Julian Saunders on the Past and Presence

^{Article by Natalie Silva, photos by Nico Beau}

On a cold and rainy Tuesday evening, Julian Saunders and his band graced Beat Kitchen, playing alongside fellow opener Francesca Blanchard and headliner Edwin Raphael. Performing a string of indie folk songs to an eager crowd full of friends, family, and strangers alike, Saunders lit up the venue with his warm energy and heartfelt lyrics. 

Composed of himself, Julian Saunders (lead vocals and guitar), as well as Ethan Davila (upright bass), John Curry (drums), Eric Arroyo (keys), Jack Vavrinchik (pedal steel), and Gavin Warner (guitar, mandolin, and banjo), the act proved a wonderful medley of talented musicians. Kicking off the show with Saunders’ song “Ready to Go Again,” the audience was willingly sucked into the set. Playing through nearly all of his EP, “Presence,” Saunders noted the distinction between the recorded versions of his songs and their live counterparts. In particular, he commented on the enjoyment of performing “Willow Tree” live, and with the dancing that could be seen throughout the crowd it was clear why. This jaunty tune was the perfect contrast to his other songs, which tend to mirror the tone of artists like Elliott Smith and Adrianne Lenker: beautifully melancholic. Sharing unreleased songs “Dead Friends” and “You,” Saunders gave the audience a glimpse into his future as a songwriter and musician. With plans to release an album in the upcoming year, fans can get excited for what is to come. Closing out the night with “Anymore,” which highlights his Jeff Buckley-esque vocal tone, Saunders left it all on stage. With his love and appreciation apparent upon exit, Julian Saunders made it known he will continue to play his music around the city, with opportunities to catch another one of his sets on the horizon. 

After the show, Natalie Silva had the opportunity to talk on-air with Julian Saunders about his musical inspirations, favorite albums of 2024, and more. 

Natalie Silva: You're listening to 88.7 WLUW. My name is Natalie, and I have a special guest in the studio today. Would you like to introduce yourself? 

Julian Saunders: My name is Julian. Julian Saunders. Hi!

So we're gonna do a little casual interview today. Nothing crazy. Would you like to tell us about what you do? 

Yeah! I play music. Put out an EP a couple months ago. It's, you know, some nice folky music. Just played a show at Beat Kitchen a couple days ago. That went swimmingly. It was really great.

It was great! Well, to kick off the hour, what are we going to be listening to?

So I picked “Carthage” by Hayden Pedigo. He's a huge inspiration to me. And, yeah, just like super spacey, folky, quiet, meditative vibes, I guess.

Alrighty, well, we will be back on air to chat in a little bit, but for now, this is “Carthage”.

Okay so we just talked a little bit about this off air, but what is your favorite Chicago venue? 

Hmmm. Schubas is great. That's the first venue I ever went to in Chicago. I saw this band there from Detroit, and they're really great. Mac Saturn, but yeah, I've always wanted to play that venue, hopefully soon, that'd be really cool. Thalia Hall's just so cool too.

Yeah, that's my favorite Chicago venue. 

Is that my favorite? I'm trying to think, oh no, Subterranean, Sub T Upstairs is so great. I think The Sea Ghouls, shout out The Sea Ghouls, I think they're playing there soon. But yeah, anyways, Subterranean is definitely my favorite venue in Chicago. 

Do you have any bands in mind who you'd like to tour with in the future? 

I mean, so many, Big Thief for one, Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek, Twain, that whole group of amazing musicians. They're so, so amazing. I mean, I feel like I obviously want to tour with them, just to meet them for one, but also their music has been so inspiring to me. And Pinegrove. I mean, every single one of them, they're all just such great bands. 

Do you have any song recommendations for the people if they've never heard of these bands?

Oh gosh. Okay, for Pinegrove probably “Rings.” “Need” by Pinegrove is great, and “Cyclone.” For Big Thief, “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You,” “Change,” “Certainty.” Oh, gosh, I'm blanking on so many songs. I feel like, yeah, those are some good ones. We'll leave it there. I don't have to dive into their whole discography. 

Do you have any comments about Pinegrove before we play it for the people?

Just that they're so awesome and so cool, and they need to start playing shows again. It's been, it's been too long, and I want to see them live already.

