With her sophomore album PRESSURE, Julia Wolf is shedding old expectations and stepping fully into her own. Known for her sharp lyricism and genre-blurring sound, Wolf’s latest release finds her embracing her vulnerability and emotional nuance with an unapologetic tone. As she gears up her headlining tour—alongside select supporting dates for none other than Halsey—PRESSURE arrives as both a creative breakthrough and a personal reckoning.
idobi Radio caught up with Julia to talk about the sonic shift, the Twilight-fueled virality of “In My Room,” her DIY process, and what it really means to take back control of your art.
It’s really exciting, from a very unique perspective that I have, to be able to see this journey you’re on, and to me it feels like with PRESSURE, you’re finally allowing yourself to embrace every aspect of yourself. It’s not just one or the other, you’re like, “I can kind of do everything, and let all of my personality exist in my art.”
I love that you point that out because I feel like this has always been inside of me. I’ve always been kind of sad, always gravitating toward darker things. I was just too afraid to really expose that. So it’s cool that you say that because, yeah, I’ve always been that way—but now I’m just really showing it.
The intention was to be the most honest I possibly could be—not just box myself into one space. And be all of the things, and just do everything that I think is cool and sounds cool. And… here we have PRESSURE.
We’ll get into you know, the nitty-gritty and the virality and all of that I want to talk about PRESSURE though because it’s a huge sonic shift, you’re really embracing all of yourself as an artist, but going from that debut album to now getting ready to release PRESSURE, what guided the new direction of this record and and gave you the confidence to go, “I’m gonna do what I want to do.”
Thank you. I think going on tour and having to sing my previous music every night to these crowds, it just really was hitting me that I wasn’t resonating anymore with what I was saying. And it’s one thing to kind of have it live on the internet, but it’s another to have to perform it every single night, and it just was not feeling authentic to me anymore. That was kind of the last straw where I was like, “Okay, I need to just change everything.”
At the time, I was just still so afraid to do that. But my boyfriend—now boyfriend/manager—was the one hearing me complain every night. He’s like, “Julia, it’s okay to branch out.” I was like, “All right, you know what, you’re right.”
So he sent me a list of producers that he thought were cool, and one of them was Scro. I heard him, and I was immediately like, “This is speaking to me.” I was sold, this is what I need. So, I sent Scro a voice memo of me on guitar and singing, and he produced an entire track around it the next day. And I was like, “Okay, this just feels right. This feels like me.”
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It’s almost going back to my core of what I used to look to growing up, and what kind of had me falling in love with music in the first place was that vulnerable, emotional, organic, sounding stuff. Although the album does do a lot of genre-bending, it’s not like just rock instruments and things like, like there is such a variety, but yeah the catalyst was like I just can’t keep doing this. I think getting older just like and maturing with my taste also just helped me be okay with speaking up about what I want to do.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s so nice to see that you’re just like embracing the side of you and like allowing yourself, as you mentioned, that this feels like a return to your roots because of what music you grew up with. What bands were you listening to when you were growing up that were like your inspiration?
Oh my God, I mean, I freaking had the biggest crush ever on Brendon Urie. Like, Panic! [At The Disco] was just obviously my world. I think between him and Tyson Ritter—I mean, those two were just all over my iPod Shuffle or whatever it was. So yeah, I would listen to like The All-American Rejects, and obviously Avril Lavigne was my first concert. You know, a little sixth-grade me. I used to wear ties to school every day. I was a big Mayday Parade girl.
And also, then, like shifting into high school—like middle of high school—huge Swifty. I became like a big Taylor [Swift] girl, and still to this day, I love her. And I feel like her and Phoebe Bridgers were really shaping my need for intentional lyrics and storytelling and things like that.
For me today, no one can surpass Phoebe. Like, she is my god. Like, I just adore her. So.
It’s really interesting to see these throughlines as you’re speaking about Brendon Urie, who has a song on the film Jennifer’s Body, and now you have a song titled “Jennifer’s Body.” You talk about Taylor Swift, and one of her big lyrical inspirations while she was coming up was Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy. There are a lot of people who are like genre, it fits into a box, and what I think that you know you’re proving, and so many of the artists that you mentioned prove, is that you don’t have to live in a box with your creativity and your output. You can be inspired by pop music, country music, hip-hop, rap, or whatever, and still create rock music or a hybrid, genre-bending. It’s so cool to see that like throughline play out, and even what you’re saying is your inspirations.
Yeah, 100%, and I think, like you said, all those artists have reinvented themselves time and time again because you just cannot be one thing for the rest of your life, like it’s just not conducive to creating meaningful music. I think, if you’re just going into the studio every time, I mean, I would be in sessions where people would like DM me beforehand, saying like, “Hey, let’s do like a ‘Decode’ by Paramore.” I’m like, “Guys, no,” like let’s go in and just have some instruments going and start stuff ourselves and see where it leads. Cause I just think all of those great artists, yes, you have your inspirations, but they also brought so much uniqueness to it, and that’s what we’re trying to do now.
