The Reluctant Pop Genius of Julia Michaels
Hit songwriter Julia Michaels must have a secret. She's just turned 24 years old, she's already the co-writer behind smash hits such as Justin Bieber's “Sorry,” Britney Spears's “Slumber Party,” and Selena Gomez's “Bad Liar”—and she became a pop star all on her own merit in 2017 with a debut EP (Nervous Breakdown) that won her a Best New Artist Grammy nomination. But whatever the special formula she has for creating the world's most sought-after pop, she's not giving it away. Her charm offensive is so aggressive it could stop wars.
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“Oh my God!” she screams, crashing into me with a full-bodied hug, her smile extending behind her ears. Her publicist, poised to introduce us, is a little overwhelmed. Michaels, whom I previously interviewed in January 2017, greets me like a long-lost soulmate. “How are you?!” Frankly, I'm one hundred times better for seeing her. However you're feeling, whatever kind of day you're having, whoever just came along and shat in your latte, Michaels is here to take your pain away, or at least turn your pain into radio-stalking, catchier-than-thou hits.
She's basically L.A.'s most popular therapist. She nods vigorously. “I talk to [pop stars] like I'm talking to you. I ask them how their day is, if they've been traveling, if they're tired, if they've been going through anything. We just talk. That's where magic happens. You could say, ‘My heart hurts about blah blah’ and not think anything of it. And then”—Michaels clicks her fingers—“Shit! That's a good song, we should write about that!” So I decide to test-drive this and tell Michaels I went to an LCD Soundsystem show the night before. “Hence the shirt?” she says, observing my outfit. So great I bought the shirt. That could be a song, right? Julia laughs. “Yep!” she replies, kindly. “But you could make it: 'This guy is so great that I took his T-shirt.' So you don't forget him.” See?
Michaels's effortless, lovable genius is the kind that will annoy anyone with a hang-up (i.e. everyone), but it comes at a price. Despite always having the gift of gab, she suffers from “bad social anxiety”—not the best thing when you're constantly in front of the camera. Today is the day before the American Music Awards. She's presenting an award and is up for Best New Artist of the Year. The previous month, she was in Europe at the MTV EMAs to perform “I Miss You,” her melancholic collaboration with Clean Bandit. The VMAs, the Grammys, the Billboard Music Awards, you name it, Michaels is there and she knows everyone in the room. That must be stressful for someone who doesn't always want to be around people. “That doesn't bother me at all,” she refutes. “It's like a family reunion.”
At the EMAs, U.K. grime star Stormzy wanted to join said family, so he introduced himself. He called her “the queen of the pen.” She laughs. “He said, 'I'm Stormzy.' I was like, 'I know who you are!’ ” She's eager to collaborate with him, but songwriting for others took an ever-so-slight back seat in 2017 as Michaels focused on her own career. When we met first, nearly a year ago, she sounded unsure about the transition, saying she was “50 percent there.” Today? “Probably 82 percent. I still have a hard time believing in myself, but each time I write something, I love how it feels more like me.” The juggernaut of world travel and promo has been a wild change of pace for her, too. She's duly exhausted. “I hardly have time to eat and sleep,” she says. “When [my manager] says, 'You have five interviews today,' I'm like, 'Oh, that's nothing!' It's crazy what you get used to.”
Some days the strain is too much and she has to cry alone in her hotel room. “It sounds ridiculous, but I take long showers. I sit on the floor for 30 minutes and reflect.” She reels off the threads she'll unpick in her mind: performances and interviews she messed up that day, new songs requiring attention, etc. “I have 30 million thoughts running through my head,” she says, laughing nervously. But for Michaels, this is “the year of conscious decisions,” meaning she's taking all this in stride, facing her fears head on. Despite having more live experience under her belt, she still thinks about making a run for it before getting onstage. The studio, on the other hand, remains her sanctuary. She looks emotional talking about finally having time to write again.
“This week has been fucking awesome,” she says, excited about prepping her debut album, due this year. “It's nice to be able to go in [the studio], confront my problems, say everything I wanna say, and not have to censor myself. Once I've sung something, once it's out of my body, I’m like, okay, this is absolutely what I want.” The electronic, breath-y pop tunes of her EP were about her last boyfriend, but the songs presented Michaels as the nightmare girlfriend. “I've definitely started a couple fights in a relationship for inspiration,” she giggles. “You fuck with someone until you press so many buttons that it explodes. Then you get the lovely resolve, and then there's your material!”
For the newly single Michaels, the pursuit of romance remains an evergreen well from which to draw infinite ideas. “I'm not a big partier—I can't write songs about that. I really love relationships. I love going home to somebody, just breathing next to them. As much as it fucking sucks, I love the fight, the drama, the passion. 'Scream at me, but love me to death!' You know?”
Since she split with her ex, having to perform those songs is no easy feat. “There are some days when it really hurts,” she says with a sigh. “But the thing about life is: Things change every day; new loves, new heartbreaks, new things to connect your song to. So even if I've written 'Issues' about an ex, six months from now I could be having an entirely different thought process about somebody else while singing that song.”
Ultimately, her songs work as Band-Aids for all of our break-ups and make-ups. “My goal is to make music people love so that we can all be fucking emotional, crazy people together,” she says. For now, Michaels insists she hasn't allowed anyone to get close enough to her to be “worth” one of her new songs. Clearly, she's got bigger fish to fry.
