While I have no problems humming the occasional pop radio tune, I reserve most of my enthusiasm for the musicians that take the road less traveled. The ones that create music without thought towards SoundScan or SNL appearances.

So yes, I will admit to becoming more than a little bit stoked over my favorite singers and bands. However, I don't give a free pass on any faults. My people just don't have any, alright? My people are better than your people. Deal with it!

The fact remains that I generally gravitate towards a lot of people who run outside of mainstream music. People that inhabit their own musical solar systems. And no one has lured me in with their gravitational pull more than Julie Christmas.

Julie started (and remains) as the vocalist/lyricist behind those noisy bastards called Made out of Babies. Talk about caterwauling. That band had me slobbering after hearing their 2005 debut Trophy. (OK, I had seen a couple of pictures of Julie first and went "Woah! I have to check out this band" --- I have to admit this was mostly in hopes of finding more pictures if we're talking full disclosure here). Then I heard the band and got smashed right between the eyes by the wickedly powerful right hooks contained in songs like "Swarm" and "Loosey Goosey".

And then there was that voice. If you haven't heard Julie Christmas, it's hard to imagine it. You can't listen to one note or one line really. You have to take in a whole song or ideally a whole record to get the big picture. Whispering, grunting, squeaking and mostly SCREAMING, Julie doesn't just sing, she turns herself inside out, emptying what she wants to convey onto the floor in one bloody mess.

As part of the incredible Battle of Mice, and with two other Made out of Babies records (check out their latest, The Ruiner, it's a masterpiece) Julie continued to put out fantastic material that showed an impressive evolution.

Earlier this year, she released her first solo record The Bad Wife, my favorite record of the year. Going beyond the boundaries of Made out of Babies and her other various projects, Julie put real scope into this material serving a fascinating platter of delectables that further showcase the weapons in her vocal arsenal. Forming a tremendous partnership with John LaMacchia from Candiria and Spylacopa), the record presents itself as a remarkable piece of work that was made with care in every note and breath.

My daughter Kaylie is a fellow Julie-lover and ditched work recently so we could both talk to her about the record. And so before this introduction threatens to eclipse the actual interview in length, here's our talk with the incredible Julie Christmas.

antiMusic: Congratulations on The Bad Wife. It's staggering. I just love it. I had no expectations for the direction of this record because I really didn't know what you would be tackling. And my hopes were exceeded. Besides the obvious aspect of having complete control, what was the impetus behind recording your first solo record?

Julie: I think it happened when we started to make The Ruiner. I was working on a couple other projects that were pretty heavy. We were working on The Ruiner and I was working on a few other things where most of the vocals were very aggressive and very screaming. When you think about the music that kind of hits you in your heart, for me those people are kind of like Johnny Cash and sort of like these great voices that really shake you. And they don't have to sound angry to make an impact. So while I certainly lean towards screaming like a maniac, I recognize that there are other things and I just started to develop that as an idea in my head. And we started off by doing a Jacques Brel cover…the If You Go Away cover, which is a French love song, so I guess it's just a way to acknowledge that there are other things that are as big as hate, you know.

antiMusic: Since there's no song the same as the album title and no obvious (to me) tie-in, what is behind calling it The Bad Wife?

Julie: The bad wife is an imaginary friend that was my sister's originally. My sister and I are kind of close in age. We both had imaginary friends, but not fake imaginary friends, like would be a joke, but some kinds that you see and speak too. The kinds that eventually become worrisome to parents. So Caitlin and I both had imaginary friends. And hers was the bad wife. When we started to get older, I kind of took the bad wife over. The bad wife became like a very real character to us. And we would use her for anything that we did wrong. So we would say, when we got busted doing something we weren't supposed to do, we'd just say the bad wife did it. She became this sort of figure in my imagination that took up a lot of my time.

antiMusic: Tell us how the record came together and considering the number of people you had on here, it must have been a nightmare to coordinate.