Well, this is “Rings” by Pinegrove.

—

Alrighty. You just heard “Son of Sam” by Elliott Smith, and Julian, I heard that you like Elliott Smith. Is that true? 

Oh, yeah, I love Elliott Smith. He's really cool. I actually have him tattooed on my arm. 

No way, me too!

Whoa, you too? That's pretty nuts.

Will you tell me about why you like Elliott Smith?

I mean, how can you not like Elliott Smith? My dad introduced me to Elliott. My dad was a drummer in a band called Brendan Benson. Well, that was the dude who he was playing with, and they opened on tour for Heatmiser. For those who don't know, that was Elliott's band back before he went solo. And, yeah, they were good friends on tour for a little bit, and, you know, my dad had kids later in life, and he quit the music scene. And then he had a kid growing up who was into music and really sad, depressing, you know, quiet folk music. He was like, oh, I'm gonna just like, make this kid super happy. So he showed me Elliott and, yeah, it went from there. 

Speaking of sad music…Would you like to tell us about some of your new sad songs that you played at Beat Kitchen? 

Oh yeah.

They were really sad. I almost cried.

That's good. That's good. Letting out emotions is great, man. You gotta feel all the things. Well, we played a song called “Dead Friends,” which is one that I wrote not too long ago. And that song is just, oh gosh, it's so great. What inspired me to write it, or I guess inspired the chord progression, was listening to “Wolf” by Big Thief. And that's just a really atmospheric, just really, really great sad song. And then I sat with my guitar one day, and I just started playing these chords, and the song came to be. But it's about a conversation I had with someone the first time I met them, and they had a friend that just recently passed away, like days prior to me meeting this person, and we just talked about it, and then it's kind of also an homage to friends that I've had along the way who have passed away as well. A lot of my songs that I've written end up being weird combinations of so many different aspects of my life. I feel like one song doesn't have one particular meaning. I think it's kind of cool that way, because it doesn't, it's not like a pinpointed answer of, yeah, this song's about that one time that I cried because this girl broke up with me, or, I don't know, something like that. It's just a song that's just a feeling. All music is a feeling. 

That's pretty cool. Do you want to talk just a little bit about the music you have out right now? 

I put out an EP in March, just of a bunch of demos. And this was really my first time really recording my own music myself. The first single that I put out, “The Lonely Mountain Man.” I wrote that, and then I met my current roommate, Ryan, and he had these really great mics and this awesome sound system, and he helped record and produce the song, and we just knocked it out in one night. But the EP was really just all self recorded in my bedroom on my little Scarlett Solo and, like, just not good equipment, and I had no idea what I was doing. But yeah, I just had a bunch of songs and I recorded them, and then my friend Sean did drums for “Anymore” and “Presence,” and yeah, Ryan mixed it, and then we put it out. We’re playing all these songs live now, and it's, it's so cool, because I feel like, at least for me, when I listen to the EP, everything is so much quieter. It's a lot more like, you could tell that when I was recording it, I was super, just like, hyper fixating on “this needs to sound like this,” and then when we play it live, it just is so much more effortless and loud and in your face and really, just all filled with life and love. And I have no idea how to explain it at all, but it just feels more real, as if that’s how the song was supposed to sound all along, in comparison to the recorded version of it. It almost feels as if it's like hiding away the true greatness of the song. Now you hear it live, and it's like, oh my god. 

No, I get that. I feel like there are a lot of artists who talk about similar feelings towards their music that's already been released. Lizzie McAlpine talks a lot about how she doesn't absolutely love her older music. And it's interesting because, like, when you hear the artist talk about not liking their old music, everybody's immediate reaction is “but it's so good”, which is true, but it’s nice to have that artist perspective. 

I guess for me, it just, I don't know, you hear it so much, and it's also, I mean, as humans, we can't help but be so insecure of all parts of ourselves, like me included in that, you know. I think we're all insecure beings, and so when you create something that's so vulnerable I mean, it's just truly, stripping the ego and putting everything out there. And when you put that out into the world for people to see, it's, you know, it's terrifying, man, it's weird. Just as humans we can't help but nitpick all the little things in there, and then, you know, what happens with most music is it gets old to to a point, you know, you listen to a song over and over again, and then it's like, okay, I can't listen to this anymore. And so when you, when you write a song, and you hear it 500 million times through, you know, recording it and then mixing it and hearing all the different mixes. It's just, at the end of the day, it honestly just sounds like white noise. And that's when you write new music. 

