VEVO: Julia Volkova’s intimate “Haunted” track by track.The video consists of Julia commenting on the songs of her most recent album in some kind of an interview, but she’s not being questioned by anyone, the name of the song appears on the screen and she tells about how she created the song and what it means to her intimately, in this video Julia does not talk about the concept of the album which by the way is the story of Carly the Vampire, this video shows another perception over Julia’s new album.
ABOUT THE ALBUM‘I’m happy with it (The album), I feel like it’s been sometime I’m idealizing it and when it finally was done, I felt so good, complete, it’s a second journey in my career, a second chance to prove myself that I’m a good musician and that I can remain in this business, I’m happy with it no doubt.
For me the whole creative process was like a roller coaster, I was riding up and down and I was touring, so everything was going so fast, and the ideas and the songs were being created so fast, I just remember the excitement of the ideas was having, these intensity creative period only happened to me once, in the begging of my music formation, the times I was still struggling back in Brazil with Magie and Lilly.
It feels to me as a story that had to be told, it might be something too obviously, as it is a love story but in deep those lyrics those melodies sort of defined me and my feelings and what I’ve been through the past two years, the concept was an idea for me to disguise the attention on my own struggle, when you listen it and you try to visualize Carly’s story, you don’t feel some pity for her that was my goal, I wanted people to feel sorry for her, not for me, that’s why I decided to create this concept, to divert the attention from me.
I don’t feel that way anymore, I felt it, but I don’t feel anymore, now it belongs to Carly, when I was finishing the final details of this album, I was getting into Carly’s story deeper and deeper that I forgot to relate to these songs, not that they’re not part of me anymore, they’re part of me and they once made sense to me, but now I feel liberated and Carly can take all of them for her.
Chaos Records believed in me as a soloist, something that I thought it would be very hard to happen, but it did and I’m so glad that I’m already in my second work with them, this is a new era of many others I’ll be doing so.’
ABOUT VIN PETERS ‘I choose Vin, because he was the right person to coordinate me, all of those ideas and I felt lost for sometime, because when you have so many things written and so many things blowing your mind, you need someone outside the madness of your own mind to tell you what to do with all those ideas. I worked with him before, I knew what could I expect from him in the studio and that was what I wanted.
I first showed him the lyrics of the songs I had written, they were five songs reminiscent of that folk influence I had in my debut album, he saw the potential of making a hard rock album with those songs, I really think that I would never had grown up musically if he hadn’t produce this album for me.
He drove me to this rock oriented direction I’m following now, he took my experience and raised it to the ‘next level’ all artists try to achieve when they’re making a new album. I’ll thank him for a long time, I’ll always be thankful.’
ABOUT THE SONGS1- Haunted‘It’s about the fear of moving on, the fear of criticism, of not being accepted by others, I hate neglecting, I was not meant for it, and I once was neglected in this business. You really have to push boundaries, to go further, be the best you can and even try harder than that, I’ll try to be the best of me everytime, but the fear is inevitable, we’re being haunted by it every moment we’ll take a new step on life.
It has this spooky loud piano riff and percussion and ambient sounds, it’s scary and desperate and I wanted to represent the fear through the melodies of it, but not the horror fear, like we feel from ghosts and monsters, I wanted the fear for the future, the fear to get over the past, it has this hoping intonation in the end to give the idea of going forward even fearing it.’
2- Tonight I Gave Up‘’I’ve been in an abusive relationship last year with a famous actor, I’m not gonna mention his name here if you’re interested in knowing it, go on Culture Uncut and search for it, that fact was that I had always to surrender for his needs, I started to feel like I was a slave or something that was only there to serve him and to please him.
But that’s not what love is about, I believe in love and I really think that it is not only about receiving but also giving, you have to be open to give yourself to your partner, otherwise you’re not in a relationship.
The reason I wrote this song was that I wanted to make a sexy song that people could interpret it the way they wanted to, so it’s a double meaning song, but the real meaning behind it was my least relationship.”
3- The Bite“I felt in love for this album, the moment we did this song, it’s a changing for me and this song is responsible for that, all the direction we followed in this album was born in this particular moment, it was me in the studio trying to mix different instruments and sounds and in the end showing them to Vin to make this song.
