JULIA NUNES MAKES A CONNECTION THROUGH HUMOR, MUSIC, WHIMSY

There's something whimsical and playful about Julia Nunes, even on the other end of a phone conversation.

She's self-deprecating yet self-assured ... sarcastic without being bitter ... prone to laughter and giggles but not vapid or annoying about it. In short, she's the kind of girl you'd want as a kid sister.

Given that, it's not hard to see how so many fans who show up to see her perform demand her time -- a few seconds for a picture or an autograph or a comment about her most recent YouTube video. Or, to show off a knife.

True story, she told The Daily Times during a recent phone interview. And it happened the last time she performed in East Tennessee, at a show at The Square Room in downtown Knoxville. Blount County-based country band Marshal Hill opened the performance, and Nunes was chatting with the members after it was over when the knife incident occurred.

"There was this girl there who, on her own, is almost definitely harmless," Nunes said. "I had seen her at several different shows; she brought a tambourine to one, and I encouraged her to play it, so she continued to bring it to every show. Well, after the last Knoxville show, I was having a normal band-to-band conversation with (Marshal Hill), and this girl was still there -- not joining in the conversation; just kind of standing there.

"Eventually we were like, 'OK, I guess we're going to sleep now,' and she says, 'I've got to get my knife out, because I'm going to the parking lot.' And then she did it! She had a switchblade! Todd (Steed, with AC Entertainment, Nunes' management company) kind of stepped forward, putting himself between her and I, and she just said, 'I'm not gonna stab you! It's for the parking lot!"

Nunes laughs hysterically, the memory ironic and humorous in hindsight (not so much at the time). Despite that close encounter with the off-kilter, however, Nunes still looks forward to interacting with fans at every show, she said. And the fact that her online personality and her music put them so at ease -- to the point where she and just about any fan can slip into a casual conversation without pretense or awkward introduction -- is all the more joyous for her.

"I like that aspect of it -- that I can meet these people and they're already comfortable," she said. "I think meeting a musician can be pretty awkward; I've gone at it from the fan point of view, and the waiting-in-line is nerve-wracking. And then you get up there and you have absolutely nothing to say but, 'You're awesome! OK ... bye!'

"My fans, they have inside jokes with me, and they know weird things to bring me -- at one show, I received a crocheted pear! They'll talk about the videos, and it's always fun for me to hear them lead the conversation and tell me these stories about how they found my music."

Nunes got her start writing songs at 13, gradually learning to play guitar, melodica and piano -- but it was the ukulele with which she's been so closely associated. In addition, she finds a way to incorporate off-the-wall percussion -- pillows, water bottles, tissue boxes, even a Slinky. Combine those things with her sincerity, her wit and the fact that she's just funny -- it adds up to a whole lot of charm. Which is what drew viewers to her YouTube videos in the first place.

"I think I put up 'First Impressions,' and the reason I put it up is that I'd just written it," she said. "I didn't even think it was done when I recorded it. At the time, I had close friends -- about 10 subscribers -- and YouTube was my main method of contacting him. I put that up and 'Bye Bye Bye' (a cover of a song by the Backstreet Boys) just for fun, and people found that and went to 'First Impressions.'

"I think that song just resonated with a lot of people. It's just about loss, and I think anyone can relate to that on a ton of levels. And when people started noticing the originals, I was like, 'Oh! man! That's interesting!'"

The traffic to her YouTube channel began to increase exponentially. Eventually, the website -- a host for homemade videos by individuals, businesses, bands and more -- featured her on the front page; after that, the number of subscribers skyrocketed. In one day, she said, she went from 1,000 subscribers in the morning to 10,000 that afternoon.

Over the past couple of years, her catalog of videos -- both original songs and quirky covers, songs like "Survivor" by Destiny's Child or "Keep Fishin'" by Weezer or "Buttercup" by the Foundations -- has grown to more than 60. On average, most of them have been viewed roughly 650,000 times. She's recorded a debut album, "I Wrote These," opened for piano-rocker Ben Folds in the summer of 2008 and juggled a college schedule as well.

And she continues to make new fans. Sure, the ability to post response messages on YouTube has opened her up to viewer criticism ("There aren't a lot of insults that hurt my feelings," she said. "I get a lot of, 'This is gay!' Well ... I don't care. Or, 'You sound like a boy!' Yeah ... I knew that."), but she's also won over fans both young and old with her wide-eyed optimism and genuine desire to entertain.

"There are definitely musicians who are musicians -- ones other musicians can listen to and be really impressed by the crazy time-sequence changes and recording techniques, but I don't think I'm one of those," she said. "I think my concentration is on lyrics and saying what I need to say, and I hope people want to hear it. Plus, I do improv comedy, and that's all about affecting your audience in a more-than-standoffish way. You have to connect with people on a very personal level.

"I worry about pigeonholing myself into one area. I don't want to be just a YouTube star. I'd rather have some longevity. This summer, I really concentrated on making a clean, professional, but-still-my-style record, and it's a good collection of songs I'm pretty proud of. It'll probably come out early in the new year, and I think it'll be called 'You Know.'"

The Daily Times, Blount County TN, Dec 2009, by Steve Wildsmith

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