Ivan Julian Brings Human Highs and Lows To ‘Swing Your Lanterns’ (ALBUM PREMIERE/INTERVIEW)

Photo credit: Sam Chen

Though Ivan Julian may be best known for his career as a guitarist, he’s also a multi-instrumentalist, solo artist, and Producer operating his own studio in Brooklyn, SuperGiraffeSound. His second solo collection, Swing Your Lanterns, is being released February 17th on Pravda Records, and represents intricately crafted songs that were informed by the possibilities of the studio and of the many collaborators who joined Julian to record the songs. Each song has its own story to tell thematically and stylistically, drawing on the massive wealth of musical experience that Julian commands, but the connections with musical traditions and with relevant ideas are always easily accessible for the audience. Ranging from heady love songs to apocalyptic musings, Swing Your Lanterns studies human life and conveys its highs and lows. 

Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of the album alongside our interview with Ivan Julian.

Ivan Julian was a founding member of the seminal Punk band, Richard Hell and The Voidoids in New York, which was actually his second prominent gig, having already been a member of the UK R&B group The Foundations. Many bands and collaborations have followed, including working with The Clash, Afrika Bambaataa and Bernie Worrell of Parliament/Funkadelic, and Matthew Sweet. As a Producer with his own studio, he has worked with Sean Lennon, The Fleshtones, and The Fauntleroys, and also released his previous solo record, The Naked Flame. 

Ivan Julian will be playing two Record Release Shows. One in Chicago at Space on February 22nd and at Brooklyn Pool in New York on April 6th.

Hannah Means-Shannon: I’m aware that you’re a New York person, and that you were in the city and had your own studio during the pandemic. Was writing music by yourself in the initial stages of songs something that you normally do, or was that a new feeling?

Ivan Julian: That’s what I usually do. I usually get a sketch together and when I’ve completed the musical sketch, I call a band in. There are four different bass players on this record, including myself. There are two or three drummers. That’s because I always try to find the person that’s right for the song. One of my drummers, Florent Barbier, is really great, and he came in to play, and there were a couple of songs that I didn’t even have him in mind for, but he started playing. That’s usually how I do it. 

But living in New York was strange. We’re on top of each other and all over each other, regardless of financial status. When this happened, and you started hearing sirens non-stop, it was really a weird thing. After a while, it just became like one of those movies about the bubonic plague and the norm. But it was totally scary.

HMS: New York had some of the most shocking circumstances to deal with.

IJ: These were things you’d see walking down the street. We usually say to each other, “Take care. Be well.” But people really meant it then. Because you didn’t know if they were going to be around.

HMS: It changes the way you see each other and yourself. I think it can cause us to be more gentle with others.

IJ: It’s very true. I got Omicron after being boosted four times. I know where I got it because I saw a guy on the train who was really ill, even though he was dressed very well. The next morning I woke up and it was murderous. I can’t imagine getting that thing without even being boosted.

HMS: I know that you’ve travelled a lot in your life and lived in other countries, not to mention touring. Do you feel that your awareness of the world helped you to have perspective on this? Or did greater knowledge make it scarier?

IJ: Perspective, yes. I had that based on more experience. I had a trip planned to France in Fall of 2021 that kept getting postponed because the French kept locking down. Knowing the culture, that didn’t surprise. When England had such a high rate, that didn’t surprise me because everything is damp there anyway. Even seeing how people in Florida reacted made me think, “That doesn’t shock me.” [Laughs]

HMS: I get the feeling that, for you, each song is its own kind of island stylistically, and you try not to rule things out based on preconceived ideas when it comes to recording. 

IJ: I invite things. I love the transitional process of how it can become something that you never imagined. Especially on my last record, I had almost everyone play something different from what they would normally play, just to see what would happen. One friend of mine, Al Maddy, always plays guitar on my records, but on my last record, I had him play xylophone. He went over and touched it, and I made him do it. I’m a huge fan of reading liner notes, and 90% of the time, it’s someone outside of the core of the band who helps to form the song. Not to write the song, but to form it and make it what it is.

HMS: Sometimes that’s the Producer, but sometimes it’s other people. It really could be.

IJ: Do you know the song, “Tumbling Dice” by The Rolling Stones? For the part of the song, Charlie Watts could not get the drum fills. Jimmy Miller, the Producer, sat down at the drums and played the fills for the whole last part of the song. If you listen, you’re hard pressed to see a difference. When I read that kind of thing, I see that it really is an island of possibilities. That anything could happen. Someone could change the tempo. Dylan’s a good one for that, too. He puts his songs through many paces before the version we hear on the album.

Sometimes I’ve had people suggest things to me that didn’t work out, and I’ve said, “I’m not doing that now, or ever!” [Laughs] But sometimes it does work out, and usually for the better.

HMS: You went to Chicago for some of the recordings, right?

IJ: Yes, I have a good friend on all my records, Nick Tremulis, and if he can’t make it to New York, I’ll go there. He’s in a video for one of the songs that’s going to come out. I went out there and he arranged a band for me for one of the singles, “Can’t Help Myself.” That, too, got completed changed from what I brought them. They put all this midwestern swagger into it, and the outcome was great. The label Pravda is based out of Chicago, as well.

HMS: I did wonder if any of these songs really surprised you in terms of how it started versus how it turned out. It sounds like “Can’t Help Myself” might be a contender.

