As someone whose day job involves drumming with one of the most influential bands in the world (Tame Impala), multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Julien Barbagallo has found the time to create a remarkable body of solo work.
With his latest record 'Les Grands Brûlés', Julien has woven a modern sound into songwriting steeped in lush textures and classic pop sensibilities."It's always hard to talk about influences, because I feel like it's a mixed bag of things you haven't listened to in 30 years, and stuff you listened to last week," offers Julien.
"But you can't really tell which is which; you mentioned Air. Big fan of Air. When you're a teenager or young adult, the connection you have with music is so deep, and you carry it for the rest of your life.
"Even though I haven't listened to an Air album in ages – it's in me, just forever. It never leaves you."
The French-born Barbagallo resides on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, where parts of 'Les Grands Brûlés' were self-recorded and engineered in the home studio room he calls Cargo River.
"This record is built out of two different small albums that I decided to put together. You can kind of tell that the mixing is different, and the instrumentation is different.
"For example, in the first four songs there's more synth. Usually what I do, I start from a guitar and build the song around that instrument.
"For those songs, I decided not to use a guitar. Automatically, it takes you to other chord progressions, other textures.
"With synth, it's more intuitive. You can easily go somewhere else with your sound. . . it's a way for me to extend my textures without thinking too much about it."
'Les Grands Brûlés' alternates between atmospheres and emotional flavours in a light-hearted yet balanced manner, reminiscent of mid-period Beatles album 'Revolver'.
Tracks such as 'Debout' soar with airy space-pop underpinned by electro-infused Latin rhythms, whereas others like 'Ne Me Réveillez Pas' and 'Michael' are breezy, jaunty and acoustic guitar-driven tunes evocative of island vacations.
"The first songs [on 'Les Grands Brûlés'], I was trying to get into something a little bit more contemporary – it's more synth-based. It is a little bit more simple, maybe? In the way I used chords.
"I don't know if we can say it’s a little bit more pop. But yeah, the other songs that were part of that EP called 'Tarabust'. . . it was me trying to pretend that I was a band playing in the corner of a pub, you know?
"But I guess they work together, despite the fact that they were done at different times with a different angle – they kind of mirror each other quite well."
All lyrics on 'Les Grands Brûlés' are sung in Julien's native French, but the emotional content of each song is purveyed with universally penetrable clarity.
"At the end of the day, my main purpose, my main obsession, is the melody. I want strong melodies. And because I grew up with melodies, from bands mostly from the US or the UK – I wouldn't understand what they were talking about.
"So what I was trying to hold onto was the melodies. Since then, melodies are the main things that I want to focus on."
Two of the album's tracks feature lyrical collaborations with other French writers. 'Ouverture', one of the most sonically expansive and emotionally heavy on 'Les Grands Brûlés', incorporates a poem from the influential Eugène Guillevic.
"I wanted to create this 'epic-ness' around those lyrics. . . He has an almost, kind of mystic way of writing poetry. And I wanted to try and match that level of mystery and 'epic-ness'.
"I found those choirs on the Mellotron [synth] – it takes you somewhere, it elevates you into some huge sonic heaven. I thought it was appropriate.
"Basically, that poem, and most of [Guillevic's] work – it's about finding the sacred, wherever it is. It could be in a rock; it could be in the dunes on the beach.
"You know, he's not talking necessarily about the religious aspect of what's sacred. Maybe a pagan version of things that are sacred. . . basically [the poem] says, when you realise each of your days, each of your hours, your instants – is a sacred thing, you become one with space and the earth – that's when you elevate to the 'champ de gloire' – the field of glory.
"For me, I would interpret that as a state of – not necessarily happiness, but at least some understanding of what we are, and what we are doing here, and what we are doing with other people around us. Some kind of big understanding, a big epiphany."
The other lyrical partnership on 'Les Grands Brûlés' is one with young French author Simon Johannin on 'Amour', which features lo-fi dub reggae-infused electronic beats and a rhythmically explosive climax.
"I read Simon's first book called 'L'Été des Charognes' maybe a couple of years ago now. . . I was really amazed by his style and really interested by the character.
"As I say in the little notes (liner notes), I was picturing someone completely different behind that book. When I realised it was this young dude, coming actually from the same part of France as I am, I was very intrigued.
"Weirdly, I thought very quickly about asking him to write something for me but I didn't know how to approach that.
"I worked on an instrumental for that first, then I approached him and asked him if he was interested in writing something over it, that instrumental. He accepted right away.
"He's a very enthusiastic guy – he's really keen on new challenges or collaborations. So yeah, it was pretty easy actually, and the result was very unexpected.
"I thought he would go in a vibe that was closer to the book I read, which was kind of dry and rough, but not at all.
"He came back with totally different stuff – a very lovely, love story type of poem. Super tender and beautiful with beautiful images. I was nicely surprised."
'Les Grands Brûlés' features one cover – 'Amara Terra Mia' – which holds deep emotional significance for Barbagallo.
"It's a cover of an Italian song that had a few different versions. I chose it because it's a song about Italian people leaving their country to try and find a better life somewhere else, which is what happened to my own family.
"My family is originally from Sicily, and my grandfather came to France along with hundreds and thousands of other Sicilian people in the '40s after the war.
"They worked in coal mines and stuff like that – just like my father did, because it was like a family tradition. Who knows where I would have ended if the mines didn't close in the '90s – you never know!
"Maybe I would have ended up being a miner myself. So, it was kind of a homage to my own family history."
'Les Grands Brûlés' is mixed by bandmate and frequent collaborator to Barbagallo, Kevin Parker. Coming off the back of the ten-year anniversary live-stream performance of Tame Impala's ground-breaking 'Innerspeaker', Julien and the band are now preparing to take the show back on the road.
"I feel like we do influence each other in that band. We are all composers and multi-instrumentalists.
"The main thing is that we inspire each other to grow, you know. I know working with Kevin for me, it encouraged me working on my own, because I was working in bands usually [before joining Tame Impala].
"I kind of took his example to nourish my own solo project, to be okay with being on my own, and my instruments. Not feeling limited in the fact that I'm just on my own.
"What I take from Kevin's work is that one guy can just create this very expandable universe of sounds and atmospheres on his own. It's really inspiring in that way.
"It's more in terms of energy I guess that I get influenced by those guys. They have a really great creative energy."
