Julience – Julience — Songs, Lyrics & Stories | Manchester Indie Rock

Are Song Lyrics Important?

Julience — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:01:51 +0000

Every song is a bundle of moving parts — melody, rhythm, tone, production — and they all pull at us in their own way. But the part I keep coming back to, both as a listener and when I’m writing my own songs, is the lyrics. They’re the words that carry the story, the emotion, and whatever the song is really trying to say.

So are they just something to hang on the melody, or do they matter more than that? I’ve spent a lot of hours on both sides of this — humming a tune with no idea what the words are, and being completely undone by a single line — and I’ve landed somewhere in the middle. Here’s where.

An Emotional Connection

The clearest thing lyrics do is connect. The right words at the right moment can make you feel joy, grief, anger, love — sometimes all in one song. They can make a listener feel understood, and on a bad day they can feel like company.

That’s what pulls me in when I write. A melody sets the mood, but the words tell you why you’re feeling it. When I wrote “Don’t Say Goodbye,” the whole song came down to one idea — that some doors weren’t meant for closing. Get a line like that right and you don’t have to explain the feeling; the listener already has it.

Storytelling and Narrative

Lyrics are also a storyteller’s pen. They give a song a shape — a beginning, a turn, somewhere to land — and that structure is often what makes it stick.

Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” is the obvious example: a few verses that somehow hold an entire decade of rebellion, progress, and hope. Adele’s “Someone Like You” does it from the opposite direction — no politics, just heartbreak told so plainly that it feels like she’s reading your own memory back to you. Different worlds, same trick: the words do the carrying.

Message and Meaning

Beyond feeling and story, lyrics can carry an argument. They can take on love, loss, growth, injustice — and when they hit, they don’t just entertain, they change the conversation.

Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” became anthems of the civil rights movement precisely because their words named something people were living through. You can dance to a lot of songs; only some of them make you think while you do.

Memorability

Then there’s the simple pleasure of a line you can’t shake. “Is this real life? Is this just fantasy?” — you didn’t even have to hear the melody to know the song. Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is stuffed with phrases that leapt out of the record and into everyday speech.

A lot of that comes down to craft: an easy melody, a chorus that repeats, a hook that fits the mouth. It’s also why singing along matters — there’s a real joy in a room full of people landing on the same line at the same time.

But Lyrics Aren’t the Whole Story

Of course, words aren’t the only thing that moves us. Plenty of songs win on sound alone. Some listeners live for the storytelling — the Dylans, the Leonard Cohens, the Adeles — and follow a song wherever the words go. Others chase the melody, the rhythm, the feel, and are perfectly happy for the lyrics to ride in the back seat. Madonna, Daft Punk, and BTS have built huge careers on hooks and grooves that don’t need a poem to land.

Genre shapes it too. Folk, country, and hip-hop tend to put the words up front and expect a lot of them. Electronic and a lot of pop lean harder on production and sound. Neither is wrong — they’re just different ways of reaching the same place.

So — Are They Important?

To me, yes — even when they’re not the point. Lyrics leave room for you to read yourself into a song, to feel understood, to remember it long after it’s over. Whether you’re in it for the poetry or the beat, the words are quietly doing a lot of the work.

That’s the part I care about most when I sit down to write. If a line of mine ever lands with you the way those songs land with me, then it did its job.

— Julience

If you’d rather read one than read about them

Black Sheep has its lyrics on the page, and there’s a separate piece on why it was written. Both are short.

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Some Doors Weren’t Meant for Closing — “Don’t Say Goodbye” Is Out! 🎶

Julience — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 08:54:17 +0000

New Single Out Now

I’m happy to let you know that my new single, “Don’t Say Goodbye,” is finally out in the world.

This one’s a bit of a shift from the last release. Where Black Sheep leaned into raw, riff-driven rock and roll, “Don’t Say Goodbye” goes somewhere warmer and a little more tender. It’s an up-tempo pop/rock ballad built around acoustic guitar, piano, and vocals — the kind of song that carries you along and stays with you after it ends.

