Interview By Natalya Daoud
Straight from Washington D.C., one musician illustrates her struggle with loyalty on her first full-length album, Love Jail, released back in October via No Sleep Records.
Julia Louise always had a love for music, but it was not until high school that her jealousy over her older sister’s ability to play the guitar made her want to pick up the instrument as well. “So I used to steal her guitar and played it at home,” Louise says.
Louise moved from Washington D.C. to Richmond, Virginia, when she was 18 years old. There, she became involved with the music scene and continued to play music. “The music scene there was pretty big,” she says. “I just started going to shows and decided I wanted to be in a band and playing with them.”
She released her first EP, Insatiable, on No Sleep Records in 2016. On that record, she talks about her struggles with her family.
Love Jail—which was recorded with producer Alex Estrada and Louise’s backing band, Lukas Previn of United Nations and David Haik of both Pianos Become The Teeth and United Nations—is an album of poppy, angry tracks that really capture the audience’s ears. On this album, Louise uses music as a healing mechanism for her major struggles with friends and her ex-boyfriend.
One issue she deals with is loyalty. It was during a bad breakup that Louise realized how much loyalty means to her. “It’s pretty much just about how you have to get over thinking that you can trust your friends and the people that you’re really close to and your significant others when they do something that you wouldn’t expect,” she says. “It’s just sort of about that relationship ending, getting over it, and learning how to cope in healthy ways.”
The album exemplifies “feeling trapped, because you have no control over your own feelings,” Louise says. “It’s about someone else being in the driver’s seat of your emotions.”
One of the songs from Love Jail—also its first single—“Brat,” is an angsty, screw-you type of song that sets the mood for the entire record, while its follow-up, “Splinter,” feels more nostalgic.
With her talent, lyrical ability, and her sincere delivery of the music, Louise really captures the essence and nostalgia of 2000s pop punk. “I’m so stuck on a lot of the old bands that I used to listen to all the time,” she says. Motion City Soundtrack, Jimmy Eat World, and The Promise Ring are just a few of the bands who influence her.
Louise caters her music to people of all ages, describing it on her Facebook page as: “All ages daytime punk.”
Louise and her band have not played live as of yet, but they did record an Audiotree session, which was released on Nov. 6. “We’ve played together, like, back in D.C. a whole bunch, but we haven’t played any live shows,” she confirms. Louise says she definitely wants to tour to promote the album, but nothing is official just yet.