It’s funny that you bring up Paramore because I also wondered that when I saw that the album was named PRESSURE. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I remembered when Paramore released their song “Pressure” back in 2005. There’s this full-circle moment of these really amazing women who exist in the rock space, and you are one of those amazing women. Like, you’re getting ready to play Warped Tour, that’s crazy!
I don’t understand it, but I just feel so lucky to be in this space. I feel like, you know, still, like in the female rock aspect, there aren’t too many of us, I think, and I’m just trying to bring something new to the genre as well, and not be like just the “rock, guitar girl.” That’s why I think the genre fusion was so important for this album.
I agree. It feels like it’s a really great marriage of who you are and these different facets of your personality and your various talents as an artist. There was that blend, even subtle, on the first album. I feel like you’re able to take your fanbase along with you; there’s no abandonment of the fanbase.
That’s really sweet to say because, yeah, like that was such a concern of mine. I genuinely was so nervous because the fans have been so good to me. They’ve always had my back and when I decided to switch genres, I got tons of negative feedback from my inner industry circle, not the fans, but people I knew that I was sending the music to and them saying like, “Girl, this is a mistake, don’t do this, you’re gonna mess everything up, the fans aren’t gonna like it.” And I was like, “Everyone’s just wrong here, you guys are wrong. I don’t care. I just have to do this.” And it’s really cool to see that this new stuff is resonating so much with the old fans, bringing in new fans, but the day ones are still so so supportive and I’m really grateful for that.
You’ve had this crazy success with “In My Room” on TikTok. So when I heard this song getting used in booktoks, it was Twilight edits and whatnot. It’s having this massive moment, and then I heard you on the radio. What was it like for you when this started to unfold this way?
What’s crazy is that I have been posting about “In My Room” for over a year because the song is like a year and a half old. I was always posting it with Twilight because I’m such a diehard fan, I have been since eighth grade, like I have a tattoo of it, and it’s just crazy that I didn’t necessarily do anything different. I was just so consistent and refusing to give up, and then one day the algorithm just had my back, and it clicked. It was able to just kind of spread into the fandom.
Honestly, it’s just so cool because I am part of the Twilight fandom like so hard for myself that just of all things to resonate and click, it’s this; and that truly makes me so so happy because it’s just real. I can’t tell you how much I freaking have always loved Twilight. I mean, even on the first album, like my whole microphone that tour had Edward stickers all over it. My sister and I used to reenact scenes from the movie and post it online, which no one can find because they’re gone now.
But yeah, it’s always been a thing, and it’s so cool that, I mean, TikTok really did change everything for me, and within just a few months, the level of exposure has just grown like crazy. It’s about “In My Room,” but it’s also like people saying that they like my other songs too and and me as a person because I think when they see something that I’m interested in, outside of just being a singer, that’s like something that we can relate to with each other.
I remember seeing it unfold in, specifically, the twihard community. I also am a Twilight girly. So I understand it. Do you know if any of the actors or anyone has heard your song yet?
I mean, Taylor Lautner is so online, I have to believe, I have to believe, that this man has heard it. I DM’d all of them just as a funny TikTok like swiping. Haven’t gotten any responses yet, but I have to think that maybe Taylor.
I’m having a hard time believing that Robert’s wife hasn’t heard it yet, either, because she is also a musician. I’ve seen a lot of the fans say, you know, as Twilight that it’s actually getting remade, but they’re like, “Hey, if you don’t call Julia, you’re really messing up.” I very much agree with that.
Yeah, so they are making an animated series off of Midnight Sun, and Lionsgate did reach out to me, and they’ve posted “In My Room” before and stuff, so we’re definitely trying. They’ve reassured us that they’ve seen all the work we’re putting into it, so it’s really, yeah.
Hoping and praying to the Twilight gods. Was there a reason why that song in particular, like you connected it to your love of Twilight? Was the song written because of your love for Twilight or did you use that song to then showcase your love of Twilight?
It was definitely not written with Twilight in mind at all. That was just me being delusional and obsessive over someone who I like could not tell how they felt about me. Yeah, no, I definitely I wasn’t thinking about it. I was just going through a lot in my own head. But I think when I do think of their love story, and just like, I don’t know, maybe the obsessive way that like she was thinking about him all the time and vice versa, it just fits in that world and that aesthetic.
So obviously this album does take a darker approach to your songwriting and your delivery, and similar to “In My Room” how you connected it to Twilight, you have a song called “Jennifer’s Body” on the album. How important was it for you to create a throughline from passions outside of music, like TV and film, and put it into your album?
