Interview: Summer Camp with Julia G.

Afterglow sat down with local singer-songwriter Julia G. in conversation about queer classical composers, self-expression, and the new music video for her song “Judy.”

Written by Kaci Pelias
Photos by Kristina Jin

With the recent release of the queer-positive, summer camp music video for her song “Judy,” Julia G. is following in the steps of the classical pianists she studied in high school. After all, they were queer, too! During the chaos of SXSW, Julia and I sat down to talk about her music background, her approach to songwriting, and the difference between performing live for classical piano and her own songs.

First question is, of course, what’s your star sign?

My star sign is … I’m a Leo sun and a Libra rising and a Libra moon.

What’s your background with songwriting?

I started playing classical piano when I was five. So I was classically trained from that point till basically whenever I left high school. I was always really into music though, as a kid — I wrote my first song when I was eight, probably. There’s a recording of it somewhere in my dad’s musical library, ‘cause he took me to a little studio and said, “This is what it’s like!” And I said, “I wanna do this forever!”

I love that. So you started writing music at eight. What does your writing process look like?

I’ve always been a lyrics-first kind of person. Usually I’ll be driving in my car, and I’ll think of something, and I’ll be like, “Ooh, that sounds cool.” And then I just turn off the radio and just start singing it in my head, and eventually it sounds like a song, and then I’ll make a voice memo of it, and then I add all the other stuff later usually. Most of the inspiration comes from the lyrics, I think.

Do you record the different instrumental tracks?

Mmhmm! When I did my EP, actually, the drums are synthetics ‘cause we didn’t have a real drum kit, but that’s the only thing that’s not real. And then all the demos that I had on Soundcloud, I play the drums and the bass and guitar, and then I sang and did keys and everything like that. So I try to do everything mostly myself, unless I’m working with someone who’s better than me at it, and they can execute it better.

Wow! That’s really cool. Okay, so what was it like to film the “Judy” music video?

It was so much fun. We woke up at like — I woke up at — well, actually, I couldn’t even sleep. I was working a job at the time where I had to work until 4 a.m., so I had been up from basically 9 a.m. [the day before] and then I hadn’t slept, and I just stayed awake. At 5 a.m., I loaded everything in my car, and at 6 a.m., Home Depot opened, and I went to get a generator, and then immediately after that we went to camp. We got there at like 8 a.m., and we were there probably until 8 p.m.

So it was just an all day shoot at the camp that I worked at and I went to as a kid, called Camp Lantern Creek. It’s an all-girls empowerment, creative summer camp. It’s the best thing ever. I’m working again this year, so I’m really excited. And they’re great; they let us use the campsite to film which was so awesome and nice, and everyone was so cool. It was just the best experience ever. Everyone was really invested in it and actually really cared about the outcome and actually liked the song. I feel like I made so many friends and so many connections with people that I wanna work with again, so it was great.

It was also really weird to make out with someone on camera for 10 minutes with everyone watching you. Very strange energy. And cold. It was cold that day, and there’s a scene where we fall into the lake in the canoe. It was freezing! It was awful. It was really fun, though.

So you’ve played live in the past a few times. What is that like for you?

I’ve performed piano so many times, and that’s a really different experience for me ‘cause when you’re playing classical piano, you’re just sitting up there, and it’s just you and the keys and it’s super nerve-wracking, but I think that performing my own songs for my EP release show, that was one of the best days I’ve ever had. ‘Cause everyone was so supportive, everyone that came had a great time, they were all dancing and jumping around and, like, singing my songs back to me. It’s the most exhilarating thing in the entire world. It’s just the best. It’s what I was meant to do.

Your EP has a lot of metaphors about fruit and summer! Tell me about the significances of those.

I think that’s sometimes just accidental. I just think fruit is cool, and I like to talk about the seasons. I think the seasons are so tied to my mood. And also I think my songs are not very linear. It’s kinda just an amalgamation of everything that happens over a bunch of time, ‘cause usually I’m talking about relationships or things that I go through. So just to pinpoint different times, I use summer, fall, winter, spring, whatever. It’s like a diary for me, so I’m just talking about my experiences.

Your songs have a very soft aesthetic. Why do you think you gravitate towards that?

I think I’m just a soft person. I’m not very aggressive, and I really think there’s a lot of beauty in everything, especially the relationships I’ve had with women — it’s so much different. It’s so soft and it’s so loving and tender and I think it’s just very normal. It’s quiet, but it’s beautiful.

Do you have anything in particular that you want people to get out of your music?

One thing that I really hold dear to me, being classically trained, is that so many classical composers were queer. So many of them were, and I poured myself into piano when I was a kid. That was the number one thing that I cared about and whenever I was having a crisis — i.e., a sexuality crisis. I would take it out on the piano, and in a way I felt understood by the music — that collective memory, you can feel it sometimes. You can feel what songs are about. I just want to do things for people that classical piano did for me and put my experiences in my music and just have people get that coming through.

Were there ever any hesitations that you would openly sing about being queer?

I mean, it’s just always been a part of my life. Since I started writing music that was actually listenable, I was like, “Oh, I like girls,” like, I’m gonna write about it. I’ve been writing about liking girls since like seventh to eighth grade when I had the biggest crush on a girl. So it’s never really been a question, ‘cause it’s not like — I don’t know, I don’t think it should be this big thing. I think it’s just about normalizing it because it’s a part of my identity, but it’s not my only identity. I think a lot of queer artists tend to label themselves as queer and then it’s like, well what else are you? It’s just always been a part of my life, and I think it’s awesome, so I’m gonna talk about it.

Interview has been minimally edited for clarity and length.
Listen to Julia G. on Spotify, and find her on Instagram @radioshaq and Twitter @radioshaqq.