About Julian
Julian Kenneth has been releasing music under his own name since 2012, when he was in high school. A native to Illinois, he earned a formal education in audio production from MTSU. He is a mostly self-taught multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and composer, as well as trained audio engineer and producer. His main instrument is the acoustic guitar, but he branches out into keys, bass, ukulele, and percussion. His lyricism is heartfelt and drawn from personal experiences, reflecting his commitment to authenticity and his desire to poetically express the full spectrum of being human: the good, the bad, the sad, the glad, and all the shades of white, gray, black, and rainbows in between. Blending multiple genres under the Singer-Songwriter umbrella (including indie, folk, jazz, rock and more), his music could otherwise be described as earnest, positive yet informed by the negative, human, nourishing, inspiring, and catchy.
For more than 15 years, Julian has been seriously playing music, starting out on his faithful acoustic guitar. He has owned the same Taylor 114ce for over 13 years. During high school, he took piano lessons between choir classes, which provided him with foundational skills for songwriting. He picked up a number of instruments during this time, and at one point his room was filled with all sorts of musical contraptions; bass gutiar, electric guitar, mandolin, banjo - you name it. Back then, he was passionately making CDs with the most rudimentary musical and technical abilities available. These early days were influenced by artists such as Simon and Garfunkel, Dispatch, Nahko and Medicine for the People, The Beatles, The Avett Brothers, Mumford and Sons, Barenaked Ladies, and many more. These formative experiences of making music during his adolescence helped shape what he brings to the stage today.
From 2014 – 2018, Julian attended university in Tennessee, where he studied audio production and engineering. Utilizing professional-grade studio classrooms, he learned a great deal about recording and live audio production. His musicianship matured significantly during this time with a couple solo albums recorded on a 4-track Zoom recorder (College Budget Recordings Vol. I and II). This growth continued with the formation of his band, Julian and the Tree Climbers. Releasing two albums in its heyday (What’s Out There and One Branch at a Time) featuring 12 songs total, they left a modest impact on the Murfreesboro music scene. The music is still available for streaming, offering an early glimpse into Julian’s songwriting and musical abilities, and stands as a reflection of his musical upbringing and early development. There’s still songs he wrote on there that hold up – Kathmandu Blues, Ye Shall Overcome, Love Song for the Self – and continue to be a regular part of Julian’s performance repertoire. During the pandemic years, he was able to release two singles recorded in his old bedroom: You Can’t Plan Love & The Mountain’s Shore.
Since moving to Eugene, Oregon in 2021, Julian has released one album that was recorded in one night at Bon Bon’s Nook with just him and his guitar. The album, Sprouts, provides an acoustic skeleton for about half of the fully-produced songs that will be released on the upcoming album Blossoms. There are 15 songs total that go back a ways. The timeline these songs were written in spans from 2024 to 2017; with one song going as far back as 2015! He’s had some catching up to do, and he’s excited to finally be reaching this milestone and putting forth his full creative potential into this project.
This album comes from a larger well of life experience and a purifying of creative intentions. The number of musical influences has also expanded, taking notes from Jacob Collier, Hozier, James Taylor, CSNY, Neutral Milk Hotel, MaMuse, Satsang, Xavier Rudd – just to name a few. Utilizing his home-studio setup, he’ll have written, composed, produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered everything on Blossoms. On top of that, he will have performed the majority of the instrumentation other than a few key parts (brass, woodwinds, cello, and drums). Blossoms is the current peak of Julian’s technical skill, creative potential, and musical talent. The making of this album has been a labor of love, and comes with a fair bit of out-of-pocket expenses. It’s a professional-grade passion project through-and-through, and Julian is proud to present it to the world.