Written by Annie Barber
Photos by Simon Redstone (above) and Daniella Shella-Stevens (below)
Previously known as Creeping Charlie, the band spearheaded by Julia Eubanks is ready to embark on a new chapter under the name of ‘Agnes Uncaged’. Based in Minnesota, Agnes Uncaged is a band consisting of sisters Julia and Esmé Eubanks, and their friends Jack Malone and Cole Benson. On the run up to the group’s album release, Julia Eubanks sits down with Karma! to talk about the new project, politