is a communication method, I think what's special about it

(20:54):
is that, I mean it's purest form it and especially
how I experience it, it can transcend language. Like so
of course, like I'm talking about non lyrical music specifically,
I'm talking about like sounds, not about the poetry that
I lay on top of the sounds that I create.
But there was this entire portion of my thesis where
I was studying, like the research methods of synesthesia, because

(21:18):
just like anything, it's happening inside the mind. So like
anything psychological, it's happening inside the mind. So there's like
virtually no way to recreate or explain another person's experience
except for them telling you. And so there's all these
fields like to like verify that a person is having
a synaesthetic experience versus because I feel like I could
just play, like, I don't know, a sad piano song

(21:40):
for somebody on the street, and I would be like,
what color is this song? And they would probably be
like blue because blue is a color we associate with
sadness and mournfulness. Or maybe I play them a disco
track and they're like yellow because yellows color we associate
with happiness. But yeah, I'm decently confident that that is
not what's happening with me. That it's not just like

(22:01):
a collection of like cultural associations between color and sound.
It's like, man, I don't know, I was listening to
what song is I listening to the other day? I
was like, the song's orange. I don't know how to
tell you why songs just orange. I don't know how
to explain it. Yeah, it's just like music, especially the
instrumental music, puts me in a very meditative place, and

(22:23):
I experienced it in my body in a very vivid way.
So yeah, I don't know. I just feel like there's
there's almost this tactile there's like texture to sound, and
especially during quarantine. And you know, we were just talking
about my the shift in my relationship to music. It's
like I have been, you know, past when I thought
I was going to return to touring after taking some

(22:44):
time off, it's now been an additional year of being
at home and not really being in a performance space
and playing my instrument every day, practicing piano or even
like trying to teach myself more production stuff and like
how to use oppression and distortion and EQ things like.
That's all a very visual experience to me. Like, I

(23:07):
don't know how to describe it. It's so difficult. It
makes total sense to me. Sound waves and light is
waves too. It's just all it seems like it's all
about just perceiving and and letting it come to you.
I guess, you know. I read this book called Born
on a Blue Day about this guy who memorized he
like at one time held the world record for memorizing

(23:29):
the most numbers of pie. There was this passage I
remember reading it when I was like eleven. I don't know.
I just used to pick up whatever book in Bars
and Noble and be like, sure, I'll read this. So
I picked up this memoir knowing nothing about it, and
I was like eleven or twelve, and there's this part
where he's describing how he's reciting the numbers of pie,
and then it all kind of like blends into a landscape.
I don't know, imagine like a video game moving or

(23:51):
like a note reel as you're moving through, but then
it's like, what's happening? I was going to be like,
imagine if Windows Visualizer was just happening in your head
all the time. Do you remember that? Yeah? I forgot
about that? Wow? Yeah yeah yeah. Do you do that
for like hours? Like I would just download stuff off
iTunes and then sit there with Windows Visualizer open. I

(24:13):
used to see that all the time, used to put
like pet sounds on or something and just like like yeah,
yeah yeah. And what's interesting for me is like I
would always feel like this level of disconnect with because
I didn't have any agency over the images. But I've
like it happens, especially when I play piano, where if
I just like find myself in a key or in
a mode that I'm super comfortable in, and I get

(24:33):
into the like flow state of intuitive playing past the
really like calculated aware part. It's like, yeah, I don't know,
it's like watching a landscape go buy from a train
when just like watching the sound change, it's really beautiful.
I wish I could explain it better, but yeah, probably
sound like a crazy person. I'm not like literally hallucinating.

