Julia Jacklin Photo: Nick Mckk
If you sing about intensely personal things people assume you're willing to talk about these same things, says Australian musician Julia Jacklin, but it's not the case for her.
Doing interviews for her highly anticipated new album PRE PLEASURE, Julia is now more confident keeping certain things to herself.
"I used to think that you had to answer even if [a question] was invasive or a bit rude or something … [but] I feel like it undercuts the song sometimes if people are fascinated by the story behind it," she tells Charlotte Ryan.
PRE PLEASURE was written while Julia recovered from a huge, exhausting world tour for her 2019 album Crushing.
After that tour, Julia says she didnt pick up a guitar for a year and needed to "exist as a different person".
"Me and the guitar weren't friends for a while because I associated it with work and it didnt bring me that uncomplicated joy that it used to when I was younger.
"I wanted to remember who I was outside of being an indie-rock touring musician because that felt like it had been my entire personality for so long."
When Julia did start writing music again it was on a Casio keyboard.
"It felt really fresh and I didn't have the same kind of pressures and stuff filling my head… that changed and that was a really nice step."
After the success of Crashing, Julia says she felt a lot of pressure to write something really good.
"Having a self-consciousness about my own talent makes me want to make sure that I'm really on top of everything."
PRE PLEASURE was produced by Montreal-based Marcus Paquin who Julia describes as a "very can-do guy".
"It takes a long time to let people into your creative process and trust that they understand what you're trying to do."
The album features string arrangements that were composed by Arcade Fire's Owen Pallett and performed by a Czech orchestra.
"I was in this Route 66 motel driving back to LA from Las Vegas, [Owen] was in Montreal and the orchestra was in Prague and we were just on a Zoom call… it sounded incredible basically straight away and then it was done."
Julia Jacklin on RNZ:
Julia Jacklin: live at RNZ (2016)
Julia Jacklin speaks to Music 101 (2020)
Julia Jacklin live at RNZ (2019)
