your good friend juniper builds worlds the place feelings are uncooked, love isn’t sugar-coated, and each be aware carries the burden of one thing actual. With makesmehappy main the cost for her subsequent album, she’s taking listeners past the predictable highs and lows of affection songs, exploring the in-between—the messy, unfiltered components that make relationships human. On this interview, she opens up about crafting music designed to hit like a dopamine rush, the steadiness between artistic freedom and self-promotion, and why Nashville’s storytelling custom has formed her lyricism in sudden methods. From the way in which she assigns colors to her songs to her perception in sluggish, significant profession development over viral fame, Juniper’s perspective is as thought-provoking as it’s refreshing. Learn on to step into her world of sound, sonder, and sonic connection.
Juniper, welcome to A&R Manufacturing unit! With makesmehappy kicking off the rollout in your upcoming album, there’s lots to unpack about your artistic imaginative and prescient and the way in which you method music as a full-spectrum expertise. makesmehappy provides a perspective on love that isn’t simply in regards to the highs but additionally embraces the messier, unpolished components. What drew you to jot down a love track that challenges the standard narrative?
I do know there are numerous songs on the market that contact on so many facets of affection, nevertheless it tends to be in these sure worlds of both gaining it or dropping it. There’s this entire center space of navigating it that’s actually the juicy bit. Love, in each form of relationship, is absolutely difficult, and generally it’s pure pleasure, and in others, it’s actually placing apart your needs or expectations for the sake of one other particular person, and it’s all pushed by the identical factor: love. I wished a track that took me by way of that turbulent and great journey of expectations and compromise and deep connection, virtually like a simulator. I figured nobody is ever alone, so there needed to be different music lovers on the market trying to find that track as nicely. I feel I actually obtained too impatient and determined to make it myself.
You’ve described your music and visible content material as designed to set off a dopamine launch, virtually like a necessary vitamin. How do you translate that concept into the way in which you produce and organize your songs?
I desperately push for each second of my songs to encourage the listener to really feel one thing. I’m an individual with excessive expectations, and it for positive creeps into my music and content-making course of. I needed to actually uncover why I wished to stay this insane way of life and make music, and it got here right down to desirous to have an effect on folks in a constructive approach. Music and artwork are extraordinarily highly effective and I need somebody who discovers me to have an expertise from the second they go to my profile to the very finish of the primary track they hear after which have it simply proceed. I need my music and content material to be like a very good good friend.
It takes lots of effort and time, nevertheless it’s simply so price it. I make all of my very own visible content material in addition to my music, and proper now I’m actually diving into a brand new aesthetic of sondering, which is the belief that you just’re considered one of many advanced lives. It may make you’re feeling small within the existential sense but additionally fill you with awe and curiosity. So, welcome to my little world the place we wander, ponder and most of all, sonder!
Because you write, report, and produce every part your self, what’s your artistic course of like once you’re shaping a observe from the bottom up? Do you begin with a sonic concept, a lyric, or one thing visible?
My songs typically start with lyrics or bizarre voice memos of me buzzing a melody. Music seeds actually come to me on the most inconvenient instances, like after I’m within the bathe or driving or attempting to go to sleep. Swiftly, lyrics will simply begin flooding into my mind, typically with a rhythm. I’ve to get them down instantly or actually simply repeat them till I can. Typically, I really feel like a type of characters in a film who has visions and the world stops, and so they appear to lose management and have to attract one thing or write one thing.
I’ll all the time end the track acoustically earlier than I report something. It begins with the principle instrument and a vocal demo after which I’ll produce the track totally and sometimes report the ultimate takes of the vocal final earlier than I begin mixing. The concepts come as I am going with manufacturing. I typically hear a rhythmic half or a melody in my head after which determine it out on whichever instrument I’m listening to and layer issues in till I can’t hear any extra components. That’s after I’ll go in and actually strip again and take issues away till it’s solely what the track actually wants. Typically, a easy manufacturing is the best. You need to be prepared to undo and return and redo and all these actually annoying issues however refusing to compromise together with your songs must be the principle purpose.
Your upcoming album is your second full-length undertaking. How does it construct on or distinction together with your debut when it comes to themes, manufacturing, or the emotional weight behind it?
My first album was actually an try for me to only get all these songs I had in my financial institution out. It varies a lot from track to track, and I actually adore it and assume all of these songs deserved to be launched, nevertheless it’s not a cohesive album by any means. This second full undertaking was extra deliberately put collectively as an album, and there’s undoubtedly a robust cohesiveness all through it lyrically and sonically.
