This interview was first published on www.emofag.net
This year, we got the opportunity to discover on a larger frame the mind-blowing talent of this Brooklyn native singer known as Julie Christmas… If “Coward” by Made Out Of Babies confirmed all the good we were thinking of them since their debut on Neurot Recordings, the Battle Of Mice album, “A Day Of Nights”, brutally brought us the certitude that she’s among the greatest vocalists we can hear today (and there are not that numerous)… Added to the fact that she seems to be quite an interesting person, I had no other alternatives than sending her my questions… Few of them returned unanswered, but regarding her schedule you won’t be surprised that she have better things to do that answer stupid questions from a stupid webzine… But, well, we manage to talk about Black Metal, James Bond girls & Chuck Norris, so I think this interview is not that bad… See for yourself!
emofag: Paris has became a very strange city now as we got this new president, a Giulani fan-boy, full of cops and scared people… How is New-York these days? Did you always live there? Do you live in the “Woody Allen” NYC or the “Scorcese” one?
Julie Christmas: It’s really hard to think about mayoral personalities when your President is such a lazy, lying, hateful, spoiled, evil, viciously idiotic, anti-humanitarian coward. New-York is really different from when I was growing up (which would have been partially Scorsese, partially Spike Lee, I am from Brooklyn and still live there). It’s still pretty great though. There is something about the city that transcends any of the people in it at any one time. It’s like you can feel the collection of marks left by all of the immigrant classes that have ever been here. Corporations are going to rip down Coney Island to make luxury hotels for people swimming in blood money. Hey, like our president, so ask
me in five years! Not that I’m bitter, or anything.
e: If I come to New-York to open a French restaurant will I get rich, famous & fat?
JC: Definitely.
e: When did you start to perform as a singer? Was it a dream when you were a kid? You know… singin’ and dancin’ in front of your bedroom mirror?
JC: I would like to think that I was always cooler than that, but I was definitely a bedroom singer and dancer. I used the hairbrush and everything.
I have been singing since I could speak, and I learned very early that if you put your face very close to a wall and sing, you can hear your own voice and do different things with it. We always had flat full of strangers, so people would pass by me all the time, a little body singing to a wall.
e: Who were your first music heroes? Are they the same today?
JC: The list has grown, but my first music heroes were B.B. King, Aretha Franklin and Mozart. I didn’t know anything about them, except for the way the music made me feel. I listened all the time.
e: I love to listen to Black Metal these days… Good ol’ Black Metal from the early days… Don’t you?
JC: Except for knowing some amazing, and sometime hilarious, band names, I don’t really know much about Black Metal. From what I hear, though, Black Metal came from what sounds to me like gang culture – where the most insane characters were also the most amazing front men.
e: Any good musical discoveries you recently made?
JC: Yes, but none of them are from bands. I have been listening to sounds around me. Everyone should try it. It’s summer here, and all of the broken air-conditioners chug along in a way that sounds like an enormous cat purring.
e: Now that you’re supposed to be an adult, do you feel much different from the kid you were?
JC: Yes. I can do whatever I want now.
e: “Coward” came a few months ago and then the Battle Of Mice album followed right after… It must have been a quite busy year right?
JC: It WAS Very busy, but nothing compared to right now. I am working on a new project called Spylacopa. John LaMacchia, from Candiria, started it. The other members are Jeff from Isis and Greg from Dillinger Escape Plan, as well as an amazing drummer and engineer. I am also working on some music of my own, which is terrifying. I’m getting ready to tour with M.O.o.B in a few weeks, and then we’ll start writing for a new album. Battle Of Mice has a split with Jesu coming out soon on Robotic Empire. I’m also starting to develop ideas for a series of underground art shows with Australian artist Seldon Hunt (because the art you often see in galleries leaves out the some of the best young talent we have today) and doing an advice column for Canadian based magazine “Caustic Truths”.
e: When you’re not writing & singing, how do you spend your spare time?
JC: What is this “spare time” you speak of? Is that some kind of weird sex fetish?
e: I think that “Of Days Of Nights” got a bigger coverage (at least in France) than the Made Out Of Babies album… How do you explain that? Which one was the most successful on a commercial level?
JC: Paying attention to commercial success absolutely rips all the fun out of making music, so I ignore it for the most part. It is amazing to know that anyone is interested in your music enough to support it, so thank you to everyone who did. As for why more people listened to “A Day Of Nights” more than “Coward”, well, you would have to ask them.
e: You’ve recorded then you’ve toured with Made Out Of Babies… I’ve seen on the band’s website that you lost your voice during the tour and therefore had to cancelled a few shows… Not enough rest, too much mess? Everything’s ok now?
JC: It was just one date! We drove all day to get there and I tried my best to get well on the trip and then sat in steam for hours trying to get to the point where we could play. I felt like I let everyone down. The promoter was amazing and even people that came to see us seemed to understand. Sometimes your body takes over, and it’s best to listen. Everything is fine now. I’m stronger than ever.
e: How do you usually warm up your voice before a show?
JC: I walk around singing to walls like I did when I was a kid, or I walk around the club singing. Sometimes cars slow down or stop because men think I’m a prostitute.
e: Have you ever tried the Death Metal growl?
JC: Yes. I don’t know if I’m any good at it, but I can do it pretty easily. It isn’t as hard as singing or full-out screaming. I think it’s one of those things that people can fake pretty easily, without actually being very good at it. I didn’t know who he was when I heard his voice, but I was struck by Atilla Sihar’s voice (Am I spelling that right? The singer from Mayhem, I think). He’s the real thing. You know it when you hear him.
e: Except this broken-voice thing, was the last Made Out Of Babies Tour a good one? What were the venues you enjoyed the most?
