Bibliographic 2.4 feat. Julie Doiron
When I started this Substack, I vaguely thought I would write about ways to “change or not change your life” (whatever that means!), but increasingly I think this is about maintaining enthusiasm in the face of getting older. It’s astounding, sometimes, how easy it is to get bogged down by the day to day, but it’s fun to be excited about things, whatever those things are to you.
When I heard that a musician I’ve loved for more than half my life was releasing a new album, I got the idea to interview her, then thought it was a bad idea because I had too much going on, then sent her a message anyway. When she agreed, I was so excited.
My fandom of Julie Doiron has been a through line since I first heard her in high school. I don’t think I’ve seen any artist as much as I’ve seen her, in countless bars and theatres and fields and record stores all over Ontario. Her music is an old friend to me, a comforting voice that has soundtracked so many parts of my life.
On November 26 Julie released I Thought of You, her first solo album since 2012’s So Many Days. I’ve always wanted to write some kind of long-form profile about her and I considered venues to pitch to, but ultimately I wanted to write something in the context of the relationship I’ve always had with her music: something cozier, more personal. I’d “interviewed” her once back in my early zine days— I mailed her questions and she wrote me back, and I didn’t edit anything, I just photocopied the handwritten responses directly into the pages. Maybe one day I’ll write that formal profile, but not this time.
Julie Doiron is a legend within certain subsets of indie rock, but there’s also a good chance you aren’t familiar with her— she’s managed to fly under the radar despite her long career. For some background: she was the bassist in Eric’s Trip in the mid-nineties. The band got signed to Sub Pop when Canadian East Coast indie rock was a thing. The band was known for their lo-fi recordings and diary-entry style songs, Julie’s voice a sweet counterpoint to Rick White’s. Her solo work continued along that intensely personal vein and if you listen to her albums in order, you could cobble together a not wholly inaccurate biography: relationships flourishing and ending, babies born and growing up, the vagaries of being a touring musician in a frequently cutthroat industry. She’s collaborated with so many musicians over the years, and funny, the last concert I went to before the pandemic was to watch her sing with Phil Elverum/Mount Eerie.
(I took this picture 14 years ago!)
Julie and I talked on Zoom on a weekday afternoon a few days before the official release of I Thought of You. When I called she had a few pots of rice and lentils going on her stove for dinner, and occasionally she’d get up to make sure nothing was burning. It was a dreary day at her home in Memramcook, an Acadian village in New Brunswick between Moncton and Sackville. She held the phone up to the window to show me how grey it was in her backyard. Here in Toronto I’d just seen the first flakes of snow. It was a good day to chat.
I wanted to talk to Julie about things like how one maintains a lifelong artistic practice, how one affords to be an artist, how one writes about the people they love. She answered all of these questions candidly and specifically.
During our conversation, two of her children came and left — je t’aime, she said to them off screen— and another called while we were chatting (she has four kids between the ages of 8 -mid-twenties). We talked about the double standard of women artists being asked about their children much more frequently than men but I knew I couldn’t avoid the topic. I’ve always been inspired by how Julie incorporates motherhood into her work. Despite being an obviously doting and loving parent, she was honest about how easy it was to succumb to feelings of guilt, especially when her kids were young.
We talked about some of the rough parts of the last little while, and she gave me some advice: “The best way you can go about life is by just being patient and taking many breaths.” I’ve been thinking about this a lot since then. It reminded me of the lyrics to her song, “Yer Kids”, which ends with: So my mother told me/ To put on your boots/ And go out in the backyard/ My mother told me/ To look up and down and all around/And to be thankful for all you've got. When the call ended, I felt such gratitude for Julie’s music, openness and commitment to art.
Since we spoke, I’ve listened to her new album a few times. It’s classic Julie Doiron, melancholy and personal, guitar heavy, her voice the real star of the show.
I’ve included my favourite excerpts from our long chat below, edited lightly for readability. If you’ve seen Julie perform live, then you know what she’s like: breezy and charming, quick to laugh. Even when our conversation got darker, there was still a lightness. I hope this comes across in what I’ve shared below.