(24:57):
I just like, yeah, at the end of this, I'm
just like, and there's acid involved. That was a joke
that ayahuasca helps. Yeah, the ayahuaska really helps, Uh, you
get in the synesthesia zone. No, I'm I'm terrified to ever.
My brand of substance abuse is always the numbing and

(25:17):
the dampening things that kind of like restrict feeling and emotion.
I'm terrified of I could never let go, dude, I
know it's so crazy. I'm like, it's already dark enough
in there as it is. I don't want to like explore,
like I don't want to expand the darkness. I just
like not I'm good. I'm good with where I'm at

(25:37):
right now. It's all I can do. God. That's so,
that's why I love song and E because to me,
that sentiment really resonated with me because it was like
wishing that anxiety or pain could be on something on
the outside. Because I feel like I'm happiest when there's
a problem that I can point to and and solve,
because as soon as that's out, it's like, oh man,

(25:57):
it's just me. Oh oh, it turns out that it's
really just my brain. Yeah, Like it's difficult, and you
know that song is like it's about being in a
relationship that is difficult, and how it's almost more painful
to deal with hurt or try to find a place
for it when the two parties or however many parties

(26:19):
are involved in your family or your love affair or whatever.
It's almost more painful when you understand that those two
parties aren't deliberately hurting each other. Like it's almost more
painful because then there's nowhere to put anger, you know
what I mean, Like you feel guilty about it too.
Then you're angry and guilty. You feel guilty about resent
resenting a person that is not hurting you on purpose.

(26:43):
And then there's also like this moral hierarchy of like
who is giving and receiving forgiveness that can get really uncomfortable.
And yeah, that song is me just being like, in
the pettiest way to explain it, it's like when you
are angry at somebody and then they're nice to you,
and you're like, you just have the decency to be

(27:04):
means me, so we can both just be shitty, Like
why don't you I want a reason to be shitty
to you and you're not giving me one. But I mean,
I guess that's that's the funny way to describe it.
But then it's so like, I don't know, it's it's
it's it's challenging to see the limits to your own kindness.
And like, in another sense too, it's like I wrote

(27:25):
that song at a time where I was like, I
just wish that everybody would go ahead and accept that
I'm not good, so that I can stop having this
expectation hovering around me for me to be better, you
know what I mean? There is a responsibility that comes
with patients and forgiveness, and when your friends don't alienate

(27:46):
you and they won't and they continue giving you mercy
and graciousness that then it's like there's the obligation to
show up for that relationship still, and when you feel
like getting better or being emotionally available or even just
mentally stable is not something possible for you in the
near future, like I did, it's sad for your friends

(28:08):
to keep for giving you because it's like you know them,
I'm sure, oh no, totally, but it's like it's it's
so much different, I think, And there's a lot of
like shame wound up in that. You know, there's a
lot of shame in the feeling of wanting to get better,
knowing almost certainly you're going to fail a bunch of

(28:28):
more times before you're better, and wishing that instead of
sticking around and being a witness to self destruction and
pain and causing themselves pain, that your friends would just
go away. Like I don't know. That sounds very like
I was imagining myself as like Quasimodo, like hiding in

(28:50):
a cave. But like that's how it gets. That's how
it gets when you feel like you're so deep down
into something that you even you can't control it, and
you don't see a way out. Yeah, I don't know.
I guess I'm just going to go chain myself to
a wall because I'm going to do something destructive. And
I wish you wouldn't come keep trying to hang out
with me, because I know for a fact I'm going
to hurt you, and it hurts me to hurt you.

(29:12):
But I also can't stop this cycle of self destruction.
I'm in Yeah. Sorry, we were laughing a minute ago,
and then I read it all in the same way
that I was. I was thanking you for your lyrics.

