Meet Julia Sabbagh

We had the good fortune of connecting with Julia Sabbagh and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia, what habits do you feel helped you succeed?
I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking that I need to be alone in order to grow. I assumed I needed to be entirely dependent on myself and I didn’t want to risk the unreliability that comes with leaning on others. While I did do plenty of growing this way, my life changed exponentially when I opened myself up to help and collaboration from others. I’m a musician, so writing music is a really personal thing I do like to do in solitude. But when I became more confident in knowing that I wanted to go further than just writing and performing solo, acknowledging that my goals were a lot bigger than I had ever admitted to, I realized that I didn’t have everything inside of myself in order to succeed.
It gave me some relief and space letting other people help, but the big thing was just seeing just how things in my life changed. I launched a Kickstarter to help fund an EP and the outpour of support from others was astounding. I felt people genuinely believed in me and cared about what I was doing. There was a huge energetic shift, and the more voices that were added made the project way more unique. Plus I realized how much joy there was in giving people the space to be themselves and be creative, and that’s something I want to continue to do in everything I do going forward.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I grew up playing music, I started playing guitar when I was a kid but didn’t start writing until I was in my teens. I got to college and put music way on the back burner while I focused on trying to figure out what I was doing with my life, and it wasn’t until a couple years after graduating that I realized that music was the only thing I really ever wanted to do. I moved back to western mass and found a creative and musical community here, but still had trouble settling back into my musical identity. I wrote every day, experimented a lot, played open mics and then played solo gigs, tried to find what niche I fit into and what my style was. Eventually I got to this standstill where I was like, I need some type of push to get me to where and what I needed. I launched a Kickstarter to record an EP, but I scrapped all the songs I wrote for it after I reached my goal. I just kept changing as I kept writing and wanted the EP to reflect who I was at the time. When I started playing with a band I found my way of writing really opened up and I could hear myself better, I could be louder and I felt stronger.
But those first few years of finding myself again sucked and I was so pissed at myself for not knowing who I was. You can spend so much time by yourself but not understand yourself and that’s like the most frustrating thing in the world. But things feel good now, and I’m happy where I’m going with my music and my life, and just being able to center my life around music in this way tfeels really right.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well I live in western mass where there’s a coffee shop on every corner, so that’s always something to do (currently sitting in Familiar’s with a little cappuccino while I write this). I live right by Catalpa which is good in the morning for a quick coffee, then maybe we might get a bagel or something sweet at Woodstar later on. I also live right off of a conservation area and I take a walk there almost every day, so I always like to take people there. It’s beautiful in every season, I’ve gone there and seen everything from fireflies to full moons to bears to the northern lights. It’s really become one of my favorite places to be since moving back here. Hopefully there’d be some good music going on too. There’s Marigold Theater in Easthampton or the Iron Horse which just reopened. Otherwise maybe there’s a little house show or something small at Bookends in Florence (a bookstore that doubles as a small performance space). In the summer there’s Summer on Strong, where Strong Street closes off to traffic and becomes an outdoor performance space which is always something nice to do.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My buddy and bandmate Aaron Noble has always believed in me and given me the space to grow as a musician (and person!). Even in times where I was feeling really dark, low, or insecure, he always showed such patience and empathy, and was so gracefully encouraging every day. He reached out about collaborating very early on in my project and we both kind of took a risk since we barely knew each other. But now we’ve developed such trust with each other and he’s given me the space to grow and experiment, and we now have a really unique creative energy together that’s come together in our band SALIBA.

Website: https://www.juliasabbaghmusic.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saliba_the_band/