Katie Ingegneri: Thank you for chatting with me.

Julian Lynch: I forgot, I’m supposed to call you Twinky, I think? [my hometown nickname via my best friend, Alex Bleeker’s ex-girlfriend]

[laughs] Yeah, that’s my name.

Bleeker’s like yeah, that’s her name.

They told me about you and it was like “Julian Lynch plays really cool solo music,” so I remember listening to you when I was writing my thesis in grad school. Instrumental is so much easier when you’re writing. So you and Bleeker and some of the other guys are from the same town?

Julian Lynch: And Martin [Courtney].

You weren’t in the band originally, right?

I played in bands with Martin and Bleeker before, and I played in a band that was like me and Martin and Bleeker and two other original members of Real Estate, but that was before Real Estate happened. Then I moved to Wisconsin to go to grad school the same year that Real Estate was founded. I wasn’t part of this band before a year ago.

Wow, that’s crazy. So you were doing all this solo stuff, you released all those albums…

Yeah, during that same time that Real Estate was doing this. I think the same year that they put out their first record, I started doing solo records. My first solo LP came out in 2009, before that I was doing a CD-R series in 2008.

Oh okay, cool. So your first couple albums, did you release those yourself or were those through a label?

I did like three CD-Rs, and I self-released those…But then a label started putting out records for me in 2009, put out two records for me. Then I switched to a different label and they put out two more records for me.

Cool, yeah, I remember I really liked “Born2Run.”

Yeah that was originally one of the CD-Rs, and it got re-released by my friend’s label.

So are you still doing that stuff on the side at all?

Yes, I finished recording another record like a couple months ago, so hopefully it will be out someday. [laughs] Not anytime soon.

And then this most recent Real Estate was the first album you played on with them?

That’s right, yeah, and I played sax and clarinet on [2014’s] “Atlas” a little bit, on like one song or something.

So why did you end up joining with them?

I saw Martin in Madison, we went to his show, he played a solo show and after the show we were having drinks with him, and he told me there was an opening in the band, and sort of half-jokingly I was like “I’ll fill in for a period, if you want,” then they offered it to me.

But you’re still working on your PhD and everything?

Yeah, just doing it in whatever time off I have.

Right, wow. So you don’t have to be at campus or whatever.

No, I’m free to float around. Even when I’m writing I’ve been going to the public library instead of the university library, cause there’s a public library closer to my new house…I’m still in Wisconsin.

That ties in well to the magazine’s Midwestern focus. And then you were in India, right?

Yep, got back in February.

How was that?

It was great, I miss it kind of already…This trip, I was there for like six months.

Wow, that’s a long time. Dang. So what’s your thesis?

It is about issues having to do with loud sound made in public places, conflict over loud sound — like noise pollution stuff, is what some people call it. But basically, there’s a lot of political aspects involving that stuff in India, and Mumbai in particular is one of the loudest cities on Earth. A lot of the loud sound is very closely tied to both religious worship and politics, so it becomes a very sensitive issue socially. So that’s kinda what I’m studying.

That’s so interesting. So had you been to India before for that?

Yeah, a couple times, for the same project.

Oh that’s so cool, I did anthropology as my undergrad.

You did? Oh cool, that’s rad. What was your master’s in?

I got an MFA in creative writing at Naropa in Colorado.

Awesome.

But yeah I loved anthropology, doing all of that. So I always thought it was cool when I started listening to your music that I heard you were an ethnomusicologist —

— And anthropology, I’m doing like a joint thing.

Is that what you did for undergrad, too?

I did anthropology for undergrad.

Nice, that’s awesome. Yeah I think it’s a great field, I think it’s underrated.

Same!

So do you find it’s changed how you’re making music?

Maybe, I guess…yeah, I suppose, to some extent the reason I became interested in ethnomusicology was because of ways I was already thinking about music. But the stuff that I do for my PhD dissertation isn’t a direct influence on the music I’m writing, or recording, or anything like that, necessarily.

