Frankly, at 21 years old, and with five full-length albums already under her belt, the music press should be calling Bob Pollard for a paternity test to proved that Toronto’s Giuliana Mormile of Kicksie is not his daughter. With rapid-fire Bandcamp uploads beginning in 2018, Mormile’s warm brand of emo pop has evolved with every release and pushed Kicksie’s sound in to bigger and bigger orbits.
August 2020 saw the release of All My Friends, Kicksie’s fourth full-length album, which found Mormile intertwine her melodic charms with past dreams of joining the ranks of 2000s radio punks. A Summer sleeper hit, the album was reissued by buzzing U.S. label Get Better Records and Ontario’s Blacktop Records. Kicksie returns this April 14 with Slouch courtesy of new label home Counter Intuitive Records.
Prior to the release, New Noise caught up with Mormile to discuss her growing catalog, home studio, recovering from setbacks, and pontificate about who she’d like to trade places with for a day.
What is your earliest musical memory? What was your very first favorite song?
It’s hard to pinpoint the very first memory, but one that I always think about even now is this one specific night in particular when I was really little. It must have been around 2005-2006. I was in my sister’s room bothering her, as I usually did when I was a kid. In order to keep me away, she gave me her iPod Nano and let me listen to the music on it. I was so small, and I remember sitting under her covers and going through all the songs on it; it was life-changing for me. My earliest favorite song has to either be “This Circle” by Paramore or “The Bird and The Worm” by The Used. I also dearly loved “Irreplaceable” by Beyoncé. There was definitely Owl City in there somewhere, too. I think “Vanilla Twilight”? I had too many favorite songs as a kid.
At 22, you already have five albums under your belt and an incredible catalog of material. To what do you credit your prolific nature? Do you have a muse?
I’m not really sure what specifically keeps me going, but nothing can make me stop. I think about it from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. Music consumes my life in a way that would probably be viewed as extremely unhealthy if I wasn’t as productive as I am with it. It gives me such a rush and such a purpose that I never got as a kid. School was horrifically difficult for me, and I was never provided with the resources that could have helped me, so I think it’s also out of survival now too—I really can’t do anything else. I don’t have the skillset to survive in the corporate or academic world. Because of that, I can be excessively hard on myself, and I compare myself to others constantly.
If I don’t perform to the standards I set for myself, I have to push myself until I do. I realize the music industry is way over-saturated, so I need to have these standards in order to achieve a successful full-time career and stand out in a positive and fruitful way. Saying this makes me feel like a mean boss, but I really do take music seriously.
You record most of your songs in your own home studio correct? What does a typical session for you look like? What inspires you in the moment?
I do have a little home studio I call Bedhead Records. Because I’m a solo artist, a typical recording session is pretty chaotic for me, but fun. Wires all over the floor, instruments and gear everywhere. I normally start with guitar and then move to other instruments to put the song together. After I get the base song done, I go back and edit/rewrite each part until it’s at the point that I can sit back and go “yep, I’ve done it.”
With my living situation right now, I’m in a full house of people, so it’s way harder to get anything done, since I can really only record when no one’s home, which adds a lot to the already chaotic environment because I feel like I’m also on a time crunch whenever I’m working in the studio. Anything and everything will inspire me in the moment. For vocals and lyrics, I will seriously just sing ineligible gibberish into the mic until I can pick out a couple words I like, and then I will build the entire theme of the song around that.
Is there a single piece of gear or software that you’re currently in love with?
Thanks to my lead guitarist Sunny, a guy with a pedalboard reminiscent of a spaceship, I have been sucked into the gear world over the last year. I can’t pick just one. I recently bought an olive green Fender Mustang from this Canadian buy-and-sell app Kijiji, it’s similar to Facebook Marketplace. I wanted a beater guitar for gigging/touring, so I put up a wanted ad saying “I will take a Mustang off your hands for $500 (this is like $360 USD). Any color, any condition, I don’t care.”
Not even 10 minutes later someone replied, and the next day, I took home a stang in pristine condition which I later named Spinach. Although I bought it specifically to smack it around and not feel bad about it, it became my favorite guitar. My poor strat has been hanging on the wall, crying and calling my name. I just didn’t think I would love it as much as I do.
I’ll talk about a couple pedals that I’ve been in love with as well. First, the Dr. Scientist Bitquest has been my entire life as of late. It’s a multi-effects pedal with eight effects that you can use clean or with the built-in fuzz, and it creates the most insane sounds you can possibly think of. I also hook up an expression pedal to it and reap the benefits of that. It’s such a fun pedal. The second pedal I just got my hands on is the Walrus Audio Julianna Chorus. We have the same name, but mine is spelt Giuliana. My favorite effect just so happens to be chorus—So this pedal felt like it was made specifically for me. I think it’s the best chorus available right now, and you can tweak it super finely as well. It just sounds immaculate. I think it’ll be a pedal I’ll keep on my board forever.
What prompted the leap from Get Better and Blacktop to Counter Intuitive?
When I released my last record, All My Friends, it was a digital-only release. I was an independent musician and didn’t really have the means to be making physical releases of my music. But Get Better Records were down to make cassettes for it, and then soon after, Blacktop Records wanted to make vinyl. We did these insane liquid, glitter filled vinyl that sold out so fast, it was such an awesome experience to get to hold them and be like, “Wow. This is real, and it exists.”
