JULIA BRYAN is a fresh new voice in Colorado’s original music scene. In just the first few months of launching her professional career in 2009, Julia would go from coffee houses to the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheater, and her music would be played across international airwaves.
Julia and her veteran band distinguish themselves by successfully merging classic and modern pop-rock styles with cross-generational appeal... a unique mix, with the intimacy of Sarah McLachlin and explosiveness of Pat Benetar.
Her local buzz is like a runaway train, evidenced by the exponentially growing number of fans at her shows, CD sales, and the tripling of her website hits monthly.
Since her debut performance in January of 2009, opening for nationally acclaimed new-grassers Cadillac Sky, Julia and her band have subsequently been invited to perform at the premier events across Colorado’s Front Range such as The Capitol Hill People’s Fair and The Taste of Colorado, each hosting over 250,000 attendees. The Julia Bryan Band was twice selected from dozens of regional acts for Denver’s Hard Rock Cafe’s “Ambassadors of Rock” competition, and again from a horde of national acts to perform at The 2009 South Park Music Tour... by August she would be invited to open a sold out Red Rocks Amphitheater show for local powerhouse Opie Gone Bad...not a bad eight-month progression by anybody’s standard.
Cuts off of Julia’s demo EP have already been selected by prestigious licensing houses for inclusion into their libraries for TV/film use, and now armed with her first full-length CD, "Still Burning," and a cache of two more full-length CD’s worth of original material in production, 2010 indeed looks bright for this newcomer!
Julia's back story --- Out of Africa
“Gunny” Jeff Norman has a nickname for everybody. Once that “Sweet Pea”, his recently hired co-worker, had discovered he was a songwriter, she felt compelled to brag about her “angel-voiced” sister Julia, in time bringing him a homemade CD to serve as proof. “Yeah, yeah, sure...” It had been Gunny’s experience that EVERYBODY has a family member who’s “the best singer on the planet,” and obligingly agreed to give it a quick listen. It understandably wasn’t given much priority by him, as it was made clear that this “Julia person” was singularly devoted to the non-profit work she was currently doing in Uganda, would be away for months if not years, and was in no way interested in the music “biz”... a perspective that Gunny could actually empathize with... any talent is in itself a beautiful thing, but making a business out of one can often defile it, the music industry being the prime example of a heartless “defiler”.
Eventually slipping Sweet Pea’s disc into the CD player for the cursory listen he’d promised, it was immediately obvious to him that there was indeed a very special emotive quality of the voice he was hearing... lilting, and maybe a bit restrained, but with an honest conveyance of the lyrics being sung. It was Gunny’s general opinion that there were tons of passionless “note-perfect” singers out there... and those wanting to show off their vibrato and range more than to communicate a lyric, but this voice was a genuine voice that rang true... and one he could swear he had sometimes heard in his head when songwriting. “Pirating” a copy of the rudimentary CD, he returned the original to Sweet Pea the following day, concede to her assessment, and two years would pass, during which Sweet Pea and Gunny would venture separate ways.
For the second time in a decade, Gunny and his wife, Marcie, ambled through the doors of the Castle Rock Chili’s restaurant, the thought of a fat burger and Corona sounding especially good to them this summer night. After reaching their assigned seats, the young waitress now dutifully welcoming them to their booth had an eerily familiar presence... something about how her giant blue eyes lit up in sync with her equally oversized smile, and as she turned to fetch their drinks, Marcie and Gunny blurted to each other in unison, “Sweet Pea’s sister!”
As it was still a guess, having never actually seen her, Gunny couldn’t resist doling out small bits of information to confirm their suspicions... “You look like you can sing!” to which the surprised waitress replied, “I do, I do!” The next trip’s exchange was similar, with something like “You probably sung with your sisters...” “I DO have sisters!” After a couple more exchanges that would verge on creeping the young waitress out, Gunny confessed that he was both a “fan” and family friend. The waitress, now somewhat relieved, volunteered that she was indeed Sweet Pea’s sister, Julia, now back from her service in Africa. After some more small talk and the conclusion of their meal, Gunny summarily handed Julia his business card on their way out.
Months would pass until Julia would find a use for that card. Sweet Pea was getting married, and very much wanted a favorite song, “Songbird,” to be sung by Julia and her Mom as a part of the ceremony. It was decided that the song could be enhanced with a few “lead” guitar embellishments, and Julia was now calling to see if Gunny could lend a hand with that. Rehearsals were subsequently scheduled and convened as Julia and Gunny surprisingly found themselves bonding both musically and as friends. Their debut performance would be delivered without incident.
After this reasonably successful collaboration, Julia’s overall disdain for the commercial music industry, and her elevated distrust of all involved within it’s tangled web would diminish ever so slightly... just enough so that her next phone call to Gunny would be more intent... “I want to do something with my music,” sounding as if she had rehearsed the sentence dozens of times. A whirlwind of events would follow...
