Rising singer-songwriter Julie Williams is gearing up for the release of her new EP ‘Tennessee Moon‘ on 17th October 2024.
Featuring a new version of her song ‘southern curls' along with the ‘just friends?' and ‘reckless road', the EP is a deeply personal collection of songs that positions Williams as an artist operating in her own lane. Armed with a voice that's as soothing as it is emotive, there's no one like Williams in the industry right now.
I spoke with Julie recently to talk about her approach to songwriting, discuss being an independent artist and find out how she discovered her voice…
I've been listening to the ‘Tennessee Moon' EP and I'm loving it. Your voice is so beautiful. Before we dive into the specifics of the EP, let's talk about your voice. What was your journey like in terms of discovering that?
It's a great question and I don't think anyone's ever asked me about it. I grew up singing. You can ask my parents, as soon as I could say any sort of words, I was singing. I used to make up little songs and sing them and perform them to my parents. Then I started singing at church. I think I first really leaned into that ethereal side of my voice, or was inspired by it, when I first discovered Eva Cassidy, who's one of my Dad's favourite artists. We used to listen to Eva Cassidy all the time. I was just so drawn to her voice and the dynamics that she has. I feel like there's some vocalists who hit you with their power and with that huge note, and I was never really that singer. I never had that super belty voice.
To be honest, I always thought my voice was so boring (because) I can't really do those huge things. I discovered artists like Eva Cassidy and Norah Jones, these artists (whose) power and beauty is all in that softness and that purity, adding breath and air. At least for my singing voice, it was drawing from inspiration of vocalists that have always inspired me, and then finding ways to convey emotions with the natural way that my voice moves. It's come now to this very pure sound, which paired with some of my lyrics and songwriting, I think can get a really interesting combo. I feel like I could maybe say some things in my lyrics that might be a little bit like, ‘whoa, what did she say?' but it's in this really soft package that I think can (put it) across in a unique way.
That's a great way to describe it. I've found the more I dig into the EP and really listen to the lyrics, there's a lot to uncover than first meets the eye. ‘Tennessee Moon' has five songs on there. Why did these five songs feel natural to group together?
It all started with ‘tennessee moon', the title track. The whole EP was started based off of this picture (shows a photograph of a beautiful scene) that I took. I came into a songwriting session with my friend Melody Walker. It was actually our first time writing together. She's written, she wrote ‘American Dreaming', ‘Dollar Bill Bar'… a lot of songs on the Sierra Ferrell album that just won some Americana awards. She also wrote ‘Crooked Tree' with Molly Tuttle on that Grammy winning album. She's just an amazing writer, and we've been friends and fans of each other for a while, so we're like, ‘let's just try to write'. I came in one day with this picture, and some lyrics that I had written on the side of this lake while taking this picture. We created the song ‘tennessee moon'. I knew that we had tapped into a world and I wanted to keep writing in this world and find a collection of songs. I immediately knew from ‘Tennessee Moon' that that was going to be the centre of the whole next project. Everything came from there.
I wrote ‘just friends?' with Melody as well and ‘reckless road'. ‘dirt', I wrote with Natalie Closner from the band Joseph. We wrote it after she had heard me play ‘tennessee moon', and she said, ‘let's write a song that could go with that'. For those songs, (it was) really writing around this world and this time in my life. The last song is ‘southern curls', which is a re-imagination of a song that I already have out. The story of that one, and how that got onto the project, (was) I got the chance to perform at Newport Folk Festival in 2023 with the Black Opry Review. We got to perform on the main stage and I did my song ‘southern curls', which had been out for a while. Playing it on such a large stage in front of peopleand seeing in real time their reactions to that song and that story, I just thought to myself this song's story isn't over yet. I remember having that thought.
A buddy of mine, Joshua Blaylock – an incredible musician here in Nashville who tours with Grace Bowers and he's previously toured with Maren Morris – was side stage at Newport and was like, ‘have you ever thought of doing a piano version of ‘southern curls'? I would love to work with you on that'. We got in the studio and I've never felt so much freedom in making a song. Because it's already been made, we just get to then have fun and we created this version that I wasn't originally planning to put on this project. But when hearing the world (of ‘Tennessee Moon'), I felt it was this world that we'd been creating. (We decided to put this in as a) rounded version of closing that ‘southern curls' chapter for me, hinting at this new sound and where I'm going. Hopefully the story will find its way to new people as well, because that piano version definitely has some influences other than Country.
‘southern curls' is such a personal song and this new version elevates the lyrics and really puts emphasis on them. I can tell how deeply personal the song is to you. How hard is it to be that vulnerable and honest?
I think as a songwriter, you want people to listen to your songs and to relate to them. When I first was writing, I thought that meant that I had to go more universal in terms of my lyrics and the experiences, because that's the way that you're going to touch many people. I took this amazing songwriting class when I first moved to Nashville five years ago. (At the time) I thought to myself, I have a lot to learn. You come thinking your songs are great, and then you come around some of the best songwriters in the world, and you're like, ‘oh, I need to step it up'. I've always loved school and being a student, I still do. I take poetry classes at this place called ‘The Porch'. I just love to learn and get better at writing. I was taking this song writing class when I first moved and we were really just analyzing lyrics of songs. We did the first few weeks never even listening to a song, all we did was read lyric sheets. A great song should be able to just kind of stand alone on its lyrics.
