As in – the Best New Artist? That’s what Scandipop readers voted him as in the 2018 Scandipop Awards! And now he’s just released his debut EP. ‘Afterglow’, completed his second European tour (supporting Alan Walker), and today released the video for the EP’s title track and his new single – ‘Afterglow’. We had a a chat with him while he was on the London leg of his tour, and asked him about all of the above.
That’s a lot to have happened for an artist who only released their debut single at the end of the last year! It certainly is. Though it’s actually been a long time in the making. He got signed when he was 16, and only released his first single three years later – in 2017. We asked him what went on during those three years. Juliander: “When I first got signed and started working, I went into lots of co-writes and sessions, and everything was very new and I thought it was so much fun. Back in the days, even when I was 16, I always wanted to be a part of the whole process. I didn’t want to get sent demos, I wanted to write the songs myself. I worked like that for two years until i was 18. The songs were good and the sessions worked well but there was something in me that didn’t feel 100 per cent about it all, because it was difficult for me to get out what I wanted to say. I realised that I needed to do it all by myself. And I then had a bet with myself in the beginning of 2016 that I should write something new every day. So I wrote one or two songs every day. I play guitar, but not piano. So I taught myself the riffs from the guitar on the piano, and then I was able to write songs on the piano too. And before summer came that year, we had 30 or 40 song demos.”
What made it onto the EP? The two singles – ‘Same Moon‘ and The One‘ – plus three brand new songs. Our favourite of the new songs though is probably ‘The Chance’ – definitely worthy of being a future single in its own right. ‘Same Moon’ though is still the ultimate for us. What a song!
All written by Juliander himself? All songs are written and produced by Juliander himself, along with Christian Walz and Johan Wetterberg. Juliander tells us that after he produced his own demos, he got a meeting set up with Swedish artist Christian Walz. “I got a small meeting with him. Sung a couple of songs for him, and he was actually pretty hard to read, so I wasn’t sure how it went. Our mutual fiend then messaged me though, and said that Christian was not just interested in doing a single with me, but a whole project. And that was big for me, to get his approval on my songs and my lyrics.”
What are Juliander’s own personal favourites from the EP? “Favourites are difficult! I’ve been writing so many songs since 2016 – so there are a lot. Sometimes it’s ‘Same Moon’, sometimes ‘The Chance’. That one is about something very specific that happened to me. ‘Everything I Know’ is also very special to me. I wrote that four days before my grandfather passed away and I sang it at his funeral, and it was incredible to hear the gospel choir sing my words. It’s definitely hard to pick favourites.”
What’s next for Juliander? He’s already got a lot of new songs written for the follow-up to ‘Afterglow’, and told us: “I did a lot of songs in the beginning of this year. That was the first time I went into a proper session by myself in a studio on my own. But it’s a lot of songs to choose from! We might do an album or another EP. But we are concentrating first on which are the next songs to come out.”
And has he got any goals in mind for 2018? “It’s difficult for me to answer for one year. I think ahead so much, and I always think of the main, overall goal and how I will get there. The biggest goal for me is a headline arena tour, worldwide. I would love to do more tours and especially my own tour. And I would love this next project to do well and be able to play to more people. So this year I would love to just reach out to more and more people. That’s what I want.”
You can find ‘Afterglow’ on our Best New Pop playlist.
