Julie Christmas
TM - Hi, this is Elizabeth and Guillaume and we are here with Julie Christmas.
TM - How are you?
JC - I'm Good, How are you?
TM - We're Good.
TM - You brought out your new album "Ridiculous And Full Of Blood". This is your first album alone in 14 years, why did you take so long to release your new album?
JC - I have a tricky relationship with music, it is always there but I try to ignore it sometimes because it takes a lot out of me and also because in those 14 years I opened five businesses, I have two kids and a dog. I do normal things in life like everyone else here but this is more like Playtime.
TM - How did you come up with the title for your album "Ridiculous And Full Of Blood"?
JC - I would say I did not pick that title, that title chose me. I was driving when we wrote the record and the record was under my name but all the guys I play with are represented on the record. They each started one of the songs and that is how it works with us. There is a process where everyone has their own space. It is not that we don't argue about the way things should be. We all have our own space and no one tells me what to do and I don't tell anyone else what to do. We come together on a song and wherever an idea comes from it's welcome so Johannes started the song "The Lighthouse" and That Almost Didn't Happen because it was so close to the end of the making process. The band will give me tracks and I will try to listen to the music 50 times without making any decisions about the vocals that go over it. I just sit with it and I was driving and listening to one of the tracks and it just came up like a cloud so I didn't pick the title the title picked the record.
TM - How did you come up with your Album cover?
JC - I sourced some images and thought about what would be a good cover. One of them Was a poster of Catherine Deneuve from The Hunger, it is the movie that she did with David Bowie. I'm not a huge fan of that movie although I do love her but this one poster was perfect, it was black and it had a female essence and she had blood on parts of her it was different. Alexis Sevenier who runs Red CRK Records saw the artwork and he loved it a new a photographer who could make it happen. I went to Montreal and I met the photographer and the woman who did the makeup Carol is quiet and it was unreal and she reinterpreted the whole cover. It was so much better then I could have imagined and she was really trying to be true to it and then the photographer had a vibe happening in the room. When you are making music with great people or cooking with the right people there's something that comes out that makes it very magical, I will remember it forever. He was doing very cool things, like getting the image where it was split, and then he would take a Pyrex baking tray and put it in front of the camera so my face spread out naturally. We had to fight for that cover because everyone wanted a traditional shot that was very beautiful but in this one, the title was very ridiculous and full of blood and there was only one choice it was the one where the smile was a little too wide and there was blood everywhere.
TM - When I listen to your music I think about Björk and Fever Ray how do you describe your music?
JC - I think that we are original and I don't think we fit into that category because the category I am put into is always different. We don't really have a place and I think it's because of my upbringing. I listened to a lot of Jazz and I have a lot of influences. I have heavy noise Influences and I take in music that is great no matter what the genre is. I think that is what I project to it doesn't matter if it is classical, music or jazz and maybe not funk I might be able to skip that but I think my own interests are very wide and that's why I think it may not fit.
TM - If you could have any band play one of your songs what band would it be, what song would it be and would it be in your style or their style?
JC - I want Grace Jones to cover anything. She is a towering black woman, she is huge and crazy and she made some records in the 80's. I don't know what she is doing right now but she has almost no clothes on and someone else is in danger but I don't have any favorites for interpreting the music.
TM - What is the place of Julie Christmas at Hellfest?
JC - I think we fit into the section of wild and uncontrolled things that believe equally in love and hate. I think I am extreme because I do not fit in, I am extreme because I don't feel heat, I feel love and passion so maybe that's why I belong here.
TM - What's your relationship with Johannes from Red Crk Records?
JC - I think we speak the same language it is not English and it is not Swedish but we have an understanding that I can't explain.
TM - Thank you for having this interview with us.
JC - Thank you.