Right, but you had that like Mata Hari one, and it seems like there’s a lot of influences…

Yeah yeah, that was for a movie directed by Amy Ruhl, and I’d worked with her before, she’d done music videos for me, and I really like her work. She was putting together that film, did you ever check it out? It was on Vimeo or something.

No, I think I only heard the soundtrack.

It was basically about this woman who took the name Mata Hari, but she was a Dutch spy during World War I, who spent a lot of time in Indonesia, so Amy specifically requested like certain usages of the gamelan…I was in an Indonesian and Balinese gamelan group at the time, and I had access to the gamelan room, so I used that. But it wasn’t exactly tied to anything I studied in school. It was at my university, though. It was fun recording that.

Yeah that’s super interesting. I think your stuff brings in a lot of cool aspects that you don’t hear every day.

Thanks!

So what is your primary instrument, guitar?

Yeah, I would say guitar.

Have you been playing that your whole life?

I started when I was maybe 13, 13 or 14.

Then just branched out?

Yeah, I’ve been playing clarinet longer than that though…but sort of stopped taking lessons around the time I started playing guitar and stuff like that. I played a lot of guitar in high school, that’s when I started playing in bands with those guys.

It’s crazy how everything comes full circle.

Yeah, definitely.

And now you’re just touring with them for the foreseeable future?

Yeah, sort of off and on…we kind of do two or three weeks of touring, then a week or two of break. Martin has two kids, so it’s especially important for him to get to go back and spend time with them.

Wow, yeah, dang — I guess we are that age now.

Totally, yeah.

I remember meeting them in like, 2010.

Yeah, he wasn’t even married then, he got married in 2012.

Oh okay, wow. That’s crazy. That’s a lot more pressure on touring.

Yeah, I think it changes it for sure.

Is your family still in New Jersey?

Yeah they are, they’re still in Ridgewood. We all still have family back there.

The whole band?

Yeah, Bleeker’s dad still lives in the town next door, and his mom lives in South Jersey, and Martin’s parents are still in Ridgewood, my parents are still there.

Do you like being out in Madison?

Yeah I love it. It’s great, I can’t imagine moving anywhere else.

I love being from the East Coast but the Midwest is a little more chill, I think. People are a little more hyper and it’s a little more crowded.

And expensive.

Julian’s girlfriend: You’re a Midwestern boy at heart.

I think a lot of us find our way out this way, who aren’t…I talked to Shaun Fleming from Diane Coffee and Foxygen, and he’s from LA, but he lives in Bloomington, Indiana now.

Whoa. That’s where that label group is based out of, like Dead Oceans, and Jagjaguwar…

And is Secretly Canadian there?

Yep…I can’t remember if there’s a name for that group, it’s like four or five labels.

Right, I guess it makes sense to live near one of those. But Indiana on the whole doesn’t seem like it has, I dunno, much going on. I love Chicago cause there’s so much great music, and there’s always people coming through.

Yeah, I like coming down here for sure.

Do you spend a lot of time down here?

Probably once every couple months, three months maybe. I have a bunch of friends here, a lot of them play music, some of them have moved on now — like one of my really good friends here, this guy named Daniel Wyche, plays music and is also a grad student at U Chicago, but he just moved cause his partner got a position in Connecticut, so they’re living in Northampton, Massachusetts. But I used to come down and see him.

I like going to that place Mitsuwa, you ever been there? We like to stop there, it’s like a Japanese supermarket but has a great food court, it’s in the suburbs. Arlington Heights.

There’s supposed to be an H Mart opening near me…

Oh yeah, in Niles. Yeah.

There’s one, um…

Is there one opening in the city?!

There’s supposed to be…

Oh, shit.

But I don’t know if it’s really happening.

Yeah, that’d be cool — that’d also be weird. Cause they already have one in the area, I imagine the market would be saturated, but…

Is the other one in the city?

