Published
Names: Angus & Julia Stone
Nationality: Australian
Occupations: Singers, songwriters
Interviewee: Julia Stone
Current release: Angus & Julia Stone's new album Karaoke Bar is out now.
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For a deeper dive, read our Angus & Julia Stone interview.
What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?
Oh my god, I don’t know where to start. There’s just so much music that has been part of my life. I’ll do my best.
I loved Fiona Apple’s Tidal. I was 12 when it came out, but I didn’t really get it until I was 16 and going through my first real heartbreak.
I was completely drawn to the way she could embody both the toxicity and the beauty of relationships. I mean, at the time, I didn’t know that’s why I was drawn to the music, but looking back I can see how it talked to my own experience in romantic relationships, but also the relationship I had with myself.
There were also a bunch of Australian albums I listened to a lot as a teenager: Lior’s Autumn Flow, Deborah Conway’s String of Pearls, Jebediah’s Slightly Odway …
And I loved artists from around the world as well. I was mostly introduced to these records by friends or boyfriends. The Cranberries’ No Need to Argue … I was really into Veruca Salt too and their record American Thighs.
My friends and I used to smoke Marlboro Blues and drink Coca-Cola between classes at one of their houses near the school and go crazy singing to that record, in particular the song “Seether.”
I loved Elliott Smith’s Either/Or. Of course, Jeff Buckley’s Grace, Joni Mitchell’s Blue … Angus used to play a record by a band called Karate from Boston. I can’t remember the name of the record, but the sound of that band is so nostalgic.
I liked what Angus was listening to as well. He was into Sublime, G. Love and Special Sauce, Rage Against the Machine, Jurassic 5 (Quality Control).
They all had such different sounds. I just loved listening to music. It made everything in life feel so alive.
When I went backpacking, music became a way of entering completely different worlds, and it really was like creating a soundtrack for my travels. The difference between sitting on a bus for 12 hours going through Brazil listening to music or not listening to music was huge.
A girl I met in Chile gave me a bunch of CDs, which I put onto my MiniDisc player, and suddenly I had this little soundtrack accompanying me around the world with music she was into.
I thought she was the coolest girl on the planet. She was part of an artist collective who had taken over an abandoned house in downtown Santiago and ran these cultural events. They’d get on mushrooms and talk about life and the world, books, music. I was completely in awe as a wide-eyed 18-year-old.
She gave me The Sea and Cake’s The Fawn, Tom Waits’ Mule Variations, Björk’s Post, Mogwai’s Young Team, and Belle and Sebastian’s The Boy with the Arab Strap.
Later on, when we started releasing music and playing around a bunch, I got into a lot of music including Tom Freund and his album Collapsible Plans, Gary Jules’ Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets, Gillian Welch, Rachael Yamagata, M. Ward, Damien Rice, The Milk Carton Kids, Joan as Police Woman’s Real Life, Martha Wainwright and, of course, Bon Iver with For Emma, Forever Ago.
[Read our M. Ward interview]
[Read our Joan as Police Woman interview]
Later again, when I moved back from LA to Melbourne, a friend in Melbourne introduced me to Bonnie Raitt, Guy Clark, Hank Williams, John Prine, Dave Van Ronk (Bob Dylan describes him as the folk singer’s folk singer and said he sounded like he paid the price) Townes Van Zandt, Delaney & Bonnie, Emmylou Harris …
I feel so lucky to have been endlessly introduced to amazing music. Every artist I’ve listened to and loved sounds like their voice, and their music carries their life behind the sound. So honest.