Haley Heynderickx was my massive inspiration for the sound of the album. I like the intimacy and saturation of her music. For the lyrical content material, the ethical of the story is absolutely to sonder and notice how loopy this world is that we stay in and that we solely get one bizarre little life on it. I feel as a species, we deal with all of the incorrect issues and separate ourselves from one another in all these ways in which don’t matter. Spend much less time fascinated by your self and far more time fascinated by the world and the unusual and delightful folks in it. It’s drugs for the mind and the guts with out the lengthy listing of horrible unwanted effects whereas a woman twirls on a seaside.
What’s been the best approach so that you can attain listeners who actually join together with your music?
Slowly. I do know it appears like I’m being cheeky however sluggish and regular wins the race. I need an genuine, grassroots fan base grown by way of precise engagement, and that simply merely takes longer. I may actually spend most of my time attempting to go viral and rise to fame rapidly, nevertheless it’s not an amazing long-term funding and I’m a musician, not an influencer. I’ve had buddies go viral a number of instances and it’s nice for the views on that one video and the streams on that one track however I haven’t seen it curate a real fanbase who stays with you. I’d approach slightly spend my time making actually good songs, placing collectively an amazing stay set, making genuine content material that’s simple as a result of I really get pleasure from making it after which journey the world and share my music in particular person with folks.
There’s a robust visible component to every part you do, from colors to the way in which you current every observe. What function do visuals play in shaping the way in which your viewers experiences your music?
I feel music and visible artwork are soulmates. They’ll exist with out one another and nonetheless be extraordinarily great however they’re even higher collectively. Coloration is a extremely unusual factor as a result of it doesn’t actually exist, no less than with out gentle. We actually solely understand shade primarily based on the wavelength and the thing it’s bouncing off of and that’s simply insane and wonderful. I all the time wished shade to be part of my model as a result of it’s a common language. Each track of mine is hooked up to a shade that not solely visually represents the track however scientifically does as nicely. Our brains react to completely different colours in several methods and I wish to make the most of that to boost my songs. It’s form of my approach of including frosting to a bit of music.
Nashville is thought for its wealthy musical panorama, however your model stands other than town’s extra conventional sound. How has being in that setting influenced your work, if in any respect?
Nashville is a superb place to be if you wish to actually develop as a lyricist and songwriter. Nation music is about storytelling above anything. It stems from the construction of basic 12-bar blues the place each track primarily has the identical actions nevertheless it’s the story and the way in which the singer tells that story over these actions that makes it distinctive. There’s a depth of forethought in nation lyrics that I like the place a line on the finish will lastly tie collectively a phrase or concept from an earlier a part of the track. It’s like the entire track is related in these actually intelligent methods, like a novel or a film slightly than only a good hook and who actually cares what we’re saying within the track you already know? Being on this setting has completely helped me develop as a musician. It’s additionally actually about expertise in Nashville as an alternative of clout or connections and that’s why Nashville is high quality over amount. Nation music is certainly what makes up a majority of the panorama right here however so many artists today are mixing genres, as they need to, so it doesn’t really feel so essential that I’m not a rustic singer.
Impartial artists typically need to steadiness the artistic aspect of music with the fact of selling it. How do you handle each with out dropping the guts of what you wish to create?
Oh my gosh, I lose coronary heart on a regular basis! Musicians need to be so disciplined and work so exhausting and put a lot of their very own cash into their careers with out getting something in return for a very long time. I actually don’t assume anybody from every other subject of research would settle for the phrases of their careers that artists are just about compelled to just accept. The music trade is damaged…actually damaged so we now have to assist one another and actually return to fundamentals. It actually appears like each system is damaged as a result of these days just about everyone seems to be working two or extra full-time jobs and might’t afford fundamental necessities.
I’m nonetheless discovering the steadiness and I feel I all the time might be. I don’t assume anybody ever totally will get it or finds the one true technique as a result of it’s so depending on so many issues. I needed to discover the place the deficit was in my very own course of and make peace with the truth that I needed to save up cash to spend money on advertising for my releases, excursions and stay exhibits. I’m nonetheless hoping to get a supervisor or a reserving agent this 12 months as a result of it’s actually overwhelming lots of the time however I’m an enormous believer that nothing good comes simple and it proves to me on daily basis how a lot that is my ardour and my goal as a result of regardless of how hopeless it appears, I simply maintain doing it.
You clearly imagine on this album and its potential to attach with listeners. If folks take away one factor from this report, what do you hope it’s?
Sonder. Take into consideration others far more than you consider your self. Be lovely within the ways in which actually matter. Forgive folks as rapidly as you may and for the love of Mary struggle for a life the place you’re spending most of your time doing one thing you like. If you happen to let it, life will break your coronary heart. Love your self a lot that you just’re prepared to sacrifice to be more healthy and a greater particular person. It’s not about indulging each feeling or thought like actually enable your self to develop and alter.
–
Discover your most popular method to hearken to your good friend juniper’s newest single and join with the artist by way of this hyperlink.
Interview by Amelia Vandergast