It’s in Niles.

An H Mart in Cambridge, MA

Oh it is in Niles. This is one is literally — I work in the West Loop right near the Sears Tower, and it’s supposed to be opening right over there.

Whoa, that’s bold.

Yeah, it’s a weird area cause it’s not that residential, so it’s like a lot of office buildings.

And people when they go to supermarkets usually like to park in a big lot…

Yeah, I don’t think it really has that. But there’s been signs there that say H Mart opening, so…

That’s cool, I hope it does well…I wish stuff like that would come to Madison.

Chicago is a good place to be, I feel like it covers all the bases. Are you still gonna play your solo stuff?

I don’t have a band at the moment or anything like that, but I could see that happening sometime in the next year or so.

Especially if you release another album, I guess.

I would love to do a mini tour if I did something like that.

Yeah, definitely. That’d be really cool. I’d love to hear more of the solo stuff, for sure.

Yeah, hopefully it comes out sooner rather than later.

Fingers crossed. Now when’s your PhD gonna be done?

Can’t say for sure, but what I have been telling my advisors is maybe three more semesters of writing to do it. I hope so.

Do you have to teach at all?

No, I’m sort of doing this in lieu of that, cause that section of my CV is pretty okay, like I have a lot of teaching experience now. My publications section is not doing so great, I could definitely use more of those, but…I’m not paying the rent teaching, so this is helping with that.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure if it was part of the requirements.

No, you’re not required to, it’s just an option that keeps you on campus, and usually there’s a point system, so you more or less get guaranteed a few semesters of teaching.

Oh okay, but you don’t have to…

Yeah, at this point I would probably be assigned like the same class where I TA’d a few times.

Yeah, I guess at McGill they had the TAs teach most of the stuff cause the professors are too busy doing their research.

I mean, that’s kinda cool, a cool style. I kinda like when the professor in charge of the course gives you some autonomy with teaching.

Right, yeah, that’s cool. I wish I had gotten to take ethnomusicology, that sounds super interesting.

Do they have any courses at McGill?

No, I don’t think so — which is too bad because we have a conservatory.

That’s right, I remember driving past it when I was in Montreal.

Oh nice, yeah. It seems like a natural fit with music and humanities, but they didn’t have it when I was there.

Well, UW doesn’t really have much of an ethnomusicology program anymore. Or, officially, it doesn’t have it anymore. Like, I’m the last student in it, and my advisor is no longer in the department, cause it doesn’t exist anymore, so he’s shifted to a different department.

Wow, so you’re the last ethnomusicologist, that’s crazy.

Yep.

Man, well I’d love to learn more about it, I don’t know if you have any recommendations.

Yeah! Message me at some point, I can send you a bibliography of some classic texts in the field or something like that. There’s good stuff that serves as good reading material for someone that’s familiar with anthropology.

That’d be great.

Bruno Nettl is like a youthful person to read, he was at Indiana, at IU, and writes books that a lot of ethnomusicologists have to read for the prelims, a lot of it is histories of the discipline. Also this guy Alan Merriam — basically half the field leaned towards musicology and half toward anthropology, and Alan Merriam was like an anthropology-leaning guy, and his stuff is also useful and interesting.

Nice, I’ll have to check it out…I think you’re an interesting case study cause a lot of people don’t have this other stuff going on.

Yeah, totally…I think me and Daniel Wyche who I mentioned, like a lot of our friendship is based around that we do the same kind of thing, we both play music and are grad students, so we operate on similar levels. And we’ve collaborated before too, we’ve done shows together live — we did one in Chicago at Elastic Arts.

Oh yeah! I was trying to come to that this time last year, and it didn’t work out for some reason.

He used to book there at Elastic. And then we did another at this place called Arts and Lit Lab in Madison. But yeah, they’re out there, people like me, trying to balance grad school with being a musician.