Julie: It was. It took a couple of years to do it and to also to find the money to do it and keep the drive to put something like that out. But I think when I started to have these conversations about the importance of the less spoken side of heaviness --- the more passionate side that is not just in your face screaming but is as strong --- when I started to talk about that to other people, including very heavy musicians, a lot of people shared that and were interested in working on something where you try to get an emotional response in music but without being really aggressive about it. So I worked with a bunch of other people that sort of shared that idea that these other things have an important place in our lives. I just tried to find the best people I could for each song that was coming up. I was really lucky to work with a lot of the people that were on the record.

antiMusic: What sort of synchronicity have you found with John LaMacchia who was your co-writer on most of these tracks?

Julie: Well, I can tell you that I have disappointed musicians before by trying to explain in pictures what I think music should sound like. When you're working in this kind of music, people come from backgrounds where they're really knowledgeable about music and in my case, reading music or speaking in terms of chords, is something that I used to know but because of lack of practice, I just don't really use it that much. So I have resorted to trying to either hum music to musicians or doing like really embarrassing things like handing over phone recordings, which is the worst and a few other terrible things. But John is one of the people who is able, when I show him a passage in a book I'm reading, and try to convey that's what I want to capture in the music, he's really good at sort of reading the idea I have. So that's somebody you hold onto. He's a naturally gifted musician.

antiMusic: How did the songwriting work between the two of you? Did he give you sort of complete song structures that you built upon? Did you suggest moods, topics or tones?

Julie: The thing that was interesting about The Bad Wife is that while I am the thread that holds the songs together, almost all of the songs came tighter from a real collaboration. So it is under my name but it would never have happened if there wasn't a really open dialogue between a lot of musicians that are involved, and trusting somebody to do what they know how to do. So with John, just like with many other of the musicians, there was a different recipe every time. I had ultimate say over what stayed and what sucked but I think I really didn't have to do that very often. It was usually that everybody was sort of flexible. So the personalities were pretty important in terms of working together.

antiMusic: How did the record come together in terms of the songs? Did they actually come together pretty quickly or were there some that came along kicking and screaming?

Julie: There were some that came along more kicking and screaming. And there were some songs that had lyrics that I wrote a really long time ago and some where the lyrics were written on the spot. It was like, I don't know, a nuts experience. The only thing that kept it going, was that same thing, where once every month or so I would meet a new group of people or I would be in continuous contact with people who would find the time for them to be passing through New York City where I am. It was kind of like a big mess. And the only thing that made it possible was the idea to keep going no matter what.

antiMusic: Let's talk a bit about the actual songs. The record opens in dramatic fashion with July 31st. And with a lot of your lyrics. OK, all of them….I don't know whether you're being cleverly opaque or I'm just too stupid to read them correctly. What can you tell us about this song?

Julie: July 31st is a song that is a combination. My mother never wrote poetry in the early part of her life and then she woke up at like 60 and started writing poems. And she's very natural about it. She doesn't like sit down and make you read her new poems. She was just inspired to do it and she just started. So most of the words in that song come from a poem she wrote.

antiMusic: The song got included in the Harvey Keitel movie. How did they find out about your music?

Julie: I don't know if you know that hip hop group, Black Star with Talib Kweli and Mos Def? I grew up with Talib and I just played him a couple of tracks and he suggested it right away.

antiMusic: For both Kaylie and I, it's a tie for our favorite cuts on the record. The first is "Secrets All Men Keep" which is just absolutely gorgeous. While you often step outside of your comfort zone in songs to deliver some non-screaming parts, did you feel very vulnerable doing a complete song without usual aggressive delivery?

Julie: You know it's embarrassing to do it in a studio, but it's a little bit harder to do it in public. I just found out because we did do a tour. But that song, it would have been difficult except I really meant it. And I think that that makes a difference. That's one of the only songs that I sat down and wrote down the lyrics and had something in my mind that I wanted to say to people that I can't. That's one song where I was actually very wide awake and knowing that it was going to be a cut that people were either going to hate or like, but it didn't really matter; it had to be on that record.

antiMusic: I've read that you consider this a companion piece to "Salt Bridge". What's the narrative that drives this song? Is it about betrayal or is that just a mask for something else?

