With a new album sonder out soon, I caught up with Danielle, aka Your Friend Juniper, to find out what we can expect from the record, her journey to where she is today, and what the future holds in store for her.
Can we start with a bit of background? How did you get into making music, and what was the journey that has brought you to where you are today?
So, I grew up just outside of Austin, TX, near Lake Travis, and when I was in preschool, every day they would blast Enya during nap-time. This is really my first memory of just being body and soul affected by something in a spiritual way. I would lie there and just experience every song, and I couldn’t believe something so beautiful existed and that a human made it. I loved music so much and just wanted it on all the time.
I would come home from school and walk around the yard with Regina Spektor or the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack on. My mom put me into musical theater when I was really young because I would run around singing about everything I was doing and doing everything I could to make people laugh. I would become obsessed with characters in shows and movies and just imitate mercilessly for weeks until I got the accent and performance just right. I loved every bit of musical theater and the world around it. It was perfect! It combined music and acting and all the things I loved.
As I got older, I started to really appreciate my parents’ amazing taste in music. I started writing poetry and took guitar lessons with my dad. He bought me my first guitar, and I slowly started learning covers of some of my favorite songs like ‘Only Exception’ by Paramore and ‘Samson’ by Regina Spektor. I gained a real passion for protecting the planet and all life on it, and activism started coming out of me through poetry, which felt like this stepping stone towards songwriting.
Once it came time to apply to colleges, I applied to ten musical theater programs and one contemporary music school, Berklee. I really didn’t think I was going to get in, but had this amazing audition in Seattle, WA. I loved the different parts of the audition and realized I had a lot of skills and passions for music as a whole. When I got accepted to Berklee, I had a really hard choice to make but ultimately felt in my gut that I needed to go to Berklee and just fully immerse myself in music of all forms.
I took a defer year to help take care of my dad, who had been diagnosed with cancer. I would play guitar and sing to him, and it became a really meaningful way to cope with his illness. After he passed, songwriting about my experience through his sickness and the grief of his passing, and listening to music really helped to keep me afloat, and I decided I wanted to do for others what all these musicians had done for me. I wanted to create music that made people better, that made people feel inspired and motivated and hopeful when they need it. I saw the power music had not only to help people but also the world, and I had to pursue it.
It was at Berklee that I learned the foundations of being a musician and really rounded myself off as a songwriter. I taught myself guitar and piano and focused on performance, songwriting, and how to record and produce my own music. After graduation, I launched my artist project ‘your friend juniper’ and have been releasing songs that act as friends to inspire listeners to sonder, help them grow, and stay in the sun.
I was aware of the term “sonder,” but I totally relate to it as a concept. Can you explain what it means and why you chose to write an album about it?
I remember learning about the term, sonder, when I was a teenager and being like, “Oh wait, there actually is a word for this!” I always loved people watching and would have that experience all the time, and was just absolutely giddy to find out there was a term for it. I think it is one of the most beautiful concepts in the world.
As an artist, there is all this pressure to identify with one thing and turn yourself into a product with a certain look and feel. For women in music, there’s more pressure on top of that to make your brand cater to a male audience visually and a preteen audience lyrically and sonically. I knew early on that it was not going to be my path. Making sonder my “brand” feels productive and useful to the world and the people who hear my music.
And is this album representative of your sound? Is there indeed a signature and recognizable YFJ sound?
My first album was really a lot of songs shoved together. They are all so massively different from one another, and I wanted my next project to really solidify my sound and brand. I struggled to really nail things down for a bit, but feel really confident and happy with where I’ve landed, and am excited for people to see it and hear it in the new album release.
What are your influences, musical and otherwise, that have guided you along the way?
Both of my parents taught me to really care and have a heart for the world. Both were avid animal rescuers, and my dad had a really giving hand when it came to those in need. I had incredible vocal coaches who really shaped my skill and confidence, and without thinking about it, surrounded myself with so many different musical genres. I really appreciate good lyrics. I think partly why I like Nashville so much is because of the attention that is given to a song’s message and meaning. I feel super inspired here and have definitely become a better songwriter being in this city.
