Julian Velard

The curly-haired native New Yorker invites you into his world, inspired by the escapism of movies like The Never Ending Story and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure as much as the individuality of Tom Waits and Harry Nilsson. “It’s just music and movies,” Julian says. “My whole trip.” Here you’ll find guitars outlawed, but ‘old-fashioned’ piano-thumping showmanship alive and well. A firm believer that the musical experience is only truly transcendent once performer and audience connect, Julian’s live show is something once seen, never forgotten.

Julian’s enviable songbook – vampy showtunes, spiritual think pieces, Friday night anthems – has already drawn comparisons with the 1970s highs scaled by Elton John and Stevie Wonder; singers who’ve endured precisely because they were true to themselves and refused to be defined by their times.

Born 28-years ago in Manhattan to a French immigrant computer whizzkid who designed the first ATM software (dad) and a singing cocktail waitress/ queen-sized legs model/ four-time winner of Jeopardy! ­(‘America’s Favourite Quiz Show’) from Alabama (er, mom), it’s fair to say Julian was never destined for a desk job.

A self-confessed “terrible student” who was “thrown out of middle-school for fighting”; salvation arrived via the movies: Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Ghostbusters, various Spielbergs and then, later, Dr. Strangelove, all kinds of De Palma and “lots of British shit”. There was another world that offered escapism:  bashing out chords on the home piano, a “really gaudy, 1800s piece of furniture” that “sounded like shit”. (Aged 16, Julian’s first song was written in praise of Pee-Wee Herman; though he bottled actually sending it to him.)

Having enrolled at LaGuardia High School, the NYC ‘performing arts’ institution forever immortalized in the 1980 film Fame where pirouetting, jazz-handed students are told “here’s where you start paying… in sweat” Julian made a vital discovery: “I hate actors. Hate ‘em.” And what’s more: “I hate musical theatre people, too.”

Despite having “a bit of a show mom” that made him “go to auditions with Elijah Wood and stuff”, Julian resolved to keep movies as a hobby. Enrolling in Massachusetts’ Hampshire College, with its lack of formal examinations and hippy-dippy environment, he switched his attention to music. There, with the freedom to experiment, Julian was “at the height of my weirdness”, constructing song-cycles, talking to instruments ala “Peter And The Wolf, but stranger”.

Hitting the New York circuit hard, plying gigs anywhere and everywhere from hotel foyers to cabaret bars to rock venues and back, Julian chalked up “probably 1,000” shows over the next few years, supporting himself via a succession of eccentrically diverse jobs that would give a Wes Anderson character pause for thought: teaching gym at pre-school “hung-over with hula-hoops”, a stint in Paris sweeping streets for the sanitation department among them. After more than a few years toiling in obscurity, Julian was picked up by EMI by creating a big noise on MySpace. Having approved of the UK’s “liberating vibe”, Julian has made London his home, and is putting the finishing touches to his debut LP, due out this summer.

With a remarkable voice, Force 10 charisma and after-hours vibe standing him miles apart from the Blunts, Powters and Cullums of this world, Julian’s singular blend of skewed piano pop conspires to feel simultaneously classic and completely fresh. As he puts it, “Think of a Guys And Dolls-era musical staring Steve McQueen and Bill Murray, scored by Harry Nilsson, with Michael Jackson circa The Wiz and Taj Mahal singing all the songs. Pretty cool, huh?”

“The one thing I’m grateful for is I don’t sound like anyone else,” he concludes. “All the artists I love sound different. Waits, Dylan, The Beatles – these guys are massive individuals, and being different made them great. I’m not interested in being famous. I know it won’t sustain me. I just wanna make music and be great. That’s enough of a challenge.”