I definitely reference a few movies and TV things. I also have like a Gilmore Girls line in there just because I like to show the other things that I like in the hopes that there’s another girly out there who’s like, “Oh my God, Julia loves Gilmore Girls too,” or Jennifer or whatever. And then it just connects us one level deeper. So I do love referencing it here and there.
I definitely don’t write anything like in the perspective of a character or something like that, just because I can’t write on things that I haven’t personally been through. I know a lot of artists are really good at doing that, but I just have not been able to crack that without sounding corny, so for now it’s just these little references that I make, but it also just helps build further into the aesthetic and just things I like, yeah.
You mentioned that there’s a line from Gilmore Girls, which love Gilmore Girls. Are there any other films or TV that you made sure to mention across the album that were really important to you?
I’m trying to think I have a line about Ross from FRIENDS really quickly, like I don’t even know people will catch that one. I reference [the] for you page on TikTok just to kind of keep it current with what I go through every day. I think that might be it.
It’s really cool to be able to see you make those connections outside of music. Oftentimes, I think it’s very misunderstood that a musician is just a musician and that’s all that they are. That’s their entire personality. There’s so much beyond music that this person is and that they love. It’s really cool to see you take your passions and things that you love and put them into your music. It gives fans a little bit more of an open window into seeing who you are as a person.
Yeah, like that’s really always my goal is to just be as relatable as possible, because that’s also what I love when I’m listening to different artists and I’m learning things about what they like, and then I just feel that much closer to them. The wall between us kind of dissipates. I think about when Olivia Rodrigo had her in-ears with Edward Cullen on them, I was like, “Okay, she is my girl!”
You got to work with a lot of really extremely talented people across this album. Can you tell me a little bit about what that experience was like? How did it differ from the creation of your first album?
The way the album was made is honestly not much different from my first album in that I really can only handle like two people in the room with me. If it’s anything more than that, I start to struggle with doing things on the spot or just writing, all that. So this album was basically me, Tanner, and Scro in his bedroom. And we did the whole album there.
A lot of it was like things that I would start 9n my room at home. That’s a tale as old as time; I’ve just been doing that forever. I start writing things first, and then I bring it in. Tanner helped a lot lyrically on “FYP” and “Kill You Off.” He was just like Such a gem for that, and Nick [Scro] is just so incredible, he’s just insanely talented. I feel like he had such a huge influence on this album, and you know if anyone goes to listen to his artist project, you’ll hear it right away, where he has been doing the genre fusion for a very long time. I think he just gets it. They both get it without me having to really teach or explain, and that is just so crucial.
We did have two songs with Lynn [Gunn] from PVRIS and then Cody Tarpley as well. I’m usually nervous for things like that, going into rooms with other people. Still, truly, they are just so sweet, so kind, it was such a warm environment that we were able to make those two songs, and I was shocked, too. It’s like, “Oh my god, this is what happens when you know you just have a really good group of people all together.”
You mentioned that you guys did a lot of the work in your bedrooms, and it’s really cool to see that you’ve maintained such a strong DIY approach to your music and that you are so hands-on in everything that you’re doing. How important was it for you to maintain that DIY driver’s seat with this project?
Oh my gosh, it was so important because we were so nitpicky about everything and I think if I’m gonna be that way then it has to be in a very hands-on-friendly environment where it is just like the three of us in your room because we don’t need to book a studio, we don’t need to wait on anybody else. I can just be there in two hours, and we can just do what we need to do as many times as that had to happen. The hands-on experience is and always has been just so important to me because I don’t want to half-ass anything or spit out on details just because it feels inconvenient, and I think the whole bedroom DIY approach just makes that stuff easier to do, honestly.
So with PRESSURE, you’ve got this headlining tour coming up. What are you most looking forward to in this next chapter, alongside the fans?
I would say, just I mean, is tour allowed? Because I know it’s part of the fans, but honestly, going on tour is just so exciting to me because that’s my only chance to really see everything in real life and and see like the honest connections being made through the music and just like knowing that people are showing up, it’s just always going to be crazy to m,e so I really am so excited for that. And I am working on a deluxe version of the album that’s going to be extremely, extremely unexpected and full of a lot of fun surprises. And Twilight will be quite the running theme of that.
Yes, the Twilight girlies on TikTok are not ready for this.
Oh, they are not. It’s honestly hysterical.
My last question is, if a fan is going to take one thing away from listening to PRESSURE, what do you want them to take away from this album?
I just want them to feel like the experiences they’re going through are ones that are normal ones that I have gone through myself. We are in this together, and there doesn’t have to be a separation between us. I want them to feel seen and understood, and I want them to know that showing the sadness and showing the vulnerability should actually be empowering. It shouldn’t be something that we’re shying away from. That’s something that I used to be too embarrassed to talk about, and I hope that me talking about it now kind of helps them feel more confident about it and what they’re going through.
