Interview with Julia Pratt.
Interviewed by Sarah Evangelista
Raw, emotional, and beautiful. indie alt popper Julia Pratt is feeling all the emotions and sharing them with whoever listens. She has just finished her North American run alongside Angie McMahon, and I got the chance to chat with her before she hit the stage in Montreal.
Madi Napieralski
This is your first time in Montreal, like very first time. You've never been here before. What have you done today? Have you even had down time to do anything?
We haven't honestly had a ton of time. We walked around this area. We visited like four different coffee shops this afternoon and they've all been great! We got smoothies at one.
Montreal's sort of known for their food. Which smoothie did you get?
Oh! It was really interesting, it was apple banana and spinach. I don't speak French at all and the menu was only in French. So I was like I guess we're just going to leave this up to fate. And it was really good.
Yeah! Because spinach is “epinard” or something. People seem to like put a downer on spinach, but it is actually so good in smoothies.
I love spinach because you can't really taste it but it just adds all the nutrients, I'm like I'll take it. Non-tasting nutrients!
You only have one more date of this tour. What are you most excited to do when you get home?
See my cat! Actually he's 17 pounds… the love of my life, so I'm really excited to hang out with him. Then I'm getting a tattoo the day after I get home.
What are you getting?
I don't know… I’ll decide day of!
Are you the kind of person that would leave their tattoo fate up to a gumball machine?
Yeah! I'm very spontaneous with my tattoos. I typically do flash and I'm like ‘all right… I guess this is what we're doing’.
I would be so terrified… What if it pulls out a Ninja Turtle? Well, actually, no, that'd be pretty epic, that'd be pretty fun… but something weird that's on your body forever. It’ll be a funny little memory, and it's probably cheap if it's the gumball machine.
Exactly, all about saving money, exactly.
You're on tour with Angie McMahon. What have you learned from her that’s valuable to your career?
Oh my gosh, a lot. I love her live show. I think this is the first live show I've seen where an artist has really engaged with fans throughout the whole show and she just does it so seamlessly and effortlessly. I think that's the biggest takeaway I've had. The connection that she builds with her fans is like it's unlike any I've ever seen.
Amazing! I discovered your music from “Odyssey”, it was on my Discover Weekly once and I thought it was magical. How do you feel your creative process has changed since then?
I think that song was interesting because I wrote it myself but I didn't have any hand in producing it. I handed it off to a producer named Alex Miller, who I'd never worked with before. It ended up being really great. Since then I've definitely had a heavier hand in producing my music, which has been fun. I just feel like I am more part of the sound now.
I heard that piano and cello were your first instruments and your family had a huge impact on you playing music. Were you aspiring to do other things before then?
It definitely wasn't always music. I didn't really think growing up that I was ever going to be a musician.
I wanted to be a vet for a long time and I always imagined myself healthcare adjacent. I also love animals so I just wanted to do something involving animals. Once I hit high school, I changed the path to music.
I mean… music does heal, so you have that down pact.
Do you remember a poem that you wrote when you were about five?
Oh my gosh… I actually do. I wrote it was like a collection of poems about a family of raccoons. I remember it like really vividly because I put a lot of time into it and it was basically a saga of a baby raccoon getting separated from the family, It was going through the forest to find its mom, and it was a collection of like haikus or something. I was so obsessed with animals.
That should make a reappearance… maybe it will a future project?
Yeah, I'll dig it up.
“Carolina” is stunning. This was like such a heart-wrenching project for you to make. What got you back into the creative process after opening those wounds?
To be honest, I haven't fully gotten back into it since then. I recorded it in like October and I've kind of had to step back from like making music since then.
I mean, it's been convenient because I've been on tour so I can shift focus, but I think I'm now starting to get ready to get back into it. I honestly have needed the past couple of months to like process the feelings that came up, because it was definitely very emotional. I think just having time to sit with them is what I needed to move forward.