At its heart it’s about holding on. About the moments where letting go feels easier than staying, and choosing to stay anyway. Because some doors weren’t meant for closing.

Take a Listen

You’ll find all the links on my website at julience.com, or head straight to the song here:

Stream / download: Listen to “Don’t Say Goodbye”
Lyric video: Watch & sing along on YouTube
More about the song: Read the story behind it

If you like reading along while you listen, the lyric video is the way to go.

A Small Favour

Release day is when everything counts. A few minutes of your time genuinely helps a small artist like me get noticed by the streaming algorithms — and it costs nothing at all. So if the song lands with you:

Give it a play (all the way through, if you can)
Follow me on your favourite platform
Add it to a playlist — even a personal one makes a difference

That’s it. No pressure, no hard sell. Just gratitude if you do.

Thank you for listening, for sharing, and for sticking around. It means more than you know.

— Julience

The post Some Doors Weren’t Meant for Closing — “Don’t Say Goodbye” Is Out! 🎶 first appeared on Julience — Songs, Lyrics & Stories | Manchester Indie Rock.

The Light in the Hall

Julience — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:06:02 +0000

I went quiet for a year and a half.

I didn’t plan it that way, but sometimes you have to step away from the noise to figure out what you’re actually trying to say.
The machinery of it all—the algorithms, the constant demand to be visible, the streams that never translate into real people—it gets loud. I needed quiet.

But there’s a difference between quiet and finished.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about pride versus repair.
About who climbs down first.
About the unsent texts and the rooms kept quiet just because neither person wants to be the one to break the silence.

When is holding on devotion, and when is it just a mistake?

I write music to say the things that matter before they go unsaid.
To catch you in the moment before a door closes and tip you toward holding on.

The last five songs were me walking back down the hall.
Rebuilding this thing one real listener at a time, without the machinery.

On July 17, I’m releasing a new song called “Don’t Say Goodbye” on Bandcamp.
On July 24, It will become available on all streaming services

If the last five songs were the walk back, this one is stepping through the door.
It’s about refusing to let distance have the last word.
It’s for anyone who knows that some doors weren’t meant for closing.

I’m not chasing anything with this release.
I’m just putting it out there for the people who need it.

Thank you for leaving the light on.

Thank you for being here.
— Julience

The post The Light in the Hall first appeared on Julience — Songs, Lyrics & Stories | Manchester Indie Rock.

You Deserve to Know What You’re Listening To

Julience — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:01:33 +0000

There’s a number that’s been sitting with me all day.

According to new research from the Dutch music industry, more than three-quarters of people in the Netherlands now want AI-generated music to carry a label on streaming platforms.
Two years ago, that figure was 59 per cent.
Today it’s past 75. And in the same stretch, the share of people who say it matters that music is made by a real person climbed from 68 to 78 per cent.

I read that and thought: finally.
Not because I want to win an argument.
Because it means I’m not shouting into the void.

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know my line in the sand: 100% Human, Zero AI.
Every word, every melody, every imperfect take.
I’ve never treated that as a marketing slogan.
It’s the whole point.
So watching the country I was born in arrive at the same instinct — that authenticity is worth protecting — feels less like vindication and more like company.

Here’s the scale of what we’re up against.
One major streaming service says roughly 75,000 fully AI-generated tracks get uploaded every single day.

That’s nearly half of everything new arriving on the platform.
Half.
Think about what that does to a listener trying to find something real.
You’re not browsing a record shop anymore.
You’re wading through a flood, and most of it was never touched by a human hand.

The people pushing for change put it better than I could.
Transparency matters. Listeners have a right to honest information — to know where the thing they’re feeling actually came from.
That’s it. That’s the ask. Not a ban, not a witch hunt.
Just a label, so you can choose with your eyes open.

What moved me most wasn’t the AI part, though. It was the vinyl part.

The same research found people are buying records again — not chasing the newest release, but returning to music they already love, so they can experience it again.
Hold it. Put the needle down. Sit with it.