I think through all of that, I eventually caught the attention of Counter Intuitive who reached out to us, and that was just how that happened. These labels have been so good to us. We are just absolute besties with Ben from Blacktop Records,; he’s given us so many amazing opportunities and the whole band loves him dearly. I owe a lot of what we’re doing now to him. So yeah, major respect to Ben!
I dig the Mario Cart allusion in “You’re On.” I think everyone feels like they’ve been hit by the blue shell. How do you recover from setbacks? Is there someone in your life that helps you get re-centered?
Thank you! I had a feeling that line would be well-received. As far as setbacks go, I have a really difficult time recovering from them. I must have been a serial killer in my past life because I barely have time to recover from something that happens to me before the next thing takes place. I feel like I can’t catch a break—but I have an incredible support system. My sister is really good at helping me through life; I know I can ask her questions about being an adult, and she gives me really good advice. My partner Brynn is a really good shoulder to cry on and to talk through things with, and she takes care of me really well when I’m feeling sad.
My bandmates have been amazing, too. My bassist, Ethan, is such an amazing friend and is so understanding and kind. No matter what, he always comes through with his smiling face and positive energy, and I always look forward to being around him. My lead guitarist, Sunny, is one of my favorite people to talk through things with. He’ll listen to audio messages longer than a feature film and will always be supportive no matter what. Whenever I run into musical issues I go to him first to ask about it, and my drummer Morgan is the person who can think realistically about things and just never has a bad take. He’s been a big part of my growth and professionalism as a band leader, and he’s been really good planning out this tour we have coming up—thinking of ideas that I wouldn’t have in a million years thought of.
The video for “You’re On” is great, too. Was making that a fun experience?
The “You’re On” video was a ton of fun to make. My band has a really good stage presence in general, so getting to translate that to a video was amazing. Our partners also came along for the shoot, everyone together is called “Bandsie & Affiliates,” and they are always so helpful and receptive to the project. They were just making us laugh the whole day and kept the mood super light.
We were actually all really stressed when we got there, we had to drive through this insane snowstorm. There were trucks in the ditch, the whole highway was closed off because of accidents that were happening and we got there way past when we should have because of it. We were able to get back on our feet really quickly because everyone was helping us stay positive and it turned out to be a great shoot.
If you could be anyone else for a day, who would you be?
I feel like if I could be anyone, I think I would be either Tyler the Creator, Frank Ocean, or Jacob Collier. I have never listened to a single Jacob Collier song; I know absolutely nothing about him, but I’ve seen some live performance clips before, and I would like to just enter his brain to try and soak up any knowledge I can, and that’s literally my only reasoning. Maybe I should start listening. I picked Frank Ocean because I need to know what he’s doing instead of dropping the album.. And Tyler, mostly for the same reason as Jacob, I just want to see how he works in the studio and his production process.
“Boyfriend” is a fun song. Do you have a healthy self-image, self-confidence?
Actually, I hilariously have a terrible self-image. I’m not really sure how “Boyfriend” came about, but that is probably the complete opposite of who I actually am. I never write about how I’m the best or most confident or how I’m going to steal your girls or anything like that, so when the idea came to me, it was like this breath of fresh air for, like, the Kicksie sound. Maybe I’m trying to manifest that type of confidence into existence, and it’s definitely a fun song to play live because I get to pretend to act that way for a couple minutes. The crowd always loves it, and I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out; it’s one of my favorites on the record.
How did your collaboration with Mei come about?
Me and Mei were friends for a few years before working on this song. We met in college back in 2019, and we’ve been pretty inseparable ever since. Our personalities just work really well together not only in a friendship setting but in a music setting as well. She’s one of my favorite people to do the music thing with, and we’re able to play to each other’s strengths and weaknesses really well. I wanted her on this record in some way and I had a bridge to this song that I felt would just be perfect for her so she came over and we recorded her vocals and also got her to play the acoustic guitar which was a perfect touch to the song.
Is there a theme that ties the songs from Slouch together?
There are definitely some recurring themes throughout the record, and I wrote it while I was going through some pretty difficult times. I’m plagued with pretty bad abandonment issues, and the songs for the most part are about feeling like no matter how hard you try for someone they can decide to just up and leave whenever they feel like. On the outside, I realize that there’s nothing you can do to keep someone in your life, and that’s just the way it is, but it always hits me pretty hard.
The album, as the first track suggests, is about trying to make peace with yourself and getting closure when you can’t get it from the other person. And trying to move forward with life even though you’ve got a lot weighing on your mind. Around that time my best friend of, like, 16 years disappeared and took my whole friend group with them. They were my favorite people; I lived for them, and I wrote All My Friends about them. We never fought; we never did anything like that, I just woke up one day and never heard from them again. It’s extremely hard even now; I don’t know what caused it but I still feel like it’s my fault, and I blame myself for whatever happened. Slouch is the direct aftermath of that. It’s about wondering what the hell is going on, where I went wrong, and creating my own closure so I can move on.
What are your loftiest goals or dreams related to this release?
I’ve got some pretty lofty goals that I will refrain from sharing for my own pride’s sake. But as this is my label debut, I want this record to set me up pretty well for the future. I’m already planning the next album, but I want to already have a decent amount of success under my belt before releasing anything else. I want this record to help me start touring frequently and get my name out there I guess, so when the next record drops it just really takes off. I’m not sure what else I’m expecting from Slouch. I just want to prove with it that I deserve to get to the places I want to go.
