At just 17 years old, alt rocker JULES IS DEAD is creating a name for themselves in the rock scene. Her debut single “Red Is My Favorite Color” was released on April 21st, 2023, and has already amassed over 25,000 streams on Spotify. As a nonbinary artist of color, JULES IS DEAD is bringing a much needed perspective and voice to a genre that is primarily dominated by white cisgendered men. Paving the way for those who see themselves in them, JULES aims to make people feel heard through their music. With an established audience on TikTok prior to releasing any music, JULES will definitely be an upcoming artist to watch.
JULES IS DEAD took some time to chat with me via email, to chat about the new single and their experience in the punk scene.
Brigid: Congratulations on the release of your latest single, “Red Is My Favorite Color”! How are you feeling about the response to it so far?
JULES IS DEAD: Thank you so much! It’s gotten such a great response so far and a lot larger than I anticipated. I’m really happy people are connecting with it.
B: Can you tell me a bit about the creative process behind the track, and how it all came together?
J: A few months before it was written, I had written a few lines in my notes on my phone about bleeding out for someone if their favorite color was red. Then the writing session was put together and that’s where we drew inspiration from for the track along with a guitar riff I had written.
B: What does a typical songwriting session look like for you?
J: It’s usually me, a producer, and another writer in a room and we start by laying down a track before moving to lyrics and melody which we usually pull from partial ideas I had. If I’m writing alone in my room, it’s usually only with an acoustic.
B: You’ve spent most of the last year working on your debut project, what has that experience been like so far?
J: It’s been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I know it’s super cliche but this is what I’ve wanted to do with my life since I was little and it’s still crazy to me that I’m only in my junior year of high school and I’m already getting to go to Los Angeles and New York and working with people who’ve worked with my favourite bands.
B: I’d love to hear a bit about how you got into punk music, do you have a favorite show
you’ve been to?
J: I found this type of music through the Rock Band video games and since then I’ve been hooked. My favorite band is AFI which I found through their song on the second game. I wasn’t super into them before I saw them live on my first trip down to Los Angeles but seeing them instantly put them at the top of my list. It was the first show I ever went to and there’s just something about being in the same room as people you admire so much that makes you feel like you’re on top of the world. I’d have to say my favorite show was when I saw them for a second time in Los Angeles at their Sing the Sorrow 20th Anniversary show.
B: How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard your music?
J: I’d say, picture pop punk, add politics, heartbreak, some goth imagery, and the result of that is my music.
B: Who are some of your musical influences?
J: As I found this genre through Rock Band, the bands on the games became my influences in what style of music I wanted to make. Paramore, AFI, Fall Out Boy, and Garbage were all bands in the games I became obsessed with when I started getting into the genre and went on to become bands I pull a lot of inspiration from.
B: How did you decide on “JULES IS DEAD” as your artist name?
J: I am a massive My Chemical Romance fan and of course Frank Iero has the “Frankieromustdie” username so I wanted to put a bit of a spin on it and changed “must die” to “is dead” and made it my username on all my socials. Since then, it’s just stuck.
B: I think you’re bringing a much-needed perspective into a heavily white male dominated
scene/genre, as a nonbinary artist of color. I’d love to give you a space to talk about
your experience so far of being in these male-dominated spaces, if you’d be open to
sharing?
J: When I first got into the genre with the older bands, I didn’t see anyone who looked like me and as I started getting into the scenes online, there were so many people who didn’t want me there. I would (and still do) get comments all the time telling me I shouldn’t be listening to these bands or dressing this way and I was a “disappointment to my culture”. But then I got into some of the newer bands like Pinkshift and Meet Me @ The Altar and I found faces that reflected my own making the type of music I listen to and wanted to make. Finding them made me feel so accepted and so much more confident after being told for months that this wasn’t somewhere I belonged. And now that I’m an artist, I hope to be that for more people who are going through the same things I did.
B: What do you want listeners to take away from your music?
J: I want people to feel heard when they listen to my music. I know how powerful it is to find a song and be like “This is literally what is happening to me right now” and I want to be able to bring that to people the way my favorite artists brought that to me.
JULES IS DEAD recently released an acoustic version of “Red Is My Favorite Color”, which you can find here. They share that there will be a new track dropping soon, an angsty single packed full of Riot Grrrl influences and political commentary. There are a lot of things to look forward to during this time in JULES IS DEAD’s career, and we can’t wait to keep up with their growth and success.
Listen to “Red Is My Favorite Color” here!
