We Speak Music
Julian Roy Shares Debut Album ‘friends first’
Hailing from Virginia, Julian Roy, a recording artist, songwriter, and producer, draws inspiration from the likes of Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, and The Beatles. After being compared to the likes of Frank Ocean and Chet Faker, Julian Roy continues to push the boundaries of music with his genre-defying music.
Julian Roy is as much a seasoned traveller as he is an artist. He taught himself how to play the guitar when he moved to Thailand. He began songwriting when he moved to Nashville. He started his music career when he moved to Los Angeles.
He has travelled to over 50 countries and can speak the ‘language’ by playing music or fútbol with anyone in any country from Brazil to Japan to Morocco and Norway. He creates music to display his love and compassion, whilst exploring themes to showcase how similar we all are. He has performed in over 16 countries and has self-booked tours across the globe to connect with his fans and build his fanbase. Outside his music, Julian Roy writes songs for a variety of different label artists in LA, NYC, Colombia, and Korea.
His brother, James Sider, started a company, a music startup based in California that produced the application BandPage, an application that powered over 500,000 artists’ Facebook Pages. Artists could upload and share tracks, videos, photos, and their touring schedule on Facebook. Julian Roy had the inner tech music view while he was running BandPage. Since then it’s changed quite a bit into this streaming monster that everyone begs to be a part of. He has always been proud of being independent and pushed himself to explore avenues outside of the typical Spotify artist or streaming-focused artists.
Since working with major artists like Mike Posner and Lolo Zouai, and after garnering widespread acclaim with his debut EP, 18 lbs, Julian Roy is gearing up to unveil his highly anticipated debut album, friends first.
The debut album was recorded during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. friends first, was inspired by personal events and his travels through the island life of South East Asia and South America as well as living with musical communities in Nashville, San Francisco, and now Los Angeles. The 14-track compilation deepens his authenticity as a music artist. He is a force to be reckoned with.
friends first, echoes genres of modern R&B, indie-pop, alternative, singer-songwriter, electronica, Neo-Soul, and experimental World Beat, showcasing the foundation of his love of music and unmatched talent for fusing captivating instruments with profound lyricism. Throughout the album, Julian Roy enchants audiences worldwide as he solidifies his position as a major player in the music industry and makes a lasting impression. His demonstrations of vulnerability, effortless talents, and musical abilities place on full display his complexity and depth as an artist.
On the album, Julian Roy comments, “friends first, was recorded during and after COVID-19 in the middle of so much heartbreak and pain, during this time my father also passed away which shaped parts of the album. friends first, has nine different producers, was recorded in Mexico, USA, Colombia, and Norway (three continents), and has seven featured artists.”
We Speak Music
Acclaimed US singer-songwriter Juliet Lloyd to tour the UK for the first time this summer.

Shortly after releasing her sophomore album in 2007, US-based singer-songwriter Juliet Lloyd walked away from music completely for more than 10 years, feeling burned out and unhappy with her career progression like so many other independent artists. After going through a divorce in 2019 and in the midst of a global pandemic, she found herself pulled back toward the siren call of songwriting and again making the leap to pursue it full time. Her latest album ‘Carnival’, released in 2024, is in many ways the culmination of those decisions, and the reintroduction of an artist who now has the wisdom of experience.
There’s an unmistakable urgency you can feel when a song is written and performed from a place of complete honesty. That feeling permeates ‘Carnival’. “I’ve always been envious of writers who say they write songs because they have to, because they had these things they just had to get out of themselves,” Juliet says. “I had never really felt that way until this album. I’ve become someone who writes because they have to.”
Stylistically, ‘Carnival’ draws on a range of influences from Laurel Canyon-era singer/songwriters, to Lilith Fair rockers, to confessional country/folk balladeers, to indie pop. The central theme of the record and that of its title track is not being too precious about any one experience or decision. Take them for what they are, live in the moment, and move on when they’re done. It acknowledges also that memory can be subjective, and ambiguous—was an experience ultimately a good thing or a bad thing? And whose memory can you rely on to determine the answer to that question?
‘Carnival’ doesn’t just deal with the complexities of ending relationships, it also deals with all the feelings that come with moving on. The album’snine songs feature evocative storytelling that reveals a simple truth: when the carnival inevitably leaves town, you’re left with an empty parking lot. And how you remember, it is a choice. As Juliet sings in the title track, “If only there was a way you could bottle up that feeling / and you’d drink it in / when the days are short and you long.”
Across her 20+ year career, Juliet has been admittedly stylistically non-monogamous. Her first full-length album, ‘All Dressed Up’, was released in 2005 and was heavily jazz-influenced- a label that she rejected at the time. “I am a piano player and a woman, so I was immediately compared to Norah Jones—and I bristled at that,” Juliet says. “Listening back now, I can totally see that it was true, and it of course wasn’t a bad thing.” Her follow-up release ‘Leave the Light On,’ came out two years later and featured a slick piano-pop production that led to five of its songs being placed on reality TV shows on MTV and VH1. Coming back after her 10-year break from writing and recording, Juliet released ‘High Road’, a collection of five Americana/soul-tinged songs produced by Jim Ebert (Meredith Brooks, Shai) that earned her widespread recognition and songwriting awards both in her home region of DC as well as nationally.
Now with her first ever UK tour scheduled for July 2025, Juliet has also dropped a completely brand-new single ‘Wild Again’, which like ‘Carnival’, was written with and produced by Todd Wright (Lucy Woodward, Butch Walker, Toby Lightman). ‘Wild Again’, however, charts yet another new step in Juliet’s journey.
“Carnival’, is full of deeply personal songs that are drawn from my real-life experiences and relationships. Coming out of that album cycle, I was feeling a little exhausted by my own navel-gazing and I was craving inspiration elsewhere. So, a lot of the songs I’m writing now are an evolution of sorts – focused more on external stimuli and finding the personal stories and humanity in that. Wild Again is a perfect example of this,” she explains.
The idea for ‘Wild Again’ was born out of a NY Times podcast Juliet listened to about the real-life efforts to return the whale that played Willy in the iconic movie ‘Free Willy’ back into the wild.
“It’s an insane, heartbreaking story that asks all kinds of thorny questions about human responsibility and humility and what’s the “right” thing to do and is that the same as the “kind” thing to do. There was a line that one of the trainers said in the podcast, explaining that they were trying to “train him to be wild again.” The complete absurdity of that statement hit me in the moment, and I immediately started jotting down lyrical ideas”, Juliet says.
Catch Juliet Lloyd on her UK tour this July:
1st July: The Folklore Rooms / Brighton
2nd July: The Hyde Tavern / Winchester
3rd July: Hen and Chicken / Bristol (CRH Music promotions)
4th July: Artisan Tap Hartshill / Stoke-on-Trent
5th July: Waggon & Horses, Nottingham
6th July: Cafe#9 / Sheffield
7th July: Hyde Park Book Club / Leeds
10th July: FortyFive Vinyl Café / York
11th July: The Muddy Puddle / London
13th July: The Wrotham Arms / Broadstairs

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