Key to the Highway: Julian Taylor

Julian Taylor photo by Fredric France Indies Keeping Secrets

Americana Highways’ Key to the Highway series

Fans always clamor to learn more about their favorite, most beloved musicians and those who travel with them. There’s such an allure to the road, with its serendipity, inevitable surprises, and sometimes unexpected discomforts. This interview series is a set of questions we are asking some of our favorite roots rock Americana artists to get to know more about them and what they’ve learned and experienced on the road for music. We are sure they have key insights to share and stories to tell. Here’s one from Julian Taylor.

Americana Highways: How do you like your coffee or other morning wake-up beverage?

Julian Taylor: Although I historically have not been a hot beverage kind of person, I often drink warm water with some lemon juice. That’s been my standby for a few years especially on the road. However, just this past year after traveling to Europe for the first time, I sometimes drink coffee with lion’s mane in it to start my day when I am at home.

AH: What’s the most interesting or strangest motel/hotel or place you have stayed (while on the road?)

JT: There’s honestly so many that I can’t even count. We stayed in a haunted hotel once, and most recently I was in Beaver which is Belgium where our host converted an old monastery into an incredible venue and bread and breakfast called Rosario.

AH: If one CD is stuck in the player in the van for the entire tour, what do you hope it is? And why?

JT: Funny you should ask because I actually do have a CD stuck in my car stereo and I’m not mad at it. It’s Buddy Guy & Junior Wells Play The Blues. It’s been stuck in my classic 1970 mustang for three years and, I might not try to get it unstuck to be honest with you.

AH: What’s one personal item you must have with you on your road trip?

JT: I have to have my portable massager, my headphones, and bluetooth speaker, as well as my laptop, of course, and my favorite Thin Lizzy t-shirt.

AH: What is your relationship with food? How do you handle this on the road, and what’s your favorite dish on the road, (or restaurant, and what do you order there)?

JT: In the early days of my career, my relationship with food wasn’t too good. We ate a lot of fast food, and it caused me to get sick. A friend of mine named Julie Daniluk came to my rescue a few years back and helped me find a way to balance things out. So I now take a lot of granola bars and dried fruit bars with me on the road. I also try to order soups from restaurants as long as there’s no cream. I learned a lot about food on my recent trip to Italy. Everything there is really fresh, organic, and locally sourced. Things like cheese, bread, and pasta usually upset my stomach, but they did not bother me there. Now that I am home, I try to find food that is fresh, organic, and locally sourced. It’s harder to do that on the road, so sometimes I just fast and wait until I’m near a restaurant that can make that kind of food for me. I have fruit and veggies on my rider which really helps.

AH: If you could pause your life for a few weeks and spend some time living in a place you only have passed through, which would you choose, and why?

JT: Italy. I honestly could live there. The food, the wine, the landscape, and the pace of life is wonderful. In North America, we live to work, and there they do the opposite and work to live. Siesta is such a great concept and thing to do. They pause and enjoy rest and relaxation, and it is really quite a beautiful way to live.

AH: What quote or piece of advice have you gotten from someone on the road that has really stuck with you?

JT: It’s your birthday ever single day you’re alive, and that goes for everybody, so wish yourself happy daze always and wish others the same. Even if you do it with your inside voice people will hear you.

Find more information about his new album, and tour dates for Julian Taylor, here: https://juliantaylormusic.ca/shows

See other Key to the Highway interviews here: https://americanahighways.org/category/interviews/key-to-the-highway-series/ (click here for: Todd Park Mohr Jim Lauderdale Vince Herman Jimmy Smith Ben Nichols Bruce Cockburn Charlie Musselwhite Nicki Bluhm Jim White Danny Barnes Patterson Hood Jerry Joseph BJ Barham Rodney Crowell Todd Snider Elizabeth Cook Tommy Womack Eric Ambel, Dan Baird, Robbie Fulks, Malcolm Holcombe Jon Langford Steve Poltz, Lilly Hiatt Sarah Shook & the Disarmers Sadler Vaden )