JC: The last M.O.o.B. tour was the best so far. Every place we visited was amazing. I can not say thank you enough to all the people that came out to support us and everyone, everywhere, who booked shows, cooked us dinner and let us drool all over their nice clean sheets.
I have to say, I thought about France a great deal before we played there, because there seems to be a long standing cultural animosity between France and America. What I found was rooms full of warm and open minded people. It made me remember how France accepted African American Jazz musicians when most of America was incapable of doing so. I love my home, but I would like to live in France someday. I was thinking of next year sometime.
e: All your shows are critically acclaimed… Is that because you’re a good band or because people writing these reviews are 98% male?
JC: Good band.
e: Any touring plan with Battle Of Mice?
JC: Not yet, we’re trying to work it out.
e: I must admit I’m quite impressed by your performance on “A Day Of Nights”… It makes me think to these oracles in Ancient Greece, they were called “Pythies” and they were supposed to speak the voice of the elder Gods when entering a brutal trance… Have you ever heard of them? How do your consider your vocal parts on the album when you look back on it?
JC: Thank you very much. I think the vocals on “A Day Of Nights” are not always perfect, but they are always honest and straight from the heart. I think sometimes that it is because of the imperfections in the performance that so much emotion shows through.
e: Is this mystic experience the reason why you sing? Is this the state you try to reach whenever you grab a microphone?
JC: I don’t try to reach it. It’s always there trying to get out. If I didn’t sing I would be in a mental institution.
e: Let’s talk about your lyrics… What’s the mood you need to be in order to write a good song?
JC: I haven’t figured that out yet. I think it has to do more with how inspired I am by the music itself than my mood.
e: Even if that’s less (at least physically) intense, do you feel sometimes just like after a singing session… Lookin’ back at your words and say: “Wow, I wrote this??!!”?
JC: Sometimes I like a line or two, but it’s rare and there is never a “wow” in front of it. I feel like I am too clumsy with words to ever actually explain things the way I want to, so I usually end up not worrying about whether people can understand what I say. I try to get everything across in the tone of my voice. There aren’t words for everything I want to say anyway.
e: Do you know a bit about french surrealism?
JC: What I know about French Surrealism, and pretty much everything else, could find shade under a blade of grass.
e: Do you love labradors?
JC: Who doesn’t ? But in my lyrics, dogs are usually people.
e: Is it a really different thing, writing for Made Out Of Babies than for Battle Of Mice?
JC: Yes and no. Everything comes from me, so yes.
But It comes from different places, so no.
e: I’ve read somewhere that when recording “At The Base Of The Giant’s Throat”, you ended your take without knowing what you had sung… Tell us more about that…
JC: I think I just closed my eyes and let myself forget about singing properly, or anyone being able to understand what I was trying to say, and just let my instincts and emotions take control of my throat. I don’t know if I can explain it well enough to make everyone understand. It was like being dragged under a huge wave. When I hear that song I always notice the part where my voice breaks towards the end of the song and it reminds me about a part of myself that I sometimes forget. It is soft and ragged and desperate at the same time.
e: Still no comments on the 911 call?
JC: Can’t.
e: What about writing (short) novels? Is that an idea you keep in mind for a near future?
JC: I do some writing. I would love to try to make the time some day to do a series of short stories. Right now, I pretty much make music, work and sleep. Maybe when my trust fund kicks in. That is a joke, by the way. I’m a poor as a church mouse.
e: Did you see “Coffee & Cigarettes” by Jim Jarmusch? Who’s the smartest between Iggy Pop & Tom Waits?
JC: The RZA.
e: Would you like to play a James Bond girl?
JC: Only if I could have some freakish and hideous lethal talent, like huge fat thighs that clapped together so loud that the sound breaks your ear-drums. Or agent-orange breath. I don’t like the new Bond girls in general. The Pierce Brosnan-era Bond girls are all cute in the most boring way possible. Denise Richards! Christ, A waste of space! I like the Bond girls with character – the girl that dies in the beginning of the newest one has a terrific nose.
e: The guy from “Ong-Bak” is one of your heroes, however I think that my homeboy Chuck Norris would beat the shit out of him… Don’t you think?
JC: Tony (I call him by his first name so people think I’m friends with him…and cool) would take old-ass Chuck Norris, spin him around like a wet cat, and then give him what me & my sister call: “The Smell My Nuts Hold” (see the movie and guess which move I’m talking about) till he passed out right on the nursing home floor. Then I’d run in, pull his pants down, kick him in the balls, and give Tony a hi-five.
e: We don’t have many front-women here in France… We have this girl from Melatonine, I was hangin’ out at one of their shows (what the fuck I was doing here?) and out of a sudden she said: “The next one is for my ex-boyfriend who is a fuckin’ asshole!!!” and all the 13 years old girls in the audience started to applause… That was awesome…
JC: I wonder if she said it cause she was pissed, or because she knew people would clap. Either reason is cool, by the way, it just says something different about the person and the kind of performer they are.
e: Who would you like to play music with?
JC: Anyone good.
e: Would you like to embrace a Gwen Stefani career?
JC: Who’s Gwen Stefani?
Julie Christmas
OFFICIAL MADE OUT OF BABIES WEBSITE:
http://www.madeoutofbabies.com/
OFFICIAL BATTLE OF MICE WEBSITE:
http://www.battleofmice.com/
OFFICIAL SPYLACOPA MYSPACE PAGE:
http://www.myspace.com/spylacopa
MORE JULIE CHRISTMAS INFO CAN BE SEEN AT NEUROT RECORDINGS
Check the link on our website