Speaking of new music, what is your album of the fall? Your favorite album of 2024 even. 

Honestly, probably the new MJ Lenderman album. 

I knew you were going to say that. That’s a good pick. 

—

(On “Grace” by Jeff Buckley”)

Listening to “Grace” by Jeff Buckley is, I think, one of my first memories. 

You know when something's just stuck in your subconscious and you don't know that it's in your memory until you hear a certain thing again, or you smell a certain thing, or something happens? So I think it was during Covid times, and I was just going through music and listening to a bunch of random things. And I don't know, I don't know what inclined me to listen to Jeff, but I put on Grace and the chorus hit and I felt like I was just tiny and in my old home in Southfield, Michigan. And it was so weird. It just, it took me all the way back, and it's something that shook my whole body and soul and mind. It was just so weird. And yeah, then I listened to that whole album on repeat for months and months and months after that.. And now he's one of my biggest influences of all time. And I mean vocally and in terms of guitar, instrument wise. And gosh, he's just so fantastic.

And actually, fun fact, Jeff Buckley passed away the day that my brother was born. Like, May 29th, 1997 my brother was born, and Jeff Buckley passed away the same day, same year. 

So reincarnated?

Yeah, Jeff Buckley reincarnated. 

That's actually awesome.

I know it's super cool.

Okay I asked Jeff Rosenstock this question and I thought it was so fun to talk about so I’m going to ask you as well. If you could put one of your songs in a movie, like an already existing movie, which one would you choose? Which song and which movie?

Well, okay, the first one off the top of my head, maybe, I don't know, Good Will Hunting would be great. “Ready to Go Again” would be good in that one. Where the Wild Things Are? Hm I’m trying to think of what “Willow Tree” would fit in. Maybe an old Western? 

Okay okay. I was thinking like coming of age, upbeat, like walking down the street, “Willow Tree”.

Really? 

Yeah, really! As an audience member at least. Like “Because of Winn-Dixie”. Ooo or one of your sad songs in like “Bridge to Terabithia”. We’ll have to think on that some more. 

—

I have a special request from an anonymous listener for you to tell your story about your interaction with Jeff Tweedy while he was on stage. So take it away.

Okay, okay, so I'm a big fan of big adrenaline rushes, and I saw Jeff Tweedy play live. He played a solo set at Navy Pier and I really wanted to play a song with him, and so, yeah, he was playing music on stage and I just screamed, “Hey, can I play a song with you?” and he just so blatantly said no, and then just moved on and started playing “Jesus, Etc.”. But I was enthralled. I mean, it was great. It was awesome to see and he's an amazing performer. I'd love to meet him one day. Yeah, great dude. 

Great dude!

Okay, should we play the people a tune? 

Yeah, we're gonna listen to “The Boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel.

The first time I ever heard that song I was driving to Montana with my mom just for a funny little road trip. I was, I want to say 12 or 13 years old, and we were just like driving on the side of this mountain. I think we might have been in Wyoming at the time, and my mom loved to just listen to whatever radio was on at the time, whatever was in that area, and “The Boxer” came on the radio. And I remember just looking out the window and hearing those, all those big horns, and just feeling so I don't even know if I can put words to the feeling that was being felt, just awesome. 

Aww that’s cute. My favorite road trip song is a song called “Living Next Door to Alice” by Smokey. My mom and I always listen to that in the car. 

I love songs where there's a deep connection to family with it. “The Boxer” is definitely one for me, and also “The Biggest Lie.”. 

So cool! Well unfortunately it is that time of the night where I have to sign off, and Julian's gonna sign off too, because he's here. But yeah, do you have any last comments before we go?

My EP “Presence” is on Spotify, I don't have any shows coming up, but we will have shows in the future, just nothing planned yet. 

Some insider WLUW information, I think your live session will be coming out soon so that’s exciting. That will be on our YouTube page in the next couple months.

Oh awesome! Alright!  

Well, thanks for tuning in!

You can check out Julian Saunders on Instagram here, and listen to his music on Spotify here!