One spokesperson framed it perfectly: the more we live online, and the more AI rises, the more we crave something real.

The more we want to actually feel a thing, rather than have it fed to us by an algorithm that’s optimising for retention.

That’s the deepest reason I do this the way I do.
A song isn’t a product I’m trying to scale.
It’s an attempt to hand you something true — written at a kitchen table, second-guessed, rewritten, sung until it was right.
When you press play on a ‘Julience’ track, a person was there.
I was there.

So if you’ve ever wondered why I make such a stubborn fuss about the human thing, this is why. Three-quarters of my birth country just said the quiet part out loud.
You want to know what you’re listening to.
You deserve to!

And with me, you always will.

Stay human.

— Julience

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The Algorithm Almost Buried These Songs

Julience — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 14:10:59 +0000

What Spotify’s hidden Popularity Score reveals about how independent music really gets discovered — and why the first few weeks decide everything.

I took a look at Spotify’s Popularity Scores recently, and what they reveal is worth sharing — not as a complaint, but as an honest look at how the discovery game actually works for an independent artist.

The hidden score behind every song

Spotify quietly gives every track and artist a hidden score from 0 to 100. Think of it as a credit score for your music. It isn’t lifetime streams. From what artists have pieced together over the years, it’s heavily recency-weighted — it rewards a burst of plays right after release far more than a slow trickle over time.

The rough consensus among independent musicians is that crossing into the 30s is roughly where Spotify’s algorithm starts working in your favour: feeding you into Discover Weekly and larger editorial and algorithmic playlists. None of this is officially published, so treat the exact numbers as informed estimates rather than gospel. But the underlying pattern — that early momentum matters enormously — is something almost every indie artist recognises.

Where JULIENCE sits today

Here’s a snapshot of the JULIENCE catalogue’s scores (June 2026):

Love Lies Cold 25%
Time Is A Weapon 25%
Port to Port (The Lonesome Sailor) 22%
The Road Less Travelled 20%
Black Sheep 15%

JULIENCE — Spotify popularity scores (June 2026). The dashed line marks the ~30% threshold where algorithmic discovery tends to kick in.

The pattern that repeats

Look at the top four — they’re all older songs. They’re sitting at a respectable 20–25% now, but they were nowhere near these numbers in the first few weeks after release, when it actually counts. By the time the algorithm noticed them, the early window had already closed. The scores look decent on paper today, but the momentum wasn’t there when Spotify’s system was deciding whether to push them.

That’s the quiet reality for most independent artists. The work doesn’t fail on quality — it fails on timing. A song can be genuinely good and still slip past the moment that would have carried it to new listeners.

Why the first weeks matter

The most recent release, Black Sheep, is a live example of this in motion. It came out on 1 June 2026 and currently sits at 15%. The weeks immediately after a release are the rare window where a single play genuinely moves the needle — where real listeners, not the algorithm’s mood, decide whether a song gets a fair shot.

That’s the whole point of writing this. These scores are public if you know where to look, and they tell a more honest story than the headline “streams” number ever does. Independent music lives or dies by real listeners showing up early — and that’s something anyone can be part of.

If you’ve ever wanted to actually help an independent artist break through, the most useful thing you can do is listen early and share what you love.

Listen to JULIENCE on Spotify

And I’d love to know: what’s your favourite JULIENCE track?
Tell me in the comments.

#Spotify #IndieArtist #MusicDiscovery #BlackSheep #Julience

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Why I Wrote Black Sheep

Julience — Sun, 31 May 2026 17:31:08 +0000

For most of my adult life, I’ve had this quiet, nagging sense that I showed up at the wrong time, in the wrong place. Like the world had already settled into a shape and I was the one piece that wouldn’t slot in. The Beach Boys put it perfectly years ago — I just wasn’t made for these times. That line has followed me around like a shadow.

Black Sheep is the song I finally wrote about it.