Something that surprised me when we dug down in some of my favourite songs, was how specific all the details in the song (are) or how oftentimes mundane, some of the things that they mentioned. Moments in life that you don't think are that important and seem super hyper-specific, but really when you get that detailed, it's like you're inside a room of a house. Like in a movie, it's not like this huge landscape scene; it's right there in the kitchen and you're like, ‘Oh, that's my kitchen'. Once I started realising that there is power in my stories and my experiences, I just really dove into that and explored that. That's how ‘southern curls' came out. Something that's been really, really incredible is just hearing how the song does relate and touch people who have had a similar experience to me, and some who haven't. I really think it's a song about learning to love yourself, because there might have been somebody down your road that told you that you shouldn't or that you were less than. Having that journey of not just acceptance of who you are, but really just loving and celebrating who you are; I think a lot of us have had that for whatever it is personally. The joy of that song is getting to really connect with people on that human level, people that you would just not even expect to relate to it.
The more specific you are as an artist in your lyrics, the more likely the song will resonate with other people. Now that you've tapped into that, do you find yourself more consciously writing in that way?
Definitely. I'm definitely a verse writer; that's what I write first because I love the super specific in those details. Sometimes I can get caught in the weeds of feeling like there's something here and there's some sort of little story that I need to put in this part, but I can't remember it now, so I'm just gonna put a pin in it. Sometimes I'll call an old friend of mine and I'll be like, ‘remember in high school when we went here? Give me everything you remember'. I love pouring into that, which I think can be frustrating sometimes for my co-writers who are like, ‘can we just get to the hook? To the chorus?' I need these little tiny details. I like to go from there and then really pull the theme of the song and what I'm trying to share from that specific story, rather than the other way around? I diving into that hyper specificity when it comes to my own songs.
It's always a joy to speak to artists who are so immersed in the creative process at a time when the industry is being taken over by AI and music by committee. The industry, and the way artists release, has changed so much since I was a kid. What's it like for you as an independent artist?
It's definitely interesting. A lot of my music is pretty meaty. The real joy in my music is in those lyrics, hearing (them) many times, and getting those stories. I sometimes wonder do I have a lane here? I know (some of my songs) are probably not going to be played on Country radio or AAA radio, because they're a bit more mellow. (I find myself really wondering do) I need to lean more into and focus on commercial release writing? ‘Reckless Row' I feel like would be the closest to that that I have. But at the same time, I feel like while there is so much coming from commercial and AI, I think there also is this real hunger for authenticity and vulnerability that you see with artists like Lizzy McAlpine and Noah Kahan in that indie folk space. Gregory Alan Isakov is one of my favourite artists and I think he's furthest from that AI mass produced (thing). I got to see him at the sold-out Ryman (show) a few months ago. In response to that (commercial and AI leaning) there is definitely this craving for authenticity and storytelling.
I think there's a really great opportunity for cross genre finding of fans. In the search for that authenticity and for that storytelling, you might find someone that's like, ‘Oh, hey, I really like the song and I think it might be a Country song, or this is a folk song'. We are in more mood-based consumption of music (and) there actually is a really cool opportunity to find fans across genres. Then you just hope that they'll will listen to the whole thing, and not just the 15 seconds on TikTok or Instagram that they see.
It must be freeing for you as an artist to be releasing in a time when you can put out whatever you want without having to do it by committee?
I think so. I have always said, from the beginning of me putting out music, that I like to say that my music is mixed like me. I have never felt fully at home in any single musical genre, and I often love working with collaborators across different genres to then come together and create something that feels, to me, novel, and it feels really like myself. Once the song is created, after that let's figure out how to market it and figure out what genre it is and all of that. That really has been my focus behind the production of the song so I definitely have felt liberation there, just letting the song go where it needs to go.
Some songs I've recorded a couple of different times before I found the iteration of it production wise, that felt really like me. I really did feel like I found a home in the collaborators that I worked on with this project, specifically the producer, Jonathan Smalt. It is freeing in one way, but it also is challenging in another, afterwards figuring out how to share it with people and get it in front of the people that you think would really like to listen to it. I think that is a question all the time for any artist and independent artists, you're asking yourselves that too, with maybe more limited resources and reach. In Nashville, as someone who has done Country music and has so much Country influence, I have loved being here in this world. It can be a little tough, because as I'm sharing this project and other things, they're like, ‘Oh, I love this, but I don't think this is Country. I don't know where this lives'. I know it lives somewhere, the trick is now finding out how to tell that story in a way that captures people across genres.
Are you planning on coming to the UK in the near future?
I want to come back so soon. I actually played a show in the UK last May. If I can come once a year, that's my big goal. I would love to come next Spring and Summer, that is my hope. One, because I want to play a show, but two, I I feel like there is just such a rich loving music fan culture that I think is so different than the US in terms of the ways that people listen to and support artists they love. Even just meeting artists like a friend of mine who moved to Nashville, who's from the UK, Danni Nicholls, hearing about her experience in the Americana scene there. I feel like there's so many incredible artists and people there that I want to tap into. Any chance that I can, I want to come. It's just a little expensive so I need to find my in there. A big dream of mine is to play either C2C or The Long Road, or a festival in the UK. Hopefully that will happen soon.
Julie Williams releases her new EP ‘Tennessee Moon' on 17th October 2024.