I admit that lyrically it has no deep meaning behind it, it’s silly sometimes, but when you listen the sound and you visualize it in your mind, maybe it will take a form for you and it won’t be silly anymore, I don’t know, I just feel that it’s a great song.”
4- Damned“This one was purposely written to follow Carly’s storyline, I wanted to do a song that would represent Carly’s feeling about being a vampire, I like the strings and the electronic vibe that this song has, it’s different from anything I did before, I used to say that it’s cursed.
People will relate this song to religious themes, it’s a natural state of human minds, to link something to other things and religion is something we’ll always think about, so maybe this song has this spiritual side on it. I’ll let people decide in what they want to believe.”
5- Some things you cannot deny“No matter how many time will pass, you cannot deny your past, and this song belongs to my past, the time I was still in a girl band, I remember that my final days in that band were kind of traumatic, because we were touring and we weren’t connected anymore.
So in a moment where I was feeling betrayed and I needed to rebel out, to drop from me all those feelings, that’s why I wrote this song, nowadays it sounds a little bit stupid for me, because all the hard feelings and the sadness are gone, and I’m very thankful about the time I spend on that band, but the song fit for Carly, obviously I changed some phrases, so it would sound more coherent.”
6- Looking for you“After I broke up with my ex-boyfriend, I was working hardly, I was touring and promoting my first album the same time I was feeling heartbroken and devastated, but I know we cannot stop looking for love, it’s a lifetime search. So this song represents the hope for someday be with a real good person beside me.
It’s more of a desire from deep within my soul, I don’t wanna be alone for the rest of my life, I do believe that we were not meant to stay alone, we need to love to share and to experience with someone else, I hope this person is looking for me too.”
7- Killing me From Inside“I wanted to describe a scene in this song, initially it was a lot rougher than it turned to be in the end, it’s a scene I lived with someone some time ago, where the hate was predominant and it almost killed us. You never know to what paths love can lead you, it really can take you to heaven but also it can show you the hell, and I’ve tried the hell.
It sounds different from the first half of the album and in fact the whole album before this song sounds hard rock till it switches to folk and ska, something I purposely did, because I don’t want to be trapped in just one genre, I want to be able to sing about whatever my heart wants to sing.”
8- How much I hate you“This one was a poem I wrote from a story I heard, one of my friends was in love by a guy who was not he showed at first to be. So he deceive her and deceived her friends too, I was one of them. In the end she felt really bad about what happened, I saw her to feel desperate and lost.
She’s fine now, but the poem remained and finally I could use it, it’s a beautiful song, I love it, I always loved it, even when I only had it for myself.”
9- What If…“This song is the most personal song to me, it was written by my visions of a future with someone I admire so much, but unfortunately or maybe fortunately, who knows what life could bring for us, we’re not together anymore.
Sometimes we just want things to go our way but the truth is that there is a bigger power surrounding us, the universe is immensely and we are kind of rude to think that we can make things happen just because we want, and so love is like that, sometimes the universe goes against your love story and maybe it’s not bad at all, we don’t know what the future hides so we must accept some things when they’re not meant to be.”
10- Suicide“This is the darkest, most intimate and the heaviest folk influenced song on the album. The easiest one to write too, it sort of came out instrumentally first and then it came the idea of putting an end on Carly’s story, she suffered a lot and I didn’t know if I would let her live longer just to watch she suffer again so I decided to make her commit suicide.
It’s a beautiful song about recognizing its failures and praising someone else’s qualities, something we don’t do as usual, this song is simple and clean, but sad, one of the saddest songs I ever wrote.”
Thank You‘First I want to thank God for basically letting me live, thank my family, mom and dad for believing in my potential first, thanks to Rick for making everything legal and arranging me the best venues ever! Thanks to Vin Peters to accepting my invitation to produce me, Thanks to Chaos Records for giving me credit when I only see madness, thanks to James Urie for singing with me, Thanks to Abie Lena for always helping me in writing lyrics, thanks to Magie and Lilly for our very own start and most important thanks to you who supports me, who listen to me till the very end of each song!’ 