The lyrics talk about “reach-me-down genes passed down the family / like second hand rag dolls and Playmobil.” That’s not just imagery for me. It’s the feeling of inheriting a life that doesn’t quite fit — hand-me-down everything, including a sense of not belonging that I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried. So at some point I stopped trying to fit, and started writing instead.

There was a band, once. I couldn’t hold it together. There was school, too — I never finished it the first time around. I was the dropout, the pain in the neck the teachers warned about, the one whose name got said in a slightly lower voice. For a long time those felt like failures stacked on top of each other. “Thirty-two years of bad luck and shame,” more or less.

The strange turning point came when I had nothing to show for myself. I left for Manchester with no credentials, no plan worth the name — and for the first time, I felt like I belonged somewhere. It wasn’t a clean fairy tale after that. There were still ups and downs, plenty of them. But eventually I finished school, earned the diploma, found work, found a place to settle. And in 2022 I started making music again.

That’s really the heart of why this song exists. Black Sheep isn’t a sad song, even though it’s built out of things that used to make me feel small. It’s a song that takes society’s rejection and turns it into a rallying cry. The black sheep in this story doesn’t apologise — he announces himself. Chest out, guitars ragged, a four-count war drum kicking the whole thing into gear. The chorus doesn’t ask anyone for acceptance. It dares you to look away.

I wanted it to sound exactly like that feeling: punk-edged, defiant, a little reckless. Not polished into something palatable. Because the point isn’t “please let me in.” The point is “I’m here, I made it this far, deal with it.”

If you’ve ever felt like the odd one out — in your family, your town, your own skin — this one’s for you. Maybe you’re a black sheep too. Maybe that’s not the curse it gets made out to be. Maybe it just means you were never going to follow the herd in the first place.

I might be the black sheep of the family. But I’m still alive and kicking. And now I’ve got a song to prove it.

Black Sheep is out June 1, 2026

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The Art of the Three-Minute Revolution: Why Time Really Is A Weapon

Julience — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 21:03:28 +0000

There’s something brutally perfect about a three-minute rock song.

No wasted space. No meandering intro that takes forty-five seconds to “build atmosphere.” Just plug in, turn up, and detonate. Three minutes to say everything that matters, then get out before you overstay your welcome.

My new single “Time Is A Weapon” clocks in at 3:30—just thirty seconds past the classic three-minute mark. And you know what? Those extra thirty seconds? They earned their place. Every single one of them.

The Tyranny of Choice vs. The Power of Limits

Here’s the weird thing about unlimited creative freedom: it’s paralyzing.

Give a songwriter infinite time and infinite tracks, and they’ll second-guess themselves into oblivion. They’ll add another guitar layer. Another vocal harmony. Another bridge that “really ties the room together.” Before you know it, you’ve got a six-minute epic that says less than a two-minute punk song.

But force yourself into three minutes? Suddenly every second counts. Every word has to earn its place. You can’t hide behind production tricks or lengthy instrumental passages. You have to mean it.

That’s what happened with “Time Is A Weapon.” The song is about time as this impartial, relentless executioner—a force that doesn’t care about your plans, your dreams, or your desperate bargaining. It strips away everything until there’s nothing left but the void. Heavy stuff, right?

But I didn’t have the luxury of drowning that message in reverb and contemplative guitar solos. I had three minutes to capture the suffocating inevitability of our mortality. So every chord had to hit like a fist. Every lyric had to land like a diagnosis you weren’t ready to hear.

The constraint became the weapon itself.

Breaking the Rule (Just a Little)

Okay, full disclosure: “Time Is A Weapon” actually runs 3:30. Thirty seconds over the “rule.”

But here’s the thing—those thirty seconds aren’t filler. They’re not some self-indulgent outro that fades into oblivion. They’re the moment where the song stops warning you about time’s inevitability and just shows you. The moment where the music itself becomes the executioner.

Sometimes you need that extra half-minute to let the truth sink in. To let the silence creep in at the edges. To give the listener space to feel the weight of what you just said.

The rule isn’t “never go past three minutes.” The rule is “every second has to matter.” And in “Time Is A Weapon,” all 210 seconds do.