There’s a level of trust that needs to accompany a creative partnership. The 30-year age difference between the two somehow seemed to actually facilitate that. She could use his mentorship, and he, in realizing that distinctive voice he’d heard in his head for all those years, could use her contagious enthusiasm for writing music. The disparity between their ages and backgrounds was oddly proving to be fertile ground, as opposed to the train wreck one would anticipate. It was unexpectedly productive, and their songwriting sessions were devoid of both pre-conceived song structure formulae and peer competitiveness. At the outset, they had agreed that if the song wanted to be five minutes, and thus “too long” for radio, so be it... if there wasn’t an obligatory “bridge” in the song... tough. The songwriting “rules” that had handcuffed Gunny for so many years were just as absent as the stereotypical “I can make you a star, baby” sleaze factor that had plagued Julia in the past.
The music industry typically has no place for fifty-five year old “breaking” artists, and it eagerly consumes younger artists who are blissfully ignorant of the business of music, so it proved to be a mutually beneficial situation for them both. Though solicited by a record label in his late teens, Gunny’s “marketable” years as an artist had vanished over twenty years in the Marines. A bit jaded at this point, he found Julia’s grounded musical aspirations and embracement of a myriad of styles to be refreshing. A collision of classic and modern influences was now happening with each of their song collaborations, and both of their personal stashes of original music were going through a collaborative wringer, successfully emerging only with their mutual approval.
Marcie had already been booking Gunny fairly regularly, and now that he and Julia were armed with enough original material to showcase, a “trial run” would be set up at a small coffee shop. The place was packed with well-wishers, friends and family, as Julia nervously mumbled a welcome and tentatively launched into the first song with her guitar unknowingly still unplugged from the sound system. Punctuated by a cacophony of cappuccino machines, cash registers and blenders, their performance was ultimately received with unexpected zeal from a standing room only, albeit “fixed” crowd. After this night, there would be no going back for Julia, as evidenced by her unrelenting grin.
Somehow, through Marcie’s booking savvy, their very next performance, only one month later, would be at one of Denver’s most prestigious venues, The Soiled Dove Underground, opening for the national touring act, Cadillac Sky. Moments before Julia’s name was to be announced and the curtain would open, Julia and Gunny locked eyes in silent bewilderment... “How in the heck did we get here...?” Julia sold several of her demo cd’s that night, the crowd seeming to be just as enthusiastic in their reception for her as they did for the headliner... and she gave her first autograph.
A band was put together, Julia dismissing Gunny’s suggestion that a younger “hipper” band back her up. She had apparently found comfort in being surrounded by “old school” players, and wasn’t concerned about image over music. In return for that decision, she would soon have at her disposal an experienced, veteran band of proven players, devoutly loyal to her.
Two more opportunities would arise for her to open for national acts that year, and the unthinkable happened when Jake Schroeder, front man for the local powerhouse, Opie Gone Bad, called Marcie after seeing Julia perform in a “battle of the bands” at the Denver Hard Rock Cafe... “Would Julia be available to open for them at Red Rocks?” Within eight months Julia would go from experiencing her first coffee house gig to experiencing all the panic and indescribable excitement of looking up from that legendary stage as the 10,000 seats filled to capacity while her voice echoed throughout the towering rock walls.
The five-song homemade demo they had put together was getting national webcast support from Carmen Allgood on the Colorado Wave, and local airplay on The Mountain. Requests for interviews were coming from out of state radio stations that somehow had Julia on their play lists. The band was becoming more and more popular at each of their showcases, and it was now a race to record more of the material Julia and Gunny had assembled. The small recorder utilized for the demo was no longer an option.
For Gunny, having been weaned on reel to reel tape machines, drudging through a quagmire of unfamiliar digital recording technology would now be required to circumvent the costs of going to a “real” recording studio. Purchasing the requisite “industry standard” recording software, for the next six months he would self-tutor on this new technology, and bulldoze through the recording and mixing of instrumental and vocal tracks, his forefinger married to the “save” command on his newly acquired iMac in fear of wiping it all away with an errant key stroke. Somehow, last week in his makeshift basement studio, it all came together.
Looking back, the significance of coincidences that lead up to their unlikely partnership is not lost on either Julia or Gunny. It’s all made a little more strange when considering that she was employed at that Chili’s for only that one week, was just one of twelve potential servers on-hand to wait on Gunny and Marcie, patrons for only the second time in ten years, randomly directed to sit in Julia’s assigned section. Weird? Grand plan? Maybe, but neither of them make more of it than what it’s been up to now... a fun ride, and a second chance to re-dedicate themselves to what they were both about to surrender... a love of creating music.
The latest chapter of this “chance encounter” can be seen and heard at the Hard Rock Cafe Denver on Friday, June 25th, 2010, when The Julia Bryan Band... Julia, Gunny, Marcie, drummer Carl “Dubba” Holz, and bassist Spencer Pyne perform the eleven songs off of Julia’s first full-length CD, “Still Burning”.
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