Tonight I have the pleasure of sitting down with Julia Hummer, who’s adopted the project name of Juleah, a fine neo-psych bluesy artist from Austria.
Jenell: Are you a classically trained musician? Do you come from a musical family?
Julia: If you mean classically trained in the sense of an academic music degree then no. But I had lessons in classical guitar from age 8 to 19. Yes, there are a lot of musically talented people in my family. Almost everyone did learn an instrument at some point.
Jenell: Your sound is far more than layered, instruments weave in and out of each other. Does your ability to play more than one instrument lend itself to this concept? And to that end, are you considering wrapping a full-time band around yourself, or do you enjoy the freedom that comes from picking musicians in reference to specific projects?
Julia: I see every instrument as being equally important in a song. Of course, as listeners we first notice the vocals and maybe the guitars, but this is due to the way our perception works. Yet on a more subconscious level and for the feeling in our body, bass and drums are equally important creating a good song as a whole. Over the years I had different ideas of how Juleah might work by including other musicians. I know now that it only works for me when the creative part stays with me and the band helps me to play the songs live. With Henry, Alex and David I found musicians who are happy with that concept. I am very thankful for this, otherwise there wouldn’t be Juleah-live concerts, as I wouldn’t have the courage to go on stage alone.
As far as picking musicians for specific projects, I can well imagine them helping me play parts on the recordings, for example, my friend Constantin Du Closel plays on the new record, holding down the drums on ‘Black Vanilla’.
Jenell: Some artists delight in making the music, while others seem to delight in playing live … do you discover new aspects of your songs developing in front of an audience?
Julia: Both things are great, but if I were forced to decide between these two, I’d pick the ‘creating’ part, both in the studio and at home. The adrenaline rush on stage is wonderful, though I find it more satisfactory to have something finished to enjoy over and over again. I love being able to express ideas via packing them into the sound of a 3 or 4 minute song. These things would be so difficult to express in other ways. It’s also liberating, cathartic … and very satisfying. Even more when you can hold a CD or vinyl in your hands.
Yes, the songs really come to life in a whole new dimension when we play live, and there’s always this magic point in rehearsal when all of the parts start to flow harmonically together. Every band member brings their own style of playing which makes it very exciting to see how the song will turn out, which song works better and which one not so well. If something is uncomfortable for my band members to play, we search ways it could work in order that everyone enjoys playing the song.
Jenell: You have a rather large body of work to draw from for live settings, are you surprised when fans ask to hear older numbers?
Julia: To be honest, this has never happened until now. Only one time I was told me after a gig that he missed ‘Strom Aus Licht’. However, several members of my live band asked why we don’t play ‘Anticipation’, with the reason being that we’d need an organ an acoustic guitar and two electric guitars to do it properly, otherwise the song won’t really work live.
Jenell: Have other women influenced you, artists such as Sue Foley? And please, take a moment to talk about music that’s had an effect on your sound.
Julia: I want to start with the second part of the question. I started to become a really big music fan in 1997 with the Oasis album ‘Be Here Now’. From then on I started to build out a strong attraction to the British rock music of the early 90’s. I loved Madchester, Britpop and also some Shoegaze. So I would say that these are my main influence. The fascination for psychedelic music started later, in the early 2000’s with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and then later The Black Angels. I also got into 60’s psych bands like The Doors at that time.
Regarding the first part of the question, for the initial influences, I have to say no, and actually when I think about it, this is really sad. I thought a lot about the reason for this, where I could give a really loooong feminist answer, but I’ll keep it short and just say that I hope that female musicians will start to rely more and more on themselves, draw their self-esteem out of their talents and not so much out of their looks, and by so doing the problem will be erased automatically. In the meantime there are some woman that I admire, for example the two female drummers of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Black Angels, I love them both so much.
Jenell: Who’s on your turntable right now? And what is your most prized record?
Julia: At the moment it’s International Music with their album ‘Die Besten Jahre’ … I can sincerely recommend that one.
Prized, in a material way, it’s a limited red vinyl edition of ‘Specter At The Feast’ by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club , I grabbed that one on Discogs. On a personal level I’d say ‘Here Eye Go’ by Golden Animals, ‘New Candys As Medicine’ by New Candys, and ‘Fortune, Shelter, Love and Cure’ by Suns Of Thyme. The reason I’ve chosen these is because I’ve had amazing concert experiences associated with these records.
Jenell: Your vocals don’t stand in juxtaposition to the music, they’re not simply laid over top, but seem to be enveloped by the music, as if the mere sound of your voice is integral to every other note.
Julia: That’s cool that you perceive it like this because that’s how it was intended. I think that’s common in psych music anyway and probably the reason why my Aunt Hildegard is forever complaining about the concerts, saying “I couldn’t hear your voice”.
To be fair, it’s not easy to get so much done correctly live. Of course the vocals should be clearly hearable, but not too much. I think this is one of our main challenges in the future for live performances. And to that end we now have someone to help us with this aspect.
Jenell: Your voice floats in a low-keyed manner with a bit of swagger to it, when considering your other releases, those vocals seem to have gotten more intimate and more refined. Have you been working on your vocal presence?
Julia: Yes, I took some vocal and singing lessons over the last few years, I very happy with the results … my vocal strength is much improved. The only thing I did deliberately on the new record is shaping the vocal sound into a more megaphone-like direction, cutting most of the really high frequencies off, making things a little more lo-fi. When there are too many bright frequencies, the music begins to sounds too pop-ish for me, meaning my voice would be too front and center.
From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2019/02/juleah-interview.html