Thank you so much, Julie.
(Some links: Buy I Thought of You from You’ve Changed Records! I put together a playlist of some of my favourite songs from her solo career! Also I talked about hearing Eric’s Trip for the first time on The Volume Knob podcast back in the spring!)
How are you feeling about the new album?
I’m really, really excited by it. I wrote two songs for it in 2016 and then I slowly started writing more in 2017 and 2018. I was going through a lot in my life and emotionally, lots of ups and downs and learning experiences: loss, meeting new people, finding love and losing love.
I hadn’t written anything since 2012 when my last record came out by choice because I got pregnant and then had the baby and I didn't want to be recording or making records. When I wanted to write more there was a bar in Sackville called Thunder & Lightning that I asked if I could do a residency at on Sunday nights. People would come anytime after five and I would start playing around six and then it would be done around sevenish. It was great because it was pay what you can so there was no pressure on me to necessarily do anything specific. I wanted to do that residency because I wanted to try and write one or two new songs every week. I wrote a bunch of the songs from the new record in November 2017 because of it.
So you wrote it back in 2017?
Mostly. It was supposed to come out in September 2020 but we pushed it back for obvious reasons, and then finally decided since we didn't know when the actual Covid measures were going to end, we would finally put it out, regardless of how much touring we could do so that we could move on. I’m still writing a bunch more songs.
My boyfriend, Dany Placard, lives in Montreal and is a musician. He played bass on the album. He was coming when the New Brunswick border was open. We would do a 14 day quarantine period every time he would come, or if I came back from there, and often when he was here I was playing him songs. We also made a record during the pandemic that's coming out in the spring under both our names.
Your songs are so personal, or seem so personal. I'd love to talk to you about what it’s like to have your life out there in music.
I think I purposefully block that all out, like how they say after childbirth women block that pain out so that procreation can keep happening. Because I write in the first person, it could be thought that all the songs are about me directly. Most of them are, but some aren't. The younger I was, the more I put everything out there and as I got a little older I started to be more hesitant. I think as I got older I realized that songs that are directly about certain people could be quite hurtful, and I don't want to hurt anyone. I'm trying to be less direct as I get older, realizing I have to change my songwriting style a little bit to not necessarily be less personal but less direct. At the same time, there are still some songs that are coming out of me that are pretty personal and direct.
This particular album I think is good for not hurting anyone— I don't think anyone's gonna go like oh man!
Do you ever run your songs by people who might know they’re about them?
Oh, no way. First of all, I find it really intimidating to play songs for the first time in front of someone just one on one.
Even at this point, after doing this for so long? I think of you as a collaborator because you've played with so many people, but I suppose that’s different from the writing experience, which is private for you.
Yeah, I just kind of write songs myself and then what happens usually is that the musicians come up with their own parts. Or I do that for others and sing on their things.
But I’ve been playing songs for Dany. We do demos in the kitchen or whatever, and I’ve finally gotten over that fear. He has a studio and does a lot of producing in Quebec so he's used to hearing people and helping them finish songs. The album we did in isolation was the first time I've really co-written with another person.
Your kids have factored into your music over the years, but they’re older now— do they listen to your music?
My 19 year old heard the first singles so far and she actually really liked them. My kids didn't really grow up listening to my music. Maybe when they were younger they heard a lot, but I think as teenagers they found their own music to listen to and they probably didn't want their mom’s depressing songs. I imagine they’ll listen when they're older or, I don't know, maybe it'll only happen when I die. Maybe my kids will listen and go like, Oh, I get it. I mean, I would have to ask them if they listen to my music, but I would never want to put them on the spot and ask. They've been to my shows and they've seen me play and they know some of the crazy stuff I talk about in between songs. But when they were younger, like preteen and teen, some of my songs were a little bit melancholic or very sad and I think kids don't like to see their parents like that.
