Today we’d like to introduce you to Joual.
Joual, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Everything started when Fisher and Sylvie were in seventh grade, and they’d constantly be writing what they thought what was genius comedy and putting it to music. Think early 2010s parody songs. Over time, they realized that the project could be so much bigger, so the two recruited Uddhav on the drums, but Sylvie refused to perform live due to severe stage fright. Since the show had to go on, Fisher and Uddhav would play all of the shows as a duo.
When we were all around junior year of high school, the band started to grow and Sylvie gained the confidence to finally play with the band live, Uddhav switched to playing guitar, and we played our first couple of shows. Our first shows were less than perfect. A lot of screaming in dirty basements and fearing that people’s neighbors would come yell at us to break it up. These days, we’ve headlined and opened at a couple of popular Atlanta venues like Smith’s Olde Bar, and we’re super proud of the progress we’ve made.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
One of the largest hurdles of first starting was how unrelentingly loud the setups of local house shows are. Nobody can hear themselves, and it’s just this wall of sound. So even if we played pretty good, we sounded like everyone else: loud. Unbelievably loud.
It was one of our biggest blessings, because it forced us to be as good at everything as we could possibly be and to individualize ourselves. We started working really hard on our stage presence. T-shirt tossing, running out into the crowd for songs, getting sing alongs going. If the audience isn’t going to remember the songs, they’re going to remember the people who played them.
The current bump in the road we’re facing is just us racing to record our debut album, Five More Minutes, before we’re all off to college! Although we’re not disbanding, longer commutes makes getting together more difficult.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Our biggest speciality is our live shows. Sylvie and Fisher just live to entertain and make people laugh, which is a large part of the band’s identity that the music itself doesn’t express. When we get up there, we go all out. We jump off of our amps, we call audience members up on stage to sing, and we even mime dying in the midst of the crowd at the end of our shows.
Musically, we call ourselves indie rock, but that’s mostly because it’s the most vague genre possible. We love to bend genres and constantly venture out of our comfort zone.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Go to as many shows as you can. If you can introduce yourself to your favorite local bands, they will almost certainly want to support you. We’re all in the same tumultuous time to grow as an artist, and we all know the struggle.
If you just talk to everyone you can, and treat them all with equal respect and genuine interest, eventually you run into the right crowd of people. Networking is just as much about who you are as who the people you talk to are. If you’re not a delight to be around, it doesn’t matter who you know. Don’t be nice because you want to get picked up by a label, be nice because you care about people. Sincerity is the strongest tool you have.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/joualband
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@joualband
- Other: https://www.linktr.ee/joual
Image Credits
In order of upload, with descriptions if they are out of order so you know which photos are who’s
@izzyraynephotos (first photo)
@izzyraynephotos (full band)
@julezprod (Fisher Pointing)
@izzyraynephotos (Fisher and Uddhav facing each other)
@julezprod (Flashlights)
@julezprod (Uddhav raising his hands)
@spainscapital (Fisher on the ground)
