“Julien Chang ’18 could’ve been dubbed a teen prodigy with the arrival of his debut album, Jules, on Oct. 11 from Transgressive Records, if not for the fact that he just had a birthday in September. ‘I can’t hold on to that teen, fresh music label anymore,’ he jokes on the phone.
“Chang, now 20, is in New Jersey for college, but he grew up in Baltimore City with a musical family. His grandparents on his mother’s side both attended the prestigious Peabody music school, where Chang enrolled for piano at the age of 6. ‘I really didn’t like that, mainly because of practicing,’ he says. ‘My mom and I would get into a lot of fights, when I was 6.’
“Despite his piano background, he played the trombone for his audition at the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he attended high school and continued to build upon his one-man-band repertoire. Chang first experimented with making his own music around the age of 12, but when he turned 16, he started recording the dreamy, psychedelic pop songs that would end up on Jules. Though he was surrounded by schoolmates who were also musicians, Chang — who was best known for his beat production at the time — kept his other music, and his basement studio, a total secret.”
Read the full story in this interview with Billboard Magazine.