I still consider one of your very first solo albums, Loneliest in the Morning, to be a perfect representation of that postpartum period. Did you intend for it to be?
I was 22 when I wrote Loneliest in the Morning and I wrote most of the songs after my son was born. Perhaps if I’d written about stuff that young people or non-parents wrote about then maybe I would’ve been huge. That album was a little too deep for like…
Indie rock?
I think so. But I’ve had a lot of messages from people who tell me that such and such song from that album really spoke to them or really helped them through postpartum. I’m pretty sure I had postpartum depression for two years after my first child was born and I didn't really know what was happening. I was young, and I had no friends with kids. I don't know where my friends were but they weren't necessarily with me and it was a really hard transition. It wasn't until I had my second child where all of a sudden everything made sense, like I was confident as a mom because I had done it the first time. I was only 24 when I had my second child, so I was still young enough for it to be fresh in my mind. I use the word “easy” loosely, but it felt easy compared to the first experience. But because I only know how to sing about my experiences, Loneliest in the Morning had to come out that way.
In a lot of interviews my kids came up and one of the questions I got very often was, where are your kids? who’s taking care of your kids while you're on tour? and I’d be like, well their dad. At one point I was touring with a lot of men who had children as well and they never got asked who was looking after the kids. It inevitably makes you feel bad or like you've abandoned your children.
And some days I think maybe I made a mistake to continue touring. Occasionally I have the thought where I'm like, I would’ve loved to have just been a stay at home mom, to have had that role and not be trying to have a career and be running around doing this and doing that. Sometimes I wish that my job would’ve just been to raise the kids. I feel like I missed out on a lot of stuff. Something would happen while I was on tour, and then I’d hear about it.
And yet— I didn't go on that many tours. Maybe it's perceived that I was always on tour because I wrote a lot about missing them. It wasn't until my husband and I split up that I started touring more because of things like child support and paying my bills, and touring was my actual way of making money.
But I remember it with a lot of guilt being like oh, you were always gone just because you wrote one song about missing your kids while you’re on a 20 day tour. It doesn’t mean you were gone so long!
How have you managed to maintain being an artist your whole life? You have songs about wanting to quit music, but you haven’t. Do you ever want to give up sometimes?
My husband and I were together for 12 years. He’s a painter and visual artist and I was doing music, so there were a lot of times where it was really, really, really hard, but we really worked hard and it seemed like the more broke we were, the harder we would work. I actually kind of thrived when we were broke because then I would write better songs, I would find gigs. There was one time we were so broke that I went busking for the first time ever, and I busked three days in a row which, by the third day, was getting a little bit uncomfortable. I was feeling vulnerable. And then as I was about to go out the next time I got a SOCAN cheque. The timing was perfect.
I sometimes wanted to just be a full time parent and that’s why I often wanted to quit. But that wasn't necessarily going to get me more money, like I wasn't going to get paid to stay at home. If I’d quit touring to stay home, I wouldn't have been able to pull it off. It wasn’t feasible. I think it'd be amazing if there could be a guaranteed income and I totally believe that $10 a day daycare would help so many families— that would be another great option.
When we were figuring out a time to talk, you mentioned you were working a few days. Do you have a day job then?
I’m just working part-time, only 10 hours a week. I swam all my life off and on, all during my pregnancies, and I was a lifeguard from the age of 16 to 22. I had my son and I’d planned on going back to work at the pool, but then I decided to stay with Ben and do music. When I was 45 I started getting back in shape, swimming a lot, and thought I would get recertified to see if I was capable of doing it. I started doing the courses and then, when I was doing my national lifeguarding course for pool lifeguarding, the pool where I was taking the course asked if I wanted to work there. The thing about lifeguarding or pools in general is that their staff is mostly high school students who only work on weekends and evenings. There’s a huge demand for daytime lifeguards!
