Julien Baker

Julien Rose Baker (born September 29, 1995) is an American indie rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. Her music is noted for its moody quality and confessional lyrical style, as well as frank explorations of topics including Christianity, addiction, mental illness, and human nature. She has received six Grammy Award nominations and three wins as a member of Boygenius.

Born and raised in suburban Memphis, Tennessee, Baker released her debut album Sprained Ankle (2015) while she was a student at Middle Tennessee State University. The album received critical acclaim and appeared on several 2015 year-end lists. Baker subsequently signed to Matador Records and released her second studio album Turn Out the Lights in 2017, to further critical success. Her third album, Little Oblivions (2021), embraced a more full-band sound and became Baker's first top 40 album on the Billboard 200 chart.

In addition to her solo work, Baker is a member of the indie supergroup Boygenius, alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. The group's debut eponymous EP was released in October 2018. Boygenius announced their reunion in January 2023, and their debut studio album The Record was released in March. Their newest release, titled The Rest, was released in October 2023. Baker is also in a country duo with Torres, debuting together in 2024.

Julien Rose Baker was born on September 29, 1995, in Germantown, and raised in Bartlett, Tennessee, near Memphis. Her parents both worked in the field of physical therapy. She has spoken of being inspired by her father who, after an accident in his twenties resulting in the amputation of his leg, dedicated his life to making experimental prosthetic limbs. Baker's parents separated while she was in elementary school.

Baker grew up in a devout Baptist family, and her early exposure to music involved playing at her church. After seeing Green Day on television, she was inspired to explore more alternative music and started listening to bands like My Chemical Romance and Death Cab for Cutie. She subsequently became captivated by the punk, hardcore, metalcore, and screamo scenes, and has said some of her favorite bands were mewithoutYou, Underoath, The Chariot, Norma Jean, and Whitechapel. She struggled with substance abuse as a young teen, but found support in the community surrounding house shows in Memphis, and became inspired by the straight edge punk subculture. While in high school in 2010, Baker co-founded the band the Star Killers, who renamed themselves Forrister in 2015.

Baker attended Arlington High School and then Middle Tennessee State University, where she had a campus job in the A/V department and initially studied audio engineering, before switching to literature and secondary education. She eventually left school to tour full-time after the release of Sprained Ankle, but returned to campus in the fall of 2019 to complete her degree in literature.

Baker's first musical project was a post-rock ensemble she participated in during high school. During her first year at MTSU, Baker began writing songs on her own, often utilizing the university practice rooms that stayed open late at night. She wrote what would become Sprained Ankle in her dorm room and recorded it on free studio time that a friend of hers had gotten from an internship. She has said that she never thought the EP would be heard by a wide audience; she put it on Bandcamp so that her friends could hear it.

It was picked up by 6131 Records, who released the album Sprained Ankle in October 2015. Sprained Ankle ended up topping many 2015 year-end lists, and its success led to features in The New Yorker and The New York Times, with various critics calling it "heartbreaking," "hypnotic," and "striking." In March 2016, Baker gave an NPR Tiny Desk performance, the first of an eventual four appearances at the desk. She also played at that year's South by Southwest and Newport Folk festivals. Her performances from this period have been called "hushed, reverential events," with the audience often remaining quiet and emotional.