Artwork by @mystupidsketchbook
WHO is she?
YAWN is a music project by JULIA MCDOUGALL. She started playing piano when she was six. “I was always interested in music. I wrote a lot of little poems and things like that as a kid and by my teens the two disciplines kind of naturally came together.”
“I studied composition at Simon Fraser University and I now teach music at the Sarah McLachlan School of music in Vancouver. So it’s been a huge part of my life, ever present in many different ways.”
WHEN was the first time she fell in love with a song?
“The first memory I have of falling in love with a song and realizing that I really liked music was when I heard PACHELBEL‘s Canon for the first time. I was about eight years old and my sister was learning it on saxophone for band class. She had to listen to a cassette tape of it for practice and I would sit and listen and rewind the tape back over and over. I remember thinking I had never heard anything more beautiful in my life. Haha, what a moment!”
WHAT is the inspiration behind her new single Wasting Time?
“In Wasting Time I’m singing about dreams. The dreams that we all have as kids that we sometimes let go of and how we need to hang onto them. To value the limited time that we have in this life to do what we really love. It’s also about how hard that path is, how it’s a really hard choice to make.”
“I wrote this song to remind myself about the things that I really believe in. Music is such a tough industry (any artistic discipline is tough) but when you’re an artist I think it’s something you really can’t bury or hide from. It finds you no matter what. That’s something I’ve come to accept. Once you accept that it’s part of who you are, you can grow to love yourself for what you have to offer the world.”
“Our society doesn’t allow people to value their own gifts unless they align with capitalism in a particular way. This song is trying to say no, see yourself fully, see what you have to offer and love yourself for having that.”
“I have other songs about other things, too haha, but currently this is a pretty big anthem of mine.”
WHERE is she from?
“I mostly grew up in a tiny town, an actual hamlet called Torquay in South Eastern Saskatchewan, Canada. The prairies are really meaningful to me and they hold a very special place in my heart. There was honestly nothing to do in my town. Once, we pushed a big tractor tire down a road for 3km to a swamp only to realize it wasn’t going to float on the water. We caught frogs, climbed our local water tower, drove down back roads, drank and had parties.”
“When I got older and started playing music we would host shows anywhere that would let us: school gyms, rec centres, halls, etc. We would get other neighbouring bands to tour through, we kind of had to make our own art scene happen. It was kind of a simple and often pretty boring upbringing but I think it gave me time and space to start writing songs at a young age. I never really felt like I fit in my town and always knew I would leave one day but looking back now I’m glad everything happened the way it did. I think it gave me a really strong connection to cut the bullshit and just be myself.”
WHY the name YAWN?
“YAWN was a name that was originally chosen with my old band. We had a really hard time deciding on a name and Yawn seemed funny to us and a bit playful. After I moved away from working collaboratively, I still felt like Yawn was a good name to hold onto for this dream-pop project. Plus, rebranding and starting over with a new name felt like a lot of work. So here we are.”
HOW can I get to know her better?
Listen & Watch: Spotify // Soundcloud // Youtube
Like & Follow: Facebook // Twitter // Instagram // Website
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