IJ: Yes. Almost all of them, when I think about it, are different from the initial demo. Some of them have the core idea that’s still there. There’s a ballad on there, “Love Is Good”, which started out as a Rock, Blues, Funk song with me and some machines. But I knew it could be something else. It’s kind of daunting. You wonder, “Do I have to go through this for every song?” [Laughs]

HMS: Obviously, it’s good for the music to be more open to different outcomes, but do you find that it’s good for you? Does it make it a more interesting experience for you?

IJ: Yes, the reason that I do this is because I’m a total slave to the song. We all are. Once the music is there, we want to everything that we can to hold it up and make it what it can be. If you have any wherewithal, you know whether it’s about your initial idea or not. I have no ego when it comes to the song. In my guitar playing, I’m the same way. There’s a song by The Turtles called “She’s My Girl” that I really love. In the verse, there’s one guitar hit, he just does it, and that’s it for the entire verse. It’s so brilliant! Their stuff is so great.

HMS: “Wild” is quite an energetic song and has some great intro guitar work. Is that one that hails from this period?

IJ: I wrote that before, actually, and had it around. The story with that song is that I was in England when Prince Charles started seeing Camilla Parker-Bowles and everyone acknowledged that relationship. Some of his love letters had leaked into the papers. I felt really bad for this guy. He had written something where he said, “In the next life, I want to be your panties.” I thought, “Wow, that is so surreal.” The idea of the song then came to me.

HMS: That’s a great story because that’s one way of looking at this song. For Charles, it does seem like that relationship has dominated his life. It shows how crazy love can be.

IJ: He was totally in love and saw the whole world through that lens. It’s an intense way of expressing things and the song is about that. Everything about this person is something you can’t handle.

HMS: It’s a total mood. It’s about total possession by an idea or a feeling. It reminds me of early Rock songs, or even Rockabilly songs, where these love songs would try to capture that feeling while avoiding censors.

IJ: Exactly. Passion is passion and it should always exist. It’s part of us. The song that’s ends the album, “Love Affair” is a breakup song, and my ex-wife is the drummer on that song. She plays drums and has a really good sense of where the beat is. When I heard her play it, I thought, “That’s it.” It’s ironic that it happened that way and what the song’s about.

HMS: “I Am Not a Drone” is a very different song and it’s really quite intricate in some ways. That’s a song where a lot of little elements make the whole, I feel like.

IJ: I’m glad you feel that way. It started out with a bass player I was working with, and he had this bass riff, so I put guitar over it. The combination of those things made it seem like a backdrop, as if drawing a street scene in a comic. It just all kind of came. It’s all dystopian in some ways. I was in the East Village and was looking down at this men’s shelter on a really hot day. The thought about how the world can go awry very easily came to mind. One of the main influences was also a film called Rollerball. There’s a scene in which the elite are standing on a ridge and taking flamethrowers and shooting trees. That left a strong impression on me.

HMS: I felt an apocalyptic theme here but like it was focusing on humanity and the human cost of that.

IJ: Exactly, because there is this person, Mary, and she’s affected by the whole thing by the end of the song. It’s kind of like what we’re going through now. We’re at war with the climate and the climate is taking control. Then there are people who are oblivious about the same thing.

HMS: The song also has hints of religious and military stuff, without fully defining those, so it’s as if all these different aspects of society are unbalanced. 

IJ: The mission bells is like what I mentioned before, about the pandemic. I had seen a movie where guys during the bubonic plague would go around with carts, saying, “Bring out your dead!” I never thought I’d live through such a thing, but we just have. Also, on that song is an instrument that I’ve discovered called the Bulbul Tarang and it’s an Indian instrument. I used it on “I Am Not a Drone” because it adds this really cool texture. The instrument’s name is translated as “nightingale.” It’s also called the Indian banjo. I loved to find things like that which can say something in a song. When I play it, it sounds like anything like a Nightingale! [Laughs]

HMS: Now I’m wondering which parts were the Bulbul Tarang, because I felt like I could hear a little bit of a sound of lament on that song. Was that what I was hearing?

IJ: It’s a lament sound because of the way that I mixed it. It kind of sounds like guitar feedback, but it’s not. 

HMS: Is that the first time you’ve played that instrument on a song?

IJ: For release, yes. When I got it, I recorded a bunch of stuff that I haven’t released. I have a new song which is called “My New Friend, My Bulbul Tarang,” but that’ll probably get changed into something else! I discovered it at a recording session where a friend had a Bubul Tarang and I knew that I wanted one. It has keys like a typewriter. 

HMS: Do you try to pick up new instruments regularly?

IJ: If it makes music, I try to get something out of it. I can’t play drums. I just can’t! [Laughs] 

HMS: “I Am Not a Drone” has darker elements. To what extent does “Swing Your Lanterns” have darker elements, in your mind? It feels haunting but it could be more general about life.

IJ: That’s more about political cultures, and how you respond to them, and whether you’re going to stand up. 

HMS: There’s a “tired nation.” Is it about lack of direction?

IJ: It’s about choosing your direction when there is no direction. What are you going to do when things have gone socially and politically crazy?

HMS: Do you personally feel like there are things that you can and should do when faced with this situation?

IJ: There’s voting! As long as that concept is around. Let’s see how long it’s around for. I always vote. Back in the early 2000s, when I saw who won the election, I thought, “You can’t complain. You didn’t vote.” So, I’ve voted ever since. For writers, you can also write songs that present the situation to people and let them take from that what they may.

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