You might not recognize Ivan Julian’s name, but there’s a
pretty good chance you’ve heard
him in one context or another.
In the mid 1970s, when he was
still a teenager, Julian toured the
UK with the Foundations, a pop
group best known for their hits
“Build Me Up Buttercup” and
“Baby Now That I Found You.”
In the late ’70s, he played in the
seminal punk/new wave group
Richard Hell & the Voidoids,
whose album Blank Generation
is regarded as one of the finest
examples of that genre. Julian
has also performed and recorded
with a list of artists as diverse
as the Clash, the Isley Brothers,
and Matthew Sweet, and as an
engineer and producer he has
left his imprint on the music of
artists like Jon Spencer.
As wide-ranging as his work
has been, it wasn’t until recently
that Julian released his first
solo album, The Naked Flame.
And he says he wouldn’t have
even done so if it weren’t for
the members of an Argentinean
band called Capsula insisting
upon it while he was mixing their 2009 album, Rising
Mountains. Fittingly, Capsula
joins Julian on his long-overdue
solo debut. The music is raw
and cathartic and filled with
all sorts of fascinatingly multi-faceted guitar parts—from the
explosive leads of the title track
to the funky minor-7th rhythm
work on “The Funky Beat in
Siamese” to the country-blues
inspired octaves of “You Is
Dead.” We talked with Julian
about how he got these sounds
and, more broadly, how he conceives music in general.
I understand you have the
distinction of possibly being
one of the only guitarists alive
who first played the bassoon.
Yes, but before that I played the
alto saxophone, since my father
was a big Charlie Parker fan.
Then somebody broke into the
