'Like a slap in the face': Alt-pop star Julia Wolf on going viral

ShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleMark SavageMusic correspondentGetty ImagesWolf's breakout era will include two sold out nights at London's iconic Koko venue later this yearJulia Wolf is in disarray. The indie-pop singer is in the middle of a breakout moment, and she's chosen that exact time to move house. As she calls the BBC from her brand new New York apartment, boxes are strewn everywhere and clothes have gone missing. But her precious teddy (a polar bear called Wrinkles) has been carefully positioned in his rightful spot on her pillow. Then the wi-fi, installed "literally 20 minutes ago", packs up. There's a tense wait as she attempts to rejoin using mobile data. It's extremely tempting to write a segue here about Wolf's career having had its own teething troubles – but, in truth, it's been more of a slow burn on a long fuse. The 31-year-old started playing piano at the age of seven, and released her first single in 2019, building a loyal fanbase note by note. Then suddenly, after six years of graft, Wolf's grungy obsession anthem In My Room started trending on TikTok. There, it was often paired with fan edits of the Twilight movies (a touchstone for the singer) whose blue-grey visuals pair perfectly with her haunting vocals. Millions of streams later, Drake sent a DM, punctuated with exploding-head emojis, inviting Wolf to record the opening verse of his recent single, Dog House. This month, the singer had to upgrade her world tour to bigger venues to meet audience demand. Fans connect, often viscerally, to Wolf's lyrics, which sit at the messy intersection of love, obsession, self-doubt and empowerment. She pairs them with a dissonant rock-pop sound that's equal parts Alanis Morissette and Evanescence - a stylistic choice that initially worked against her. "Pretty much all of the major labels rejected me," laughs Wolf, who releases her music independently. "I feel like this whole process has been the longest marathon. But overnight success can be detrimental, so I'm glad it's taken time." Wolf was born Julia Capello to Italian parents in New York, and grew up in Glen Head - a small town on the Long Island shoreline, where she'd walk around barefoot, feeling isolated from the rest of the world. "I was an apparition for most of my youth," she sings on Now, the autobiographical opening track of her 2023 album Good Thing We Stayed. "I was starving for friendships," Wolf recalls. "I was praying for it every night. I just wanted to be seen by anybody, but in the same breath, was so self-conscious that I was always hiding in the shadows, wearing puffer coats in summer." Like many lonely kids, she retreated into her imagination, where Stephenie Meyer's vampire novels became her lifeline. "I would read Twilight alone at lunch," she says. "I just latched onto the main character, Bella, who was also completely self-conscious. "She feels very unworthy of people's love and attention, but then she gets it. I just wanted that to happen to me." Wolf stencilled a quote from the book on the lime green walls of her bedroom ("Look after my heart, I've left it with you"), next to the bay windows where she did her homework. And it was a homework assignment, completed in that very room, that ultimately led to her music career. As a piano student, Wolf was a fixture of the school talent show. But in her senior year, her music teacher threatened to exclude her unless she wrote an original song. "I was mortified," she says, "but eventually the desire to play outweighed the embarrassment. I wrote my first song, and that opened the floodgates." The composition was dedicated to a schoolfriend, expressing Wolf's fear they'd grow apart after graduating ("which, spoiler alert, we did"). The reaction was beyond what she expected. "People cried," she says. "A few girls came up to me afterwards and they were like, 'Are you gonna put this out? Is it gonna be on SoundCloud? Julia, what's your next song?' "I wish maybe I'd done these things sooner, to develop those friendships, but it was definitely a confidence boost." The experience prompted her to step away from the classical world. She enrolled at New York's Purchase Conservatory of Music to study songwriting, and started playing open mic nights around the city. A recording of those performances found its way to Jackson Foote, of electro-pop duo Loote, who messaged Wolf offering to work with her. Their first collaboration, Captions, was released in 2019. Although it's only 65 seconds long, it's a perfect showcase for Wolf's breathy vocals and sharp storytelling. The hook, "you can use my lyrics as your captions", is a delectably scathing riposte to a musician who sniped her style. Follow-up songs like Ghost and Pillow became actual Instagram captions, and Wolf gained enough support to sell out her first tour in February 2022. "To me, that felt like, 'OK, we have a fan base here'. "Since then, I've always measured my success on who's willing to come ou

'Like a slap in the face': Alt-pop star Julia Wolf on going viral

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