Debut UK headline tour hits Brighton for alt country rock singer/songwriter Julianna Riolino

The Canadian artist is excited to share her fusion of indie-punk and cosmic-country: “My debut album came out in October 2022 and I hummed and hawed about recording it for years.

"I've had some of the songs since I was 19 or 20 but I never recorded them in a way that I felt honoured the songs as they should be. I had recorded a couple of them but effectively they were different songs but I think what changed was just growth and maturity and finding the right people to help me interpret the music in the right way. When I first recorded some of the songs, I was like 20 and I think when you're that age it's easy... well, not to let people take over but perhaps to let people influence you too much. So what I think happened is I recorded this album at the right time. I recorded in 2020 and I didn't release it until a couple of years later. I wanted to give it the best possible moment.

“I think that the themes and inspirations are my own personal growth and work. It feels to me that my songs are about feelings that I have not processed yet. Writing is my way to process my emotions, and this album is my way of getting out of my own way, not being my own worst enemy, my way of believing in myself and not getting stuck in negative thoughts. I've ruminated a lot! Songwriting is my meditation, my therapy. It is my way of coping with emotions which may be uncomfortable or which may not be uncomfortable.”

And the release of the album has continued that personal growth: “I think I now have a stronger sense of self from this album and what I like sonically and also just to believe in myself and to believe more in my songwriting. I wrote the album, as I say, to get out of my own way and I just put it out there whether people liked it or not but actually people have liked it and that has given me a boost to my confidence. I know that I've achieved what I wanted to achieve.”

So yes, she is certainly thinking about the next album: “I've been writing a lot. For the last little while I have been sitting down and demo’ing a lot. When you're on the road it's very hard to get the chance to sit down with your thoughts for any longer than a couple of days but now we have had like a month off and I've just been writing songs. When you get home from tour you have to rest and you have to recharge your social battery. After a tour I just feel completely depleted. It's really about being kind to yourself and just getting yourself back in the groove. I'm a musician like it is a job. I wake up and I sit down and start writing a song or I work on something that I already have and I do feel that pressure from my own self. I am pressuring myself to do another album and I would hope that that would be next year.”

For the moment the focus, though, is the UK tour which includes the Brighton date.

“People have been asking when I was going to be coming across to England to play and I guess I have just got tired of not having an answer for them!”