Why Rock and Roll Perfected the Format

Rock and roll didn’t invent the three-minute song, but it weaponized it.

Think about it: “Blitzkrieg Bop” by The Ramones is 2:12. “Anarchy in the U.K.” by the Sex Pistols is 3:31. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is 5:01, sure, but it feels like three minutes of pure adrenaline with a couple extra punches thrown in.

These songs understood something fundamental: rock is about immediacy. It’s the sound of right now—urgent, raw, unfiltered. You don’t have time to pontificate when the world’s on fire. You plug in, you scream the truth, and you’re done before anyone can tell you to turn it down.

Modern music has largely abandoned this. Streaming algorithms favor longer songs (more plays = more money), so everything’s stretched to four, five, six minutes. Intros that take forever. Outros that refuse to end. It’s exhausting.

But there’s a reason classic rock still dominates. Those three-minute explosions of sound and fury? They don’t waste your time. They respect it. Ironically, by being shorter, they last longer.

The Clock Is Always Ticking

Writing “Time Is A Weapon” forced me to confront something I usually avoid: my own mortality.

Time is a weapon. It’s ticking away right now as you read this. Every second that passes is gone forever, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Time doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t care about your five-year plan or your bucket list. It just keeps moving, relentless and indifferent, until suddenly you’re out.

That realization could be depressing. And honestly, some days it is.

But it’s also liberating. If time’s going to kill me anyway, I might as well make the most of the time I’ve got. I might as well write songs that matter, even if they’re only three minutes long. Especially if they’re only three minutes long.

Because here’s the thing: you don’t need an hour to change someone’s life. You just need three minutes of truth.

The Revolution Will Be Brief (But Not Rushed)

“Time Is A Weapon” drops January 16, 2026. Three and a half minutes of guitars that bite, drums that pound like a death march, and lyrics that don’t apologize for staring into the void.

I’m not trying to create background music for your commute. I’m trying to shake you awake, remind you that the clock’s ticking, and maybe—just maybe—inspire you to do something meaningful with whatever time you’ve got left.

Three and a half minutes. That’s all I need.

That’s all any of us really have anyway.

Pre-save “Time Is A Weapon” now and join the revolution. Because time waits for no one—but a great rock song? That’s forever.

The post The Art of the Three-Minute Revolution: Why Time Really Is A Weapon first appeared on Julience — Songs, Lyrics & Stories | Manchester Indie Rock.

Why Rock N’ Roll?

Julience — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 15:01:29 +0000

People ask me all the time: “Why rock n’ roll? In 2025? Really?”

My answer is always the same. When’s the last time you turned on the radio—any station, Spotify “Today’s Top Hits,” Apple Music, TikTok, whatever—and heard a real guitar riff that punched you in the chest? When’s the last time you heard an actual guitar solo that made the hair on your arms stand up? Hell, when’s the last time you heard a guitar at all that wasn’t a two-second loop buried under fifteen layers of Auto-Tune and kick drums the size of asteroids?

Exactly.

Rock n’ roll didn’t die. It was quietly escorted out the back door while everyone was busy chasing streams, clout, and algorithmic approval. The electric guitar—the snarling, filthy, beautiful voice of rebellion for three generations—got labeled “dad music” or “boomer nostalgia” and shoved into classic-rock ghettos where it plays between ads for reverse mortgages.

But here’s the thing nobody wants to admit: the world is starving for it.

We’re drowning in polished, focus-grouped, risk-free noise that evaporates the second the next track starts. And deep down, people are bored. They feel it. They just don’t know what’s missing until that first distorted chord of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” or “Back in Black” hits them like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. Suddenly they remember what it feels like to be alive.

That’s why I still choose rock n’ roll. Every single day.

I live rock n’ roll.
I breathe rock n’ roll.
I bleed rock n’ roll.
And so help me God, Creator of all things, I will die rock n’ roll.

It’s not a phase. It’s not a costume. It’s the only thing that’s ever made sense in a world that increasingly doesn’t.

