With Hopscotch right around the corner, and WKNC’s Day Party at Legends following closely in its wake– how better to promote both events than by give y’all a lil’ insight into our Day Party Line-up!
WKNC’s Day Party description is as follows.
This year has been full of milestones, and WKNC aims to celebrate them all. 2019 held Raleigh’s first ever Pride Festival, was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and marks ten years of Hopscotch. With this in mind, WKNC’s Hopscotch Day Party aims to promote and celebrate LGBTQ+ affiliated artists from across the state to keep the Pride Party going all year long! Featuring Petrov, Emily Musolino, Juxton Roy, Through the Tallwoods, Black Bouquet, and To Julian, the party will be hosted on Saturday, September 7th at Legends Club. This event is all-ages and supported by the NC State GLBT Center.
This will be a series up until the Day Party, so the questions will be the same, but we can guarantee that every artist will add their own personal flare to each answer.
This is ~officially~ To Julian’s very first interview and WKNC is very excited to have this alumnus, friend, and artist share their insight with us.
Read their answers below 🙂
- Give us a lil rundown of how your band got formed! When/where/how/why! When I was 19, I felt like I was stagnating and living without a passion. I grabbed my friends and went to a pawn shop down the road from the house I was raised in, and bought my first guitar for $70. I never took a lesson, never sat down and learned with anyone; I just labored and labored until I was proficient and stuck my hands in weird places on the guitar. and so came to be ‘to julian’!
- What can an audience member expect from one of your shows?confusion? Everyone always comes up to me afterwards and relays the fact that they don’t know whether they should be really happy or really sad.
- Do you see performance as a task or an endeavor? In that vein, what part about performing is most challenging or liberating? In many ways, it’s both. I have horrible performance anxiety to the point where I can’t eat anything the day of a show or else it’ll just come back up the way it came, so managing that has been a challenge. But in the same way, it’s extremely liberating to grapple with that anxiety and win. I’ve trained myself to just think that the stage is my bedroom – now everyone gets to see exactly who I am.
- What does Pride mean to you? How do you embody those meanings in your music? In your everyday life? Pride is nurturing and holding. The queer community has always held me, understood me, taught me, and given me strength in a way that no one else has. It’s allowed me to be exactly who I was meant to be with nothing held back; which is essentially exactly why I make music. I make music because one day, when I have a child, I want them to know that I did it! I figured out the way to feel most like me and now I get to spend the rest of my life flying into myself. I figured out how to hold nothing back and show everyone exactly who I am and be proud of that person too.
- What are you most excited about during Hopscotch? Honestly, this is the first year I’m not attending the festival as a whole but rather just the day parties, so I’m excited to get some rest for my feet so next year I can walk twice as fast.
- For the tenth anniversary of Hopscotch, what would you ten years ago think about you now? 12 year old Michael was so simple; I listened to Queen, Gorillaz, Deftones, I just learned how to ride a bike (I know I was late!), and I always itched to be different, but didn’t know how to. I’d be so proud of myself. shocked, but proud.
- Please list some fun facts about your band! ooooh … I already discussed a couple of these but … I’ve only been playing guitar for 3 years! I can do this weird thing where I sit criss-cross on the ground and without using my hands, bring my feet into the lotus position? and then since my legs are essentially knotted and unable to move freely, I walk around on the floor using my arms as legs. Real good party trick! One last one … my sister and I were born exactly 4 years apart on April 8th, which just so happens to be my favorite song by neutral milk hotel, which is also my favorite song on earth.
You can learn more about To Julian by visiting their Facebook page or Instagram (@2222Julian) and, of course, by attending WKNC’s Hopscotch Day Party. It will be held at Legends Club on Saturday, September 7th and begins at noon!
Pre-game the show by previewing all of the acts discographies on bandcamp! To Julian’s bandcamp link is as follows.
https://tojulian.bandcamp.com/
Just like the show…… listening to their bandcamp is free too.
