“I finally feel like a professional or something”: Julia Jacklin on balancing imposter syndrome with global success
Photography by Nick Mckk
WORDS BY CAITLIN CEFAI
“I don’t know what’s next, but I’m looking forward to whatever the calmness brings.”
Melbourne/Naarm-based musician Julia Jacklin has spent the better part of the last year touring, having traversed the US, UK and Europe following the success of her latest album, Pre Pleasure.
While preparing to hit the stage once again for her Australia and New Zealand tour, I spoke with Julia about the success of Pre Pleasure, her songwriting process and her inspirations.
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Hailing from the Blue Mountains and now based in Melbourne’s inner north, Julia represents a new age of Australian indie music that’s gone global. She wrote Pre Pleasure in Canada, adding to the list of sprawled locations she’s inhabited to write her albums.
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“Canada is kind of like a bit of a second home because my long-time touring band are from there. I’ve spent quite a lot of time there, so it felt quite nice and homey in a way,” she says.
“But, also, every record I’ve made, I’ve made in a different place away from home… I think sometimes I need to be in an environment that isn’t super familiar. Where I can’t kind of fall back into old patterns.”
Julia also partly attributes her choice to write away from home to her introverted nature. “I just really don’t want to see anyone [while I’m writing], because I don’t want to talk about it while it’s happening – I feel like I need to be in some sort of bubble. I need to kind of strip away a lot of stuff so I can just focus on the ‘self’.”
After an introspective, isolated writing stint, Julia is excited to be back home sharing her art with her local fans, friends and family. “It’s always nice to play at home, especially because I spend more time overseas playing shows. Playing in Australia is quite rare and a bit of a treat, so it’s just a great opportunity for a lot of friends and family to come… just being able to reconnect with lots of people.”
Julia has found huge success on the home front, with Pre Pleasure nominated for four ARIAs, including Best Solo Artist, Best Independent Release and Best Video, and taking home the award for Best Adult Contemporary Album.
At the Music Victoria Awards in December of last year, voters pushed Julia over the line to win Best Solo Artist, and last month, it was announced that Pre Pleasure has been nominated for Best Record at the Rolling Stone Australia Awards. It’s come after six years of consistent ascension for Julia.
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“I wrote a lot of [Pre Pleasure] just alone. Very spiritually alone and physically alone. In the past, I’ve been more likely to take songs to the band in their earlier stages and kind of work them out with people, whereas this one felt more like a lonely process. And I’m sure that is reflected in the music in many ways.”
Pre Pleasure spans fleeting moments and formative life experiences, poetically rehashing her time at Catholic school in ‘Lydia Wears A Cross’, the traits of stereotypical film-bros in ‘Moviegoer’, and how her religious upbringing framed sexual pleasure as shameful in ‘Ignore Tenderness’ – “Been watching porn / Lights off, headphones on”.
“I would say everything exists within the mundane, everything exists in all of the little interactions we have, and the little things that we do and you can always talk about huge themes based off of one seemingly mundane thing,” says Julia.
“I really admire people who write songs where you don’t know what they’re talking about, it just leaves you with a feeling, I feel like I’m definitely in the more minutiae personal style. But I’m always inspired by people that don’t have to go there.”
She references New Zealand musician Aldous Harding as a master of mystical songwriting. “I never quite know what she’s singing about but it always leaves me feeling a lot of things which seems like some kind of cool witchcraft.”
When asked whether we can expect any collaborations down the track – perhaps with her friends Boygenius – Julia laughs, admitting her introversion makes it tough to reach out to other musicians.
“Collaborations come from people reaching out to you, or you having the confidence to ask other people. I think the problem probably for me lies in the latter, maybe not having the confidence to reach out to other people,” she shares. “I’m a pretty intense introvert, I think I would need to take some sort of uppers and embarrass myself in that environment and ask people.”
But when it comes to her career, Julia feels much more confident in where she’s at. “I think I finally feel like a professional or something. The first album did well, and you get high from it, and it just feels like you’re creating from this place of trying to maintain the hype,” she explains.
“The music industry is very fickle and it’s a bit hard to keep your feet on the ground and adapting or remembering why you started doing it in the first place. I think it takes a while to feel like, ‘Okay I do this for a living, I’m a professional songwriter now’, and I think it’s literally taken me three albums to feel that way.
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“I’m no longer one of the young up-and-comers that has to like, cut their teeth… I think I can just approach the next stage with a bit more calmness. It’s just been a very intense six years and I’m just excited to be a bit calmer. I don’t know what’s next, but I’m looking forward to whatever the calmness brings.”
Listen to Pre Pleasure here.
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