I love it because they let you give your availabilities and then you choose what days you'd want to work, how many hours a week. You block time per semester so I could always reevaluate my schedule if I was going to be on tour. It’s super flexible. Right now I just work Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 8:30-2:00. I love it; I love the regulars, I love talking to the people who come every day. I don't live off of it, but it pays like $300 every two weeks. At least I know something is coming in, and if I get super broke then I could take on more hours. And I get to swim for free! I was paying to go there before I started working.
Are you psyched to go back to quasi touring?
There were times where I wasn't going to book anything but my management company was really encouraging me to do at least a record release in Montreal. I just didn't want to be stuck in that kind of situation of precariousness. For now we're doing a really small tour. That being said, there’s a two week tour booked for Spain in mid March and a week in France. I’m actually getting really excited to go there. And like, this is still my job!
Apparently the CERB is ending in December (CERB is the Canada Emergency Response Benefit that provided financial support to employed and self-employed Canadians during COVID). I actually was quite proud of myself because I haven't had to get many CERBs because I was doing shows with my boyfriend and getting paid, but then I had to get one again last week because I was really broke.
I honestly think getting that minimum income every month was partly why me and so many other songwriters were able to write songs during the pandemic. We were safe, we were able to pay our bills and buy food for families or for ourselves.
I have a friend who's a writer and a swimmer and she gets good thinking done while she swims. Do you?
You know what's interesting, I have to count when I’m swimming lengths. I think it’s kind of like a bit of a meditation for me. I get all my ideas for songs and melodies when I'm in the woods or riding a bicycle.
That's your formula!
Occasionally if I sit down here in my kitchen it’ll come out, but mostly it's while I’m walking. I think most of my creative ideas come from being outside and walking in the woods.
I have this house now that I really love and I have a lot of time on my own once Elsie’s out at school. Then I can sit down and create, but usually it's just out in my yard, or when walking the dog. I make voice memos but now and then, if I don't have anything to record with, I’ll just sing the melody over and over and over until I get home to a guitar. Twenty years ago I would carry a little handheld cassette player to do that. And when I’m writing, if I don't get a chance to record it before I have to go to like, the grocery store then I just won't go to a grocery store until I can get it down because if I hear any other songs the melody might be gone and it's just heartbreaking when you have something you're working on and then you can't find the melody anymore.
Do you still do any photography?
I think about it all the time. I have so many undeveloped films. I was shooting a lot up until a couple years ago. I’ve been talking to Dany about how I’d like to put my darkroom equipment in the basement here. But this last year and a half I just gave myself permission to do or not do whatever I want. The permission to just like, go walk in the woods all day if I need to walk in the woods all day.
I spent a lot of time crying in the woods here, just overwhelmed with the crazy news period up until the US elections and even after where I think a lot of us were just feeling like, how can this really be the world we live in, and then now still with all the anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers.
This year was a really emotional time for a lot of people, and it was also time for people to wake up and notice. I think a lot of people were dealing with the whole range of emotions and guilt and shame. I don't know if it's because of the pandemic or the isolation or because I'm almost 50, but I'm noticing more.
And how do you feel today? Hopeful? Still sad? Like you don’t know how you feel?
Two weeks ago I was having a really rough patch. Not to go too dark right now because I’m feeling really good today, but this happens to me like, once every two months where it’s hard to see the point of anything. It seems to come in waves for me, and then a couple days later it’s like a new day and I’m okay and that weird darkness has gone and I can see clearly again. When I'm feeling really good I don't bother to look into it, but my doctor has given me phone numbers to call or mental health support groups if I need them. I don't really write at all when I’m in that dark place but I don't know what it would be like to be a songwriter without those ups and downs.
I mean, life is weird and it can be really hard! It can be hard to always be empathetic with people. But I think I'm learning. I think the Buddhists have it right when they say everyone is suffering. Even the people who seem like they've got it all together. Being a human is hard.
So what do you do? What should we do?
The best way you can go about it is by just being patient and taking many breaths.
Thanks again to Julie for the interview, and for you for reading this. Keep in touch, keep breathing, take care.
xoxo Teri