Name: Juliette Gradit aka JOYE
Nationality: French
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, composer, producer
Recent release: JOYE's new album ANGEL (this mixtape is for u) is out May 22nd 2025. Check her bandcamp page for updates.
Recommendation for Paris: I live in Paris, not far from Montmartre. It's a cliché, but I have to admit that whenever friends comes by, I take my loved ones there. There's something absolutely romantic (but in the good way I think) and unreal about the place. When the area is busy but not overcrowded, there's something quite magical about it.
My favorite memories in Paris are of the Sacré Coeur in the early morning, aperitifs along the Canal Saint Martin, concerts at the Trabendo, fashion exhibitions and the Philharmonie de Paris, the Baisé Salé at 3am. And what I'd miss most if I left here would be our bookshops and bakeries ...
Topics I rarely get to talk about: The sea. London. Dancing. Partying. The beauty of a sunset.
And then there's the diversity of us all. How we think, react and feel. Our differences in sensitivity and ability to react. I would have loved to be a psychologist. I still could be by the way ... haha

If you enjoyed this JOYE interview and would like to stay up to date with her music and future live activities, visit her on Instagram, Facebook, and tiktok.



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

I asked my father for a little help with this interview - my memories are fuzzier than his. Apparently, I was under 7 when I first wrote lyrics. My father showed me a song he'd just started writing, explaining to me what a verse and a chorus were. I took the sheet, ran to my room and came back with 3 verses a few minutes later.

It's obvious that the environment I grew up in planted a lot of seeds. I listened to Sinéad O'Connor over and over again, the Gospel Oak album ...



Music was omnipresent, my father played the piano, sang Bob Marley, I remember singing “Get up Stand up” as a child. Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody” - a score that belonged to my mother - she was a singer in a rock band when they met, but she never really took it on with me haha ... - David Bowie, Life On Mars … All masterclasses after all!

I remember writing my first composition at the age of 12, when my father lost his best friend to a heart attack. I suffered a lot without really understanding the pain ... I sang it over and over.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

Drawn is the good term. I never ask myself what I'm going to write. I need to write. It's a matter of necessity and urgency. In fact, the texts I've written best are probably not the ones I've put to song.

I'm not fussy about what I write when I compose, I like to keep the authenticity of my feelings. It's on the verge of automatic writing.

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?

I spoke about David Bowie, Queen, Bob Marley ... Björk was a major discovery when I was a young girl too. We had the Greatest Hits and Debut albums …

I was talking to a friend recently about what we listened to when we were young, and how she had to go against her parents' tastes to make her own place and culture. I never had to be that curious; I loved what my parents listened to. I was touched in the same places they were.

Until recently, the three of us were still dancing on the Rita Mitsouko unplugged album.



My mother was passionate about showing me Nina Simone's live performances. My father brought home Lady Gaga's The Fame album the week it came out.

All these artists had things to say. They sang and played with their guts, their bodies, their sensitivity. They had a message, through themselves and therefore through their lyrics. With sincerity, depth, honesty and aplomb, strength and the courage to say it, assume, without ever lapsing into pathos.

Have there been song lyrics which actually made you change (aspects of) your life? If so, what do you think, leant them that power?

I think so, but without being fully aware of it I guess. A lot of personalities have acted as role models for me …

I'm thinking of Patti Smith; my mother was a fan. I didn't, I didn't understand it, I couldn't get into it. I read Just Kids during the 2020 confinement. I started painting, making all kinds of crafts, necklaces, origami, and I discovered GarageBand. I wanted to make films, to understand analogical photography. I've never been so curious and productive than while reading this book ...

So yes, the power of artists and their written works is definitely there. Thanks to projection, the desire to resemble them, the mirror effect, thanks to empathy. Our ideas and political convictions are guided by many of them. We're constantly influenced by what we hear and see, without even really realizing it all the time.

My first and only car was a Twingo that only played cassette s… I ended up knowing Patti Smith's Horses album by heart haha



It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

So true.

In fact, my automatic way of writing goes hand in hand with the fact that I used music and my compositions as someone else would write his or her diary. I'd come home from school feeling upset, and I'd rush to the piano to sing (shout, get out) what I'd been holding inside.

At first I had very little vocal technique, but I'd figured out that I could push it. Hard and far. The piano was both my best friend and my outlet. I still use it like that, with more maturity haha

In how far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?

There were quite a few times when I understood what I was feeling through what I was writing and producing.

Many a time, I've taken up the piano with my repressed emotions and found myself crying without being able to stop, without really understanding which string I'd touched. That's why I did a University Degree in music therapy. I'm convinced that music can take you to places where your conscience won't let you.

Also … it often happened that I'd be singing something, and my father, on the floor above (which I couldn't see), would shout : “Is that your song right now? Have you written down everything you're doing?” I blew him off, because every day I had something new to say, and I wasn't necessarily interested in crystallizing every subject.

But what I didn't see was that what I was singing was having an impact on him, and making him cry in his office. haha

What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

Music pierces. It enters you without you being able to choose how you want to interpret it.

A text can be interpreted in many different ways. Where music leaves you less time to think. It gives you information that you instantly spit out in the form of an emotion. I find it a more sensory experience.

What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?

Emancipation, strength and freedom, as a person, as a woman.

These aren't necessarily themes I choose in advance, I'm inspired by what I experience ... my mother's grief played a big part in writing this mixtape, and how I experienced it.

I move with my music, and my music moves with my life.

On the basis of a piece off your most recent release, tell me about how the lyrics grew into their final form and what points of consideration were.

I'm tempted to talk about my song “power” because it's the one that has seen the most changes in the creative process - whereas the others tend to confirm automatic writing.



The tempo was initially slower. I'd had this chorus in my computer for years, and for a very long time, I thought the topline “I feel so powerless” was a real bummer.

The first Christmas without my mother, in 2023, we went to Berlin with my father. I remember making him listen to this demo and telling him that the chorus really had something, that I was trying to change the lyrics but I couldn't. Little by little, I came to realize that they made sense at that time, because I was harshly feeling powerless. My exercise was to create a framework for the song, to try and make people understand why and in what way I felt so fragile, so that the chorus could be “justified”. But by then, it had a darker, sadder energy.

I went to Léo's studio, with whom I create all my tracks. He made the production that exists today (apart from a few changes), which I validated 100% and he said to me at the end of the day: “there, that's how I can picture the song”. Tempo more up, uk garage influences, much more danceable than what I had in mind. What pushed me was to find light and hope in what I had written, otherwise the production didn't make any sense. And yet it spoke to me.

So I reworked the lyrics, the structure, the meaning, the message. Everything became clearer. The music AND the way I dealt with my grief, and what I wanted for my life.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words?

All the time. There are words that come naturally to me but don't work aesthetically. On the other hand, sometimes words come to me that work perfectly, but unfortunately have nothing to do with what I'm saying haha.

The fact that it sounds good is the basis of my writing. That's why I love writing in English ... One artist I find extremely strong in this exercise is none other than Billie Eilish!

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

With this mixtape, I feel like I've gone for something concrete and simple. I wrote a lot of songs in the space of a month. I had to get out what was inside, without embellishment.

In a complex and difficult situation, I think it was necessary for me to write simple, honest lyrics. Accessible. Words are not the stars of this mixtape, but rather the general idea. Hope, dance, strength. Moving forward.

So … no “misunderstandings” so far… for now haha

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing song lyrics or poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee?

Immediate thought for Lynch and Captain Cooper <3

Not really, no. It's as natural as making a good cup of coffee, you’re right. In fact, the creation is the most relaxing and calming moment of the entire journey from creation to release.