A biography for Julien Bakerhasn’t been written yet.
“If 1,500 people are gonna see me and they each pay $20, I want to give them everything that I possibly can. They just made an exchange that allows me to live a dream of mine since I was a child. And that's not lost on me. So I want to expend every ounce of power and energy I have.”
“I was a very emotional teenager. But I wish that I could tell myself that I matter more than I think. Things are a bigger deal than I think they are, but they're also not as big a deal as I think they are. My mistakes are not the end of the world.”
“I didn't grow up on country and blues, I was just a kid listening to VH1 and then I realized I needed to expand my musical horizons. Now I have a deep appreciation for southern heritage music.”
“I do not want to make art and then try to dictate how people use it, or how people interact with it.”
“I played with a band, and the lead singer would always introduce me as 'the 13-year-old lead guitarist.' I didn't want to be a novelty, like 'Oh, she has three arms! Check her out.' But I've learned to accept it as more of a compliment.”
“The more blessings or resources you have at your disposal, the more I become aware of... how should I steward this? It's supposed to be an investment that I can turn around and create art that gives something to other people. Ugh, that sounds like the most Miss America answer of all time.”
“I love Hank Williams, he's the original emo kid. Some of his lyrics remind me of, like, Promise Ring lyrics.”
“I had a lot of fear about coming out as a kid.”
“The thing about music is that it gives voice and names to anguish and also addresses how to comfort it.”
“I adopted this idea whether I was going to end up making music for three people in a bar or Wembley Stadium, I was always going to do music.”
“I feel like I've had bad nights or destructive nights or nights where I don't remember anything or nights where I was seriously injured or seriously in danger. And I remained nihilistic and unconcerned because it felt like there was no alternative.”
“There is something familial about punk. There is something positive. Even though some punk is destructive, nihilistic, explosive.”
“It's like a cosmic joke that people dream to perform in front of a huge crowd. But it is a welcomed challenge. I hope I always have that positive apprehension.”
“I had a hot-pink mohawk in high school, and when I came out everyone was like, 'We don't care.'”
“Those parts of myself that are too ugly or dangerous are precisely the things I feel convicted to share.”
“Everyone I know has a predilection for sharing words.”
“It's not like a choice to have an identity politics discussion when you're living it all the time. And if it's uncomfortable, well then maybe the way that we need to deal with that is by letting things be uncomfortable.”
“Sometimes, what's helpful is to admit that we are discouraged and admit that we are at a loss.”
“Often, small things give me hope when big things feel so oppressively bleak.”
“There's no musician who just wakes up one day and decides, 'This is what I want to do.' It takes some development.”