Julianna Riolino on her solo career and upcoming album

Hailing from Ontario, Julianna Riolino played in Edmonton for the first time at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival. She took the time to chat with The Gateway about her solo career and upcoming album.

Prior to going solo, Riolino had been part of a band, the Outfit. She said her role in the band was largely vocals. But in 2019, Riolino struck out on their own and released their first single, “BE MY MAN.” 

“I had been touring quite a bit with that group, and I had put a lot of my stuff on the back burner,” she explained. “It was just because really, the schedule became almost impossible to do all the things they needed me to do and I wanted to do.”

Her solo music tends to be a mixture of rock, country, and a bit of the 1970s.

“My sound is indicative of everything that I like and gravitate towards,” Riolino said. “I’m not trying to be anything other than who I am.”

They said the music that inspires them tends to be country music or music from the 60s or 70s, even the 30s. Their own music is the result of all of that.

And on stage, her presence has been compared to that of the classic rock frontmen.

“I think it just comes out of me, I’m not trying to be anybody that I’m not,” she said. “That’s also a tricky thing sometimes when you see certain acts, you’re like ‘okay, I get this, I get the schtick,’ and I think it’s great. It’s like performance art or whatever, but I’m just feeling on stage what I’m feeling inside.”

Riolino said they also feed off of the audience’s energy — or lack thereof. “That can feed me too. I’ve always just found ways to feed myself through those experiences.”

“A flower needs to die in order to grow again,” Riolino says

Riolino also attributes finding that style of performing on stage to just getting the opportunities to play. She said she plays and learns and grows every single time. 

That growth takes centre stage in her upcoming album. Set to release on October 24, Echo in the Dust reflects their personal and musical growth.

“When I wrote the record, I’m not cognizant, I kind of let my subconscious take over, and I try to keep my mind open,” Riolino explained. “I try to trust my instincts a lot.”

She weighed heavily on folklore and Roman mythology for the album. Particularly, the goddess Janus, who is the goddess of time, portals, and war, as well as Juno, who is the goddess of spring. 

“I guess I’m playing with the idea that things have to get bad or become destructive in order to become beautiful and whole again,” she said. “A flower needs to die in order to grow again, bloom again, and feed the soil.”

It’s about looking inward and understanding your patterns and cycles that need to be broken.

“You can’t really get better or grow until you’re honest with yourself or unpack the things that maybe you don’t want to confront,” Riolino said.

With her previous album, All Blue, she said she was still healing and unpacking a lot of the stuff that had affected her. There were more “sassy” moments on that record, whereas this upcoming record is more reflective on that healing and growing process.

And the sound reflects that. “All Blue is more sonically very atmospherical, a lot more twang in there, a lot more open space,” they explained. “I think there’s still open space, I think there are still all of those elements but … the next single that’s coming out is a departure from the first [album].”

Riolino will be returning to Edmonton on November 24 to play at the Aviary.