The first time I hit an open E chord and felt the thing roar back at me, I wasn’t a shy kid with braces anymore. I was dangerous. I was free. Twenty years later, that feeling hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s gotten louder.

I don’t care if the charts say rock is dead. Charts lie. Charts are written by people who’ve never stood in a dive bar at 1 a.m. while some three-chord miracle makes 200 strangers lose their damn minds. Charts have never seen a 16-year-old girl absolutely shred “Eruption” in her bedroom and realize she can do anything she wants with her life.

That’s the real scoreboard.

So yeah, I’m still here, still writing riffs at 3 a.m., still chasing that perfect feedback howl, still believing the next generation is going to pick up the torch and burn the whole thing down in the best way possible.

God willing, there’s nothing I’d love more than to inspire just one person—just one—to dust off that guitar in the corner, plug it in, turn it up, and play until their fingers bleed and their soul feels clean again.

Because rock n’ roll isn’t a genre. It’s a lifeline.

I’ve got new songs coming. Real ones. The kind with guitars that bite, drums that swing, and lyrics that don’t apologize for existing. I’m hoping to properly release them this year. No algorithms. No committee. Just loud, honest, human noise.

Stay tuned.

And if you’re reading this and something in your chest is rumbling like a Marshall stack about to take off…

Pick up the guitar. Turn it up. Play one chord like your life depends on it.

Because maybe it does.

For those about to rock—we salute you.
Always have. Always will.

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When the Algorithm Knows Your Sound Better Than You Do

Julience — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:05:08 +0000

I had a weird moment last week.

I was scrolling through Instagram when an ad popped up for an AI music generator. Out of curiosity (and maybe a little masochism), I clicked through and typed in a few prompts that basically described my own music: “Indie rock with emotional vocals, introspective lyrics about connection and isolation, atmospheric production.”

Thirty seconds later, it spit out a song.

And it was… good? Not great, but definitely good enough that someone could listen to it, save it, maybe even put it on a playlist.

I sat there staring at my phone, feeling this weird knot in my stomach.

The Question Nobody Wants to Ask

Here’s the thing that keeps me up at night lately: What’s the point?

I don’t mean that in some existential, artsy way. I mean it practically. Why spend months writing and recording and perfecting a song when someone can generate something “good enough” in less time than it takes to microwave popcorn?

Why would anyone care about my music specifically when they can just prompt an AI to make exactly what they want to hear in that exact moment?

This fear hits different than normal artist anxiety. It’s not imposter syndrome—that voice that says “you’re not good enough.” This is more like: “Maybe nobody needs you to be good at all anymore.”

And if I’m being honest, that cuts deeper than anything I’ve felt before as an artist.

The Productivity Trap

I’ll be honest—my first instinct was to try to compete.

I started thinking: Maybe I need to release more music. Maybe I need to use AI tools to speed up my process. Maybe the answer is just to produce, produce, produce until I’ve flooded enough platforms that people remember my name.

I actually tried it for a few weeks. Used some AI tools to help with arrangement ideas, to generate social media captions, to optimize everything.

And you know what happened? I felt more disconnected from my music than I ever have.

I was creating content, sure. But I wasn’t creating art. I wasn’t creating me.

Here’s the thing I’m realizing: Trying to beat AI at its own game is like trying to outrun a car on foot. You’ll just exhaust yourself while the car keeps going.

What AI Can’t Steal

AI can generate perfect pitch. It can create flawless production. It can even mimic emotional inflection.

But it can’t actually feel anything.

It can’t write about heartbreak because it’s never had its heart broken. It can’t write about loneliness because it’s never needed another person. It can’t write about hope because it’s never experienced despair.

Every song I write comes from somewhere. From a relationship that ended. From a conversation I had at 2am that I can’t stop thinking about. From the way light looks when you’re driving home after a long day and you’re too tired to pretend everything’s okay.

AI can simulate all of that. But it can’t live it.

And I think people can tell the difference.

