When Long Island songstress Julia Wolf sang "you should probably get off my dick" on her debut album, you would think that this particular pop singer had a bit of attitude, bravado and swagger.
The actual Julia Wolf, however, is much more reserved, kind and even a touch shy. This is the reason why her latest album, Pressure, swings away from ego-pumped pop and into something more fragile. The change-up also came with a significant genre shift, as Wolf traded trap beats for distorted guitars. It’s the kind of musical flip that makes it totally normal for her to now be collaborating with a broader range of artists.
“It’s just not me, you know,” mentions Wolf when discussing the mood shift between albums. “I was always being put into sessions where the people around me were super hyped on the attitude stuff, and it made me find it super difficult to voice how I just wasn’t resonating with things happening. I can objectively see why it’s popular, though, like the swag of it.”
Julia Wolf’s Australian tour
- Beyond The Valley (sold out)
- 2 January – The Espy (sold out)
- 3 January – Mary’s Underground (sold out)
- 5 January – The Brightside Brisbane
Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
Wolf’s newer single, In My Room, is a powerful, emotional ballad laced with heavy guitars that draw a lot of Evanescence comparisons due to the similarities between Wolf’s and Amy Lee’s vocals (Wolf’s Twilight obsession also probably doesn’t help). Regardless, the track is a banger, and if you disagree, you are also disagreeing with Drake, who heard it and immediately hit up Wolf to feature on his song DOG HOUSE (also featuring the rapper Yeat).
This collaboration, and the fact that Wolf’s popularity has been rising just off the back of her own hard work, has turned her into a pretty big deal. So big, in fact, that she caught the attention of Beyond the Valley, and will be making her first trip to Australia to join the now sold out festival and run some of her own headline dates as well, stopping in Melbourne and Sydney (both sold out) as well as Brisbane.
“It’s my first time to Australia – very much long overdue,” she says.
For Wolf, life has been busy, and as she has made her way into more and more feeds, she’s opted to get off the internet. “I am almost keeping to myself even more, just because it makes me a little crazy, all of the spotlight and things like that. I’m super grateful for it, but the crazier it gets, the more I have been shrinking away.”
The spotlight, however, was all part of Wolf’s plan, as writing music was always her only career option. “I always knew pretty early on that this is the only thing I’m good at and the only thing that I want to pursue.
Writing music definitely started out as a way of just getting things off my chest without having to really speak these things face-to-face with someone.
I’m not telling anyone that I slit my throat for them just to see how they react, but I can write a song, and then people can resonate with that. And I feel less crazy, just because they’re telling me, ‘Oh, no, I think the same way as you.’ It’s a form of self-expression that started out as a necessity, and now I see how it helps other people, so it definitely keeps me going.”
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As Wolf prepares for her first trip down under, she has but one question: “I was going to ask if you guys like Twilight? I could talk about it forever. I adore it with all of my heart, but I am curious, was it a big deal over there? I feel like it’s just everywhere in L.A. The resurgence has been huge, honestly. I feel like I helped, you know, bring it back to life here,” she laughs.
“But yeah, I guess if anyone wants to give me anything at a show, it would be a Twilight-related item. That seems to be the thing that happens on tour now. I have so much Twilight merch, you would not believe, and I want it all.”
Julia Wolf is playing at Beyond The Valley, which runs from 28 December to January 1. Find out more about BTV here.