(29:32):
I thank you for trusting me right now, for for
going to this place. And I my question is, and
maybe it doesn't totally relate, but you know, I think
that that anyone with a creative impulse puts what they
make out there with the the hope on some level
of getting some kind of response to it. With that
admired What is the best thing that a fan could

(29:54):
say to you? What? What would you hope that they
would say, Not somebody who you know is looking to
you to set an example or anything like that, but
just somebody who really loves what you do, Like, what
would you love for them to say that would make
it feel worth it. There's there's a really emotional answer
and then like a silly answer. I'm gonna give you
the silly answerer first. I was jogging the other day
and I jogged by this guy and without stopping, he

(30:16):
just goes, love your music, and they just kept ning
and I was like, that's the perfect that's the perfect interaction,
you know what I mean, Hey, your music helps me
not kill myself. And then I'm just like, wow, I
feel like that's not what my music did. That's probably
something you did for yourself. But it's cool for you
to tell me that, just like you know, that happens
to me rarely, but stuff like that does happen, and

(30:40):
sometimes I'm just like, ah, Honestly, the majority of people
that I meet at shows, and it's been a while
since I've been out at the merch table like talking
to people after shows, but the majority of people that
I meet are really genuine. They're just like, hey, your
music means a lot. You know. It's usually after a show,
so it's like people that had a previous awareness of
like who I was because they bought tickets to this gig.

(31:02):
And I don't know, like every once in a while
somebody will just be like, hey, like your music means
a lot to me. I grew up in church, I
struggled with addiction or whatever, and I feel like just
those are the kinds of things that may put me
more at ease with sharing the parts of myself, especially
on this record that I'm uncomfortable with, because the reward

(31:23):
for me for being honest, for making as true a
testament is I'm capable of making too my lived human experience.
The reward for that is having somebody feel understood. I
think you know I said this earlier, Like fundamentally, I
think music is a communication tool. It's sure it's entertaining

(31:44):
or whatever, and you know it's couched in a consumerist
realm because that's how we listen to music and buy
it or subscribe to Spotify or whatever. But when you die,
all music back. Especially when you think about like the
function of music in civilizations, like throughout history, it's a
communication tool. It's something that's transmitting information. Like I don't know,

(32:05):
people used to sing songs because the sung voice goes
farther than those spoken voice and like it hurts you
to scream, So singing is like a means to an
end of communicating with people beautifully and seeking mutual understanding.
And if I can ever ever establish mutual understanding between

(32:26):
or the feeling of understanding with the person between myself
or my songs and them were between them and another
person who likes my music, then that is the most
valuable thing I think I can ever accomplish with my music.
That's the most beautiful, articulate response I could have ever
imagined to that question. Thank you for that. That's and
you're right, I mean, the mystery of music is something

(32:46):
that's just so fascinating me because I mean, you you
find primitive instruments in it from periods of history. But
we were just struggling to eat, you know. I mean,
this was something that was obviously a priority. It wasn't
something that was just a luxury, and this was something
that that we needed. And that's so interesting the man totally,
I mean, and that's why I think I've been thinking
about this a lot with this record, because I have

(33:06):
a lot of after you know, it's like we were
talking earlier about, you know, being a performer and being
so obsessed with the perfectionist element of not only like
hitting all the right notes and delivering an immaculate performance,
but also like saying the right and true thing. It's

(33:28):
like understanding that music is woven into the fabric of
humanity helps me remove the fear of ridicule or dislike
of my music. I've always I mean, it's like I
have never in my life been like, yeah, probably everybody's
going to like my music. Now people don't. Like tons
of people don't like my music. That's fine if I

(33:49):
if I weren't fine with that, I could not have
been a professional musician for more than a day. But
like I think sometimes I just like everybody, I am
sensitive to dgment and I want to offer the best
that I can into this world. But what makes music?
And this is why my friends make fun of me,
because it's like I'll find a way to like pretty

(34:10):
much everything, even if it's like bad they don't like it,
I'm like, I don't know. It's like I'm the opposite
of the Devil's advocate, always trying to be like there's
a good thing in here, but um yeah. Like music
is valuable because it fulfills the need to create music
to communicate music. Music is valuable because it is something

(34:31):
that another person has issued into this world to contribute
to the giant human discourse that is always taking place
through art. It's not valuable because it's better or worse
than or because it's more or less a work of
musical genius, you know, Like I don't know that's why
I value music in the first place. And then so
I've gotten a lot less precious with people, you know,

(34:55):
my music and people's opinions of my music, because I
just I don't know, I love it so much. It
sounds really corny to just be like, I love music.
Music is my life. It's like a hot topic teacher.
But it's true. It's true. I love music so much.
It's not corny. If it's true. Yeah, it can or rather,
it can be corny and true both and not either.

(35:18):
Or my friends, it can be corny and true. My
music is corny as hell. I have some I have
some really corny lines. I'll admit it's not always corny,
but it can get a little schmaltzy, and it's like, okay, yeah,
corny stuff is true. Trite things are cliches. Cliches are
cliches for a reason, you know what I mean. Like,
I appreciate so much people who are willing to draw

(35:40):
upon the the material of folk tradition, and are willing
to say things that have already been said because it's
worth saying them again. There's so many artists like that
are just making songs that I guess you could call
They could either be derivative, or they could be an
homage to a style, or they could be you know,

(36:01):
when you play like a folk standard or a jazz standard,
you're trying to be true to the style. Or when
you write a blues song, the lyrical content often takes
on like a very specific style, right, So like it's fine,
It's just like it's just I just said music wasn't
like language, but it is really like a dialect or
like an idiolect. Wow, I could talk about this for

(36:23):
a real I be careful because I wrote eight thousand
words about this for just my advisor. Can you I
don't what bro okay? I remember I was like I
sent him like a seventy d word draft and I
was like Dr Kid's like I don't know if I'm
on the right track, Like I don't know this was

(36:44):
an independent study. It could he was literally like right
about he was like right about whatever. And then I
wrote eight thousand words of like meticulously researched but also
somehow like really hair brained, um chaotic uh theories about
music and language. And I just remember sending him this
like long PDF and him getting an email back that said,

(37:09):
don't make it too hard on yourself, sit from my iPhone.
And I was just like, bro, no, it wasn't even
knife in my heart. It was like so funny because
this guy is just like opening up a frantic students
email on his iPhone and being like, please stop worrying
about it, Please don't put yourself through this. Meanwhile, I'm

(37:32):
like crouched over micro film or whatever. I'm just kidding.
It's I don't use micro film, but it was a
funnier image if I was like anyway, I'll yeah, beautiful
mind style. There's like I was gonna say, y'are the
it gets Yeah, I don't know, I'll um if you

(37:52):
maybe I'll make the PDF like free somewhere so if anybody, dude, so,
But it's super incoherent. I can't even describe its dumb.
It's like house of leaves, but my brain about music
that's so cool. Come on, all right, maybe maybe I'll

(38:13):
edit it down a little bit more. I'll get one
of my um grad student friends to polish it up
a little bit. Preparing to talk to you, I read
probably a couple of dozen interviews that you give it
in the care that you give to all your responses
is just so apparent, and in all of your interviews.
I just want to thank you for that. It's so
it's so appreciated. I mean, have you ever learned something
about yourself? Reading any of these profiles back, like seeing

(38:36):
other people's impressions actually been helpful for you, I would
say yes, I wish I weren't because this is about
to make me sound so narcissistic. And you know what,
maybe it is. Maybe there's an element of the human
mind that is just predisposed towards narcissism because we're the
only consciousness in our head right, so like it's just
us holiday long thinking about the protagonist being the protagonist

(38:59):
of our own life. I read like every single one
back to myself because and I it's a huge compliment
for you to tell me that. I that it comes
across as if I'm like very caring um and attentive
with my words, because that's what I mean. There's a
limit to how much any human can understand another human being, right,

(39:23):
limit to the empathy, well, a limit to the empathy.
But also just like I can't take what's in my
brain and put it in your brain and have you
understand it like a thumb drive. Yeah, exactly, there's no
I can't vulcan mind mild you to understand. Yeah. But
so like I do think it is a really worthy