The Paradox of Connection

Here’s what’s wild: As AI-generated content floods every platform, I’m noticing something unexpected.

Real human connection is becoming more valuable, not less.

When everything sounds polished and algorithm-optimized and perfectly engineered, the rough edges start to matter. The imperfections become meaningful. The humanity shines through.

I see this in my own engagement with music. When I discover a new artist now, I immediately start looking for signs that they’re real. I read their bio. I watch their Instagram stories. I look for the unfiltered moments, the messy process, the proof that there’s an actual human behind the music.

And I think that’s what my listeners are starting to do with me, too.

That’s the thing AI fundamentally cannot replicate: the need for connection that makes us human.

What This Means (For Me, Anyway)

I’m still figuring this out. I don’t have all the answers.

But here’s what I’m trying to do differently:

I’m done trying to out-produce the algorithms. I can’t win that race, and honestly, I don’t want to.

Instead, I’m doubling down on what makes me human. I’m sharing more of my process—the songs that don’t work, the ideas that go nowhere, the moments of doubt. I’m trying to build actual relationships with you, the people who listen to my music. Not as streams to optimize or followers to monetize, but as real connections with real people.

This is slower. It’s harder. It won’t show up in my Spotify numbers as quickly as gaming the algorithm might.

But it’s sustainable. And more importantly, it’s honest.

If you’re an artist reading this and feeling the same anxiety, maybe this resonates. If you’re a listener, maybe this helps you understand why authentic connection with artists matters more than ever.

The Long Game

I’m not going to lie and say I’m not worried about AI. Some days I am.

But then I remember why I started making music in the first place. It wasn’t to compete with anyone. It wasn’t to generate content. It was because I had something inside me that needed to come out, and music was the only way I knew how to express it.

That’s still true.

The artists who will thrive—or at least survive with their souls intact—aren’t the ones who can generate content fastest. We’re the ones who remember that music, at its core, is one human being reaching out to another and saying: “You’re not alone.”

No algorithm can replace that.

At least, I really hope not.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. And if you ever want to reach out and actually connect—not just as artist and listener, but as people—my DMs are open.

We’re all figuring this out together.

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Hey fans! If you want to be the first to know whenever I drop new music (and nothing else – I promise no spam, ever), sign up for my newsletter right here: Can’t wait to share the next tracks with you directly!

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Restringing My Guitars: A Necessary Evil (And Why I Still Hate It)

Julience — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 09:25:36 +0000

My Fender Stratocaster is all restrung (waiting for my Epiphone SG to come back from repairs as well), got my new bass guitar, plus my updated recording/mixing equipment, all ready to start recording.

With a bit of luck, I’ll be working on some new material sometime this year.

But let’s be real for a second: I absolutely despise restringing guitars.

Every single time, I convince myself, “This time will be different.”
This time I’ll be organized. This time I won’t lose three allen keys and a string winder under the couch.
This time, the high E won’t snap at the tuner and whip me in the eyeball like an angry viper.

Spoiler: it never works out that way.
I’ve watched all the videos. I’ve read the tutorials.

And yet, somehow, I still manage to make it a two-hour ordeal filled with swearing, dropped picks, and at least one moment where I consider switching to ukulele permanently.

There’s something deeply humbling about it.
You can play reasonably complicated stuff, understand theory, dial in killer tones… and then spend forty minutes trying to wrap a piece of metal around a post without it looking like abstract expressionism.

My strings always look like raccoons with a grudge installed them.

Still, the moment you strum that first open chord with brand new strings?
Pure bliss. All is forgiven.

The guitar sings again, the bass growls, and ideas start flowing.
Worth every curse word.
So here’s to fresh strings, functioning gear, and the faint hope that one day I’ll finally “get the knack” of restringing without wanting to yeet the headstock into the next postcode.
New music coming (hopefully) soon.
Until then, keep your action low and your strings… well, eventually fresh.

The post Restringing My Guitars: A Necessary Evil (And Why I Still Hate It) first appeared on Julience — Songs, Lyrics & Stories | Manchester Indie Rock.