Parent Profile

Julie Dorion - Touring musician and mama of 3

I first saw Julie Doiron in a tiny club in Hamilton, Ontario, when I was about 17. Julie played bass in a band called Eric's Trip, who were from Moncton, New Brunswick, and was probably only 3 or 4 years older than me. All Eric's Trip songs are very personal and deal with the lives of the members in the band, mostly Julie and Rick White, the main songwriters for the group. So, we all knew about her first son Benjamin through her music back when he was born 14 ½ years ago. She also has two daughters, Charlotte, who is 12, and Rosie, who is 7.
 
Eric's Trip has since broken up and Julie Doiron is now a touring musician in her own right. She was in Victoria in June, and I was able to talk to her about her life as a touring working mama and a mother of three. I started by asking her if she is close to her family and if she had help with her own, new family when her children were born.
 
When they were living in Moncton, Julie and her husband John had lots of help from their own parents when Benjamin and Charlotte were little. They needed the help especially when Julie was on tour or Jon was in school, though she says that now that they are older, they are pretty easy to care for and can mostly take care of themselves. The couple lived in Montreal for part of their three kids' childhoods, but are now moving back to New Brunswick to be near parents again.
 
I remembered seeing Eric's Trip on one tour while Julie was pregnant with Ben. I asked her if there was any opposition to this idea when she told her family and doctor of her plans to keep travelling and working or if she had any problems. She said that everyone was supportive of her going ahead with her plans and since she was quite young (only 21) and very healthy there were no problems. She said that she never considered not touring while pregnant and that "it seemed pretty natural." With Ben, she stopped going on big tours when she was 5 months pregnant but continued local and regional shows, limiting her travel to a 2-hour drive. For her second pregnancy, she toured longer periods until she was 7 months, then shorter distance tours until 2 weeks before Charlotte was born.
 
She even continued to tour with her babies after their births. She was the only person she knew with a child for a long time, so she did not know any other way to continue life with a baby. With the first two babies, she toured more than she would have liked to. Then when Rosie was a baby, Julie told everyone that she was taking a full year off and was finally able to actually do so. With first two, even when she said that she wanted time off, people kept booking tours. She was still with Eric's Trip, so felt obliged to the other 3 members of the band and did not want to let anyone down. Julie says, "I wish I had known better because I was really young, so I didn't really know how to say no at the time. So for Rosie, I was finally 30 and really stood my ground even when people tried to convince me and book me for tours. It was the first time I spent a whole year with my kids and it was an absolutely amazing thing."
 
For Ben and Charlotte, Julie packed up the babies, then toddlers, then preschoolers on tour with her for quite a while, except when Ben was 6 months and Julie had to go on tour with Eric's Trip for a month; "That was hard." I asked how they felt about the change, and Julie said that since they were babies, "they probably didn't like it that much. But it was fine." They continued to go on tours until they were in school and definitely liked it when they were older.  For a while when they were in school, Julie did not tour much, but since she and her husband, an artist, split up, she is able to change her approach to touring. The two parents share their time with the three children, so they plan when tours and other events happen. She is now able to tour more than she used to.
 
Becoming a mother is always a huge change from a woman's life before having a baby, and I can only imagine that being a young new mom and having found a career so young in life would make the difference and changes even more extreme. I asked Julie about the influences that life as a mom and life as a musician had on each other. She said that being a mom changed how she wrote her music when she first became a parent. The most obvious way it changed things was that she started to write quiet songs because she was writing during naps and after bedtime. Now that the kids are older, she says she is able to "rock out" again. She also adds that being a parent has "definitely influenced me in a huge way; it's changed me for the better" and has influenced her in terms of being a musician.
 
Though she has 10 solo records out and has been making her own music since before pregnancy, her kids have only just started to listen to her music. The most recent record, I Can Wonder What You Did with your Day, is the first time that her kids took any real interest in it. She says that now that Ben has an iPod, he has all her songs on there and is checking them out. I asked her if she was worried about sharing her songs with her children when they have such personal lyrics. She says that, "I was really afraid of that for a long time, but this newest record is really good and I feel okay with them listening to this one, so, yeah it is weird. They seem to understand it, though, they're okay with it."
 
When i spoke to Julie, it was 9:00 pm and she was waiting to go on stage and begin her work day. I was getting ready to go to be, so I asked her how life as a touring musician can coexist with family life, especially the life of a new mom. She agreed that it was tricky and says, "I think it aged me, way sooner than I was supposed to be aged." So while she was on tour she would be up late and then when at home would go to bed when the kids went to bed. She learned to deal with it but says that it took a long time; "I was tired a lot of the time." She is now much more adapt to the back-and-forth nature of her life, but points out that "everyone was always really good to me and their dad would let me sleep in when I would first get home from a tour, and let me get back on schedule.'
 
I asked her if two such disparate lives created balance for her. She says, "I think it might. There have been times when I was wishing that I could just be a mom and had quit touring a long time ago, but there are other times when I think I realized how necessary it is to keep touring." But, as we all know, "you do what you have to do, and if this is my job, I learned how to just accept it." As all mothers do, she has feelings of guilt sometimes when she feels she should be home with her children, but remembers that this is how she is supporting her family and staying sane herself to be a good mom.
 
I asked Julie if she had any tricks for finding balance, but she said that you "just do it. You find a way to get things done. I found having kids made me get things done way more efficiently than before I had kids."
As for lessons that she has learned as a mom, she says that when relating to kids, "stay calm, have fun." And advice that she shares with other new moms is to "Try to have as much fun as you can with it, even though you feel like you are losing your mind at first. Try to remember to enjoy every moment of it. Stay cool and remember that all they want from you is to love them. Love them as much as you can and treat then with respect and try to enjoy it. When you are out walking with your kids and going to the park, it's a beautiful thing and try to enjoy it." This is a good reminder for all of us, and great advice from a seasoned mama.

To see and hear some of Julie's work, visit The Ampersand, YouTube and MySpace.

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