Right now, I’m really fascinated by the melodies coming from artists like Silvana Estrada and the lyrics I hear from Laura Marling and Andy Shauf. I’m listening to a lot of Kacey Johansing and Natalie Bergman and just really want to emulate their production in my upcoming projects. I feel an inspiration to strip back in a lot of areas of my artist project and just focus in on a raw but saturated feeling in my content and music.
You recorded the album in your home studio in Nashville. Was this a purely solo affair, and if not, who helped make the album what it is?
My partner, Hugh Macdonald, is the only other person who plays a role in my music. We met at Berklee early on and both wanted to make music and live in a lot of places and really know how to take a song from an idea to a ready-to-release song and make it all happen ourselves. I have collaborated in the past with some incredible musicians and hope to continue doing more of that once my budget gets big enough to pay people properly. Right now, it’s just me, Hugh, and our home studio. He often engineers for me and is really gifted at guitar and records a lot of the bass and added electric guitar parts you hear on my records. I feel super lucky to have what I have with Hugh. I think we make an amazing team.
You have called Boston, London, LA, and now Nashville home at some point, all great music towns. What have you learned from your time in each place?
Holy moly! So much. London’s music community is so vast, but feels intimate and supportive. A lot of my favorite musicians of old and new hail from London and the UK in general. I’ve spent a lot of time there and love the underground scene; venues in the basement of cafes and tucked away in eclectic hotels. It reminds me to always be searching.
Boston is truly my favorite city in the U.S. I have a lot of happy memories there, going to college and falling in love. It has a kind of elusive music scene, which is why I chose to leave, but I miss Boston every day. There was just a lot to be inspired by and experience there. So many people from all over the world are in one tiny city, just basking in the history and beauty of the city. It was a really cool place to live.
Three months after I moved to Los Angeles, the pandemic happened, so my time there was really shaped by that. It was a really fun place to be fresh out of college, and I grew a lot there. I learned a lot about myself because it wasn’t the easiest place to be. It’s a grind living there and pursuing music there. It was really my community that kept me there so long. I had an incredible band, and so many friends from college lived there, so there was a lot of joy and exploration. I learned what I am capable of and what I won’t tolerate. Lots of growing and changing occurred there.
I am really enjoying Nashville. It is teaching me that music is the only thing that matters. The quality of what I create is more important than the package or the doorstep it lands on.
You also run your own music festival. Can you tell me about the wonderfully named The Fuzz, how it came about, and what it aims to achieve?
The Fuzz was launched in Los Angeles. My partner and I had this vision of running a music and art mini fest to connect artists of all mediums and curate a space where artists could display their passion and get paid. The world really under-values artists, and I wanted to actively help change that landscape. We had no money and not a lot of resources, but we worked really hard and made it happen pretty soon after we got to L.A.
We were in this huge house with five other musicians, and our roommates were incredible supporters. We had three amazing shows and then had to shut down because of the pandemic. Once things lifted, we started them up again, and the audience just came right back and kept growing. Even after we moved, we hosted the shows in our home. For a bit, we had a residency at Hotel Cafe, but ended up going back to DIY pretty quickly. I absolutely love the community the shows create and can’t wait to pick them back up next year here in Nashville.
And finally, do you have any plans to tour sonder? What do you think the future looks like, and what would you want it to look like?
Nothing is super solid right now, but I do plan to travel as much as I can and perform the album. I love DIY driving tours, and being in Nashville makes it really easy for me to book great routes. I really love going to unassuming places to tour. There are music lovers everywhere, and I’ve had a lot of fun and success seeking out unique listening rooms and showcases in new towns and cities. I’ve got a good amount of shows coming up in Nashville, and I’ll be posting those dates and my upcoming solo tours soon!
I am looking to be on the road a lot the next few years. I want to connect with my audience personally and care so deeply about gaining fans organically and really seeing them and knowing them. I love being a troubadour and a wanderer, and think really experiencing a lot in life is good for my music. I see a lot of movement ahead. Nashville will still be my home base, but there’s a big world out there, and I plan to go and see it.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me and best of luck with the album release and everything the future holds for you.