Julie: No, a salt bridge is actually something that happens in your body. It has to do with genetics. So a salt bridge is like a link that bonds. So I just liked the way those two words sound together. Also that song "Salt Bridge" has to do with personal regrets. So I think that it seemed like an appropriate title. Also because the personal regret has to do with things that happened in my family that it seems an appropriate title. The second, "Secrets all Men Keep", it's just about the things that happen in secret moments in families, that's really personal stuff that remains mysterious because you can't really have open conversations or even see it happening.

antiMusic: Our other favorite track is "The Wigmaker's Widow", which is terrifically dramatic. What's that track about?

Julie: You guys are an interesting pair. Nobody has ever said that those two are their favorite (laughs). "The Wig Makers Widow" is based on an idea from a play. Where the man finds this woman who's really beautiful and he doesn't know how to keep her so he starts selling off his body parts to sort of keep her in the manner she's accustomed to. I love the destruction of that idea. So "The Wigmaker's Widow" seemed like, when the music started to play, we put things in place that tried to convey a very sinister but-I'm-going-with-it-anyway type of vibe to the song.

antiMusic: "Headless Hawks". What can you tell us about this song?

Julie: Everyone on that track is from Made out of Babies. And we made that song in…I would say under an hour. It was just me working with all the guys from Made out of Babies. Just really quickly putting something together. When we were doing all the tracks for the album, I didn't know it was going to be released. All of it was just about trying to make something. In the end we ended up having material that we thought some people would enjoy so we let it out. Working with Made out of Babies was something I really wanted to do because I respect the amount of work we've done together. So that was just sort of making a song that they could be in on, on this new album with me.

antiMusic: OK class, let's find the thing in this sentence that doesn't belong here; country music, Willie Nelson and Julie Christmas. How did you come across "I Just Destroyed the World" and talk a bit about how you decided to Julie-ize it?

Julie: I'm not talking about the current, contemporary country music artists, but those guys and women who wrote, who are some of country's greats, nobody talks about uhm…

antiMusic: Heartbreak…

Julie: …heartbreak and the human condition with more eloquence …and less condescension than some of those people. So like Willie Nelson, not that many people do it like that. And that song was played to me by somebody else, actually. Andrew Schneider who produced the record, played me that track and it was one of the first things Willie ever recorded. It's in his demo sessions, before he was a signed musician. So I heard that and I was, oh man. How can you even compete with somebody like that or somebody like Jacques Brel. I could not say that better. I just followed it and tried to do it in a way that I would do it. But, yeah, I mean, there's no way I could make a song like that, so I had to, you know, borrow it from him. But I dig like the song itself. It floored me. You should try to hear the original.

antiMusic: Yeah. I have. After I heard it was by him, I looked it up and it was just so odd to hear your version and his back to back. I mean it's still got the same emotion, but I couldn't figure out how you got to that place.

Julie: I like anything that's good…I'm not the most open minded. I can listen to a lot of different kinds of music but only if the people who are doing it are putting something into it and I find that that doesn't happen very often. And with somebody like that it really wouldn't matter what medium Willie Nelson was trying to convey what he does. He would do it properly because his heart is in the right place. He just delivers. It's an undeniable quality that you can't really put your finger on, but you know it is there. And I think that he was great at that. It just knocks you down when you hear it. I don't think enough people do that. I think a lot of people hold back. We don't tend to prize people who throw themselves into it with everything they have and I think that's a mistake. He's one of those people. And a lot of people recognize that. But when I heard that song it was just like being hit over the head.

antiMusic: I heard "If You Go Away" when I was younger by some of the other artists have covered it. When did you hear it and which version was it and what was it that resonated so much with you that you had to record it?

Julie: I heard it done by Nina Simone and she does it in a French version. I looked into that song…I don't remember how I heard this version of it. I probably would not have covered that song except that I heard the original version, after I saw that she did it, I sort of looked into the song. And it's practically a standard. It's been done by hundreds and hundreds of people, Frank Sinatra, a whole bunch of people that are actually famous, like really world renowned for singing. But you have to hear the original version. There's a little video of it and it's just Jacques Brel and his guitar and a pianist. It is the same thing; these raw glimpses of emotion where nothing is really happening that would betray the amount, the degree, blood that is going to come over you. There's nothing physical that you can see that he's going through or doing. He's just standing there singing a song but it breaks your heart because he has so much of himself in it. That to me, again, was just me recognizing that I could not really do that. It's like a glimpse into somebody else's secrets or something. It was just something I recognized and wanted to be like, but maybe can't do on my own. So I just tried to do his song over in a way I thought it should sound coming from me.

antiMusic: So the record's been done now for a little while. What are your thoughts on it now? Was it a good catharsis? Have you got the essence of that album out of your system or are you still lingering in it?

Julie: Well I go back and forth. I mean you're always grateful when somebody listens to your music but I go back and forth between hating…I f***ing hate making music and then I can't seem to stay away from it. So you always go back and forth with these things but one thing that I knew was going to tell me, was going over to Europe and playing the songs at a place where the record isn't really available. Just seeing how open people were to me and just stepping away a little bit from Made Out Of Babies and doing shows that are more like you're going to get something out of the performances. But we went over there and I could not at all believe the response.

If I have to pick the few things that make music worth it, it's not so much wanting to have people take pictures with you---of course that stuff is very flattering---but it's not so much that. It's all about communicating with other people. So when I look out into that audience and when I see somebody looking at me and I know that they are there with me and they know what I mean, that makes everything worth it. I think I was expecting a little bit to be laughed at because I have been making heavier music. I do think there are some gender differences that are not really so welcomed maybe or not taken so seriously but I don't care about any of that.

When you step out on stage and you look at somebody, it doesn't really matter who it is, and they are staring right back at you, to me it's like an electrifying connection. I look for those people at every single performance and I got that almost more than ever before when I toured on this record. So there was something there. You never know how things are going to come out. It's impossible to guess the whims of contemporary society, but I know, in some basic way that it meant as much to people who were there watching as it did to me singing.

antiMusic: If you think it meant so much to them….what didn't you tour over here Julie?

Julie: Because here I'm not really wanted here. I don't pass judgment on people who are downloading music, but there is no way to do it here, for me anyway. I mean people who have a lot of financial backing have it a bit better. I throw in a lot of my own money to make these things happen. Just speaking realistically it's like, there's no way I can do it. It's not an attractive thing to talk about and I hate more than anything letting money make decisions but I can't do it. To drive through this huge country and to show up in the middle of a place and have not enough to even eat, it's heartbreaking a little bit. It just becomes really difficult to do it. I think Chuck Close alluded to it when he was talking about his art lining up with what people wanted at exactly the right time, for him to become a success…I think I am not that person. I'm like that other person. Where what I'm making is not at all what people want. (laughs) I'm not crying about it. I'm still going to go ahead. But it changes how you can do things. And traveling across the country is really difficult.

antiMusic: I think it's maybe more a matter of just not yet.

Julie: Right. Yeah, anyway I'm going to do some other things. I'm going to do this book with Nix Turner that illustrator (note: of Emily the Strange fame).

antiMusic: I was just going to ask you about that…

Julie: Yeah, we're doing it. It's a really strict, different process. Writing music to pictures is a great thing. So I'm doing that with her. And there's a lot of work that goes into that that I've never done before but the songs that are kind of ready for it, I'm really excited about. And the illustrations that I've seen are spot on. So I think it's going to be a cool little project that we're both happy with and the character in it is something we can both kind of relate to. It's got a heart to it. And there are other things I'm doing, like a new track that I haven't written yet of course, for something that's coming out in Europe with. It's a compilation that's coming out.

antiMusic: Will we be hearing another solo record in the near future? Do you anticipate it veering off very much from The Bad Wife?

Julie: I hope so. But it takes a long time to put this together but I think so. It's a big undertaking but I think I'm going to. I don't think I can stop. I think I'm going to keep going until, you know, either everybody's laughing at me or (laughs) I can't make noise anymore. I think I don't really have a choice. I think it's going to happen.

antiMusic: Well, we could talk to you all day but I know you have a lot going on. It was so awesome to speak with you.

Julie: I know that you're one of the people that listened even in the very beginning when there was just very strange noises coming together. And I really, really appreciate that and the chance to talk to you and your daughter. And I hope that you guys stay around and I get to talk to you really soon. I'm really grateful for the chance so thank you very much.

Morley and antiMusic thank Julie for taking the time to do this interview.