Recording artist releases his new single Here I Am
Spiked gloves, piercing eyes and an oversized black Gucci bag — Calgary-born Marcus Julian looks every inch the recording artist he’s dreamed of being.
With his first dance single Here I Am, Julian might just have a shot at making that dream come true.
Travelling between “cowtown,” Los Angeles and his recording studio in Vancouver, Julian explains he always remembered being able to sing and dance at a very young age.
Marcus Julian went full force with his music career eight months ago when he decided that he wanted to release a single.
Photo by Anup Dhaliwal“Since I could speak, I could sing,” says Julian. “I was always dancing, always singing and always being a fool. There are videos of me singing at four years old, singing Janet Jackson and dancing around on my front lawn.”
Julian’s older sister Salena Perrotte says, “You could tell he always wanted to be a star.”
To get on the path to stardom, Julian needed to leave the private school he attended as a child — a place where he felt very sheltered.
Making the switch
It was not until he switched over to Crescent Heights High School that he was able to join after-school dance programs to practice dance.
“If I didn’t get to go to public school, I wouldn’t have started dancing,” says Julian. “Everybody was so narrow-minded, but I guess it was because they didn’t know any better.”
In an email interview with the Calgary Journal, Julian’s dance teacher Michelle Bee-Williams says, “Marcus would come to the dance studio at lunch and after school and work at the ballet bar to improve his flexibility and technique and repeat movement sequences to perfection.”
“It was evident to me how musical Marcus was in his dancing,” adds Bee-Williams. “He began to create his own movement phrases and develop his ideas and feelings through movement.”
Julian went on to attend a dance program in Vancouver. That’s where he got the opportunity to train with a Los Angeles choreographer — something that pushed him to move there just after he graduated high school in 2010.
Julian says he always knew entertainment was huge in L.A., so he went there wanting to know what it was all about.
Hard work pays off
He started working on his music back in July 2012.
“I’ve always been a very determined, creative person, but I didn’t know it was going to happen so fast because there is so much rejection in the music industry,” says Julian.
Julian says being on set in Los Angeles as a backup dancer with a lot of artists made him even more motivated for his singing career.
The singer explains, “I can dance everyday of my life, but I want to be the main attention. I didn’t want to be the person dancing for somebody. I wanted people dancing for me.”
Even though Julian was not signed to any recording label, he was determined to get his music out for the world to hear. He found his own producer and video director to put together Here I Am.
He says he wanted a single that could be played at both a club and on the radio.
“I wanted to have the good equal balance,” says Julian. “There are so many good club hits that can’t be played on the radio because it’s not a song you can sing to.
“I’m not aiming my music towards a certain kind of person. I want from a dancer, to a pop, to a punk, to a rocker to connect to my music.”
Julian says his single is about him being unable to complete his goals while in a relationship.
He started writing this song near the end of the relationship and finished it when the relationship was over.
“It was basically my release to let go,” says Julian.
Here I Am will be airing on MuchMusic from Feb. 19 to 21.
adhaliwal@cjournal.ca