juliajacklin

GRAZIA: You’re at the airport amidst an international tour, your album is about to drop, how are you feeling?

JULIA JACKLIN:  “We were kind of talking about that yesterday in our hostel room with my band mates. Everything’s changed a lot in the last few years. But I feel like there were a few months before I left for tour, where I was just kind of at home getting prepared to leave. I was going through visa applications and doing all the non-fun stuff but I’ve been away now for two weeks and it’s been really incredible. The shows have been amazing. I’ve realised how cool this is.”

Do you feel apprehensive about the release of the album or how it will be received?

“It’s my first album so it’s a pretty big first statement. It’s quite nerve racking, just because the album has taken quite a long time. I recorded it a while ago, but then there’s so much build-up towards the release of it that you kind of feel like, ‘OK can we just put this out and stop talking about it because it’s making me nervous’. But I guess my expectations have been quite low with most things and it seems to have served me quite well. I’m hoping that it resonates with people, and it gives me more opportunities to travel and I’m hoping some of my musical heroes hear it and like it and let me know.”

Pool Party was so well received, do you feel any pressure to emulate that success?

“Not me personally. I mean, I’m playing live shows everyday and in different parts of the world, and like, people are really responding to a lot of the songs. So for me, it doesn’t feel like that.”

 

Tell me about LeadLight, what inspired it?

“I wrote that song a little while ago. It was just a song about the ending of a relationship when you feel a bit stupid for thinking that the love you had with someone was better than everybody else’s… or something like that. Thinking that you were going through a very unique experience and then realising that you weren’t and that you are going through the same thing that a lot of people go through at some point. That’s kind of it.”

You directed it’s video. Can you see yourself directing more music videos for yourself and other artists in the future? Does that interest you?

“Yes definitely. I kind of fell into doing it and I’ve been really lucky to work with a really talented team. I’ve really enjoyed the process and I found it super exciting and fun, a nice extension to what I’m doing. It made me see the song in a different way.”

How so?

“I think just like when you write a song and you play it over and over again, you eventually don’t feel anything for it anymore and you don’t really understand how other people hear it anymore.”

“I think making music videos for songs, you have to now look at them in a different way, break them down into parts and try to figure out what parts of the song are the most moving and emotional. It kind of makes you be able to look at your songs from a different angle, which is really refreshing.

Don’t Let the Kids Win – I’ve read that it’s an ‘intimate examination of a life still being lived.’ Can you explain that a bit more or describe the inspiration behind the album?

“I find that a lot of young artists, and I’m not even super young, but you write something and people always say ‘she’s writing beyond her years’. I’m always like, ‘Well you know, I’m 26. I’ve seen stuff. I have lived. And I want to put that into words.’ I think a lot of the time you’re writing of your youth; you’re writing what you’re experiencing at the time.”

How far removed is your life right now from your childhood in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales?

“It’s quite different at the moment. But then I think about it, that’s not really up to me! I just want to keep playing shows.

“I’ve kind of decided not to think too much about what’s going to happen because I think I would just get too paralysed in fear over expectations or something.”

But right now it all feels really exciting, and I feel like I’ve been so lucky because I am able to do this and I am able to travel. I am extremely lucky because I know how much hard work it took me to make it here.”

What drew you to music when you were young?

“When I was 10 I got into Britney Spears. I saw this documentary where she had started singing. She was doing heaps of stuff at the same time and she was like 11. That just really hit me hard as a kid because I was like, ‘oh okay I can sing but maybe I actually really need to work on it and actually practice and get lessons.’ And that’s when I started music.”

What drew you to alternative country folk?

“I think just a lot of the stuff I was listening to early on like Father John Misty. It’s kind of one of those things where you suddenly find yourself writing in a certain genre and you don’t even really know why. I think it just kind of happens and I was really into lyrics and writing and I think this genre really lends itself to focusing on the lyrics.”

What was your South by South West experience like this year?

“It was really good! I’d heard a lot of horror stories before I left. A lot of people were saying that no one’s going to come to the show and it’s going to be really insane and there’s two and half thousand other bands playing. The competition is intense but I think I had no expectations and it ended up being really good. Playing all these really great shows. It was a really positive experience and I got a lot of out of it. I felt like I became a much stronger performer because we played eight shows in the space of four days.”

You have a very full-on world tour schedule. How do you look after yourself and your voice when travelling?

“I’m trying to figure that out at the moment I guess. I think a big part of it is knowing your limitations and not staying out late. When you think about touring when you’re not a musician, you’re like, ‘Oh it’s a full-on party the whole time.’ But like, I’m having to get myself to places and get on planes – there’s a lot of other difficult stuff you have to do that you can’t really do when you’re hungover. So I think for me, I’ve just been trying to make sure that I sleep when I can in bed. I’ve always been better at sleeping propped up, or in a chair!”

Which stop are you most looking forward to?

“I’m really looking forward to go to Canada, I’ve never been before. I’m really excited about going to Montreal.”

Don’t Let The Kids Win releases October 7. Jacklin will also perform at 2017’s Laneway.