(39:46):
goal for me to try to make communication as clear
as possible, especially like one of the reasons why I
did I keep coming back to this dumb thesis, but
like one of the reasons why I chose to do
study of because music is so much of a refuge
from language. To me, when you think about the idea
that whenever you're going into a discussion or a paper

(40:07):
or like a seminar, you need to define the terms
that you're using. But like, we live in a world
where because of this like accelerated, because of the way
that changes in language are accelerated through like social media,
or through our constant availability and communication, there's virtually no
way to be sure that you are defining the terms correctly,

(40:30):
or that somebody is interpreting what you mean and all
the different like connotations and subtexts of your word choice.
The dude, Yeah, it's like some flower bear stuff, like
let's soul much juiced. I don't think that somebody in
French class is going to be like that was horrible.
But yeah, that's why it's important to me to find
like the best way to say a thing, because understanding

(40:55):
is like the most fundamental human need, like to be understood.
And man, when you asked me, like, have I ever
learned anything about myself from reading interviews back or listening
to podcast back or something, Yeah, I've learned I'm super
neurotic every time every time I read back. No, I'm

(41:17):
just I well in that. You know, I said that humorously.
But what I've learned is that, like I do this
with so many things too, I like make it way
more complicated than it has to be. Like sometimes I
feel like me being hyper aware and concerned with expressing
myself clearly in language actually makes it harder to have

(41:43):
a conversation for like for me and also for the
other person because they have to sit through me giving
like a ten minute preamble to every question I answer.
It's like got to be exhausting. Well, after that beautiful
discussion of communication and language, I'm gonna end with a
kind of poorly phrased question, which is what is next

(42:05):
for you? What? What do you have? You got this
this amazing record out, hopefully we'll be able to get
on the road and here you play it live soon.
But but what do you work on next? What are
you looking forward to? I'm looking forward to going back
on the road. And you know, it's this kind of
like grass is always greener thing with musicians because it's
so easy. It's like the national pastime of touring to

(42:26):
complain about tour, right, all you ever do. I'm still
in a group chat. I have not played a show
in like almost two years, and I'm still in a
group chat with the people I was touring with two
years ago, being like, remember how miss Like I don't
know it's so, but I I do miss it. And
I miss because music is so communication based. To me,

(42:48):
I missed the physical act of exchange that happens in
a live show like to night I think actually is
like when the album really stream happens. Um And I
was so grateful to play with my friends and my
my sweet boys Matt and Cal and uh noah, but

(43:10):
it felt a little sterile. And so I'm just I'm
I'm excited to be back in the land of touring,
and I'm excited to see shows again, like honestly, everybody
and interviews and like talking to other musicians, the question
is always like, oh, I can't wait to play a show,
But honestly, dude, like right before Quarantine happened, when I
had taken a whole bunch of time off and I

(43:32):
wasn't touring, I wasn't performing, I wasn't rehearsing for anything,
doing any interviews. I would go to like three shows
a week. I would just go see bands like by myself.
And I used to never do that, but then I
realized it's such a freaking power move to just stand
there with just you just you know. And I just
went because I wanted to put some music in front

(43:53):
of my face, and I wanted to be taken somewhere else,
and I wanted to be on the receive being end
and be like, you know, to use a churchy term
like fed by that. So I straight up just can't
wait until there are shows again. I'm gonna go see
like every band. It's gonna be great, and I'll you know,
I'll spend all my money on tickets and yeah, but

(44:14):
bring it on. Julian, thank you so much. I guess
there's only one thing I've left to say, and I
want you to pretend I'm jogging right now. Love you music,
Thank you, yeah, no, thank you for a wonderful conversation.
It was actually enjoyable. That's the best thing I can hear.
I appreciate it. It was seriously. We hope you enjoyed

(44:40):
this episode of Inside the Studio, a production of I
Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the Studio or
other fantastic shows, check out the I Heart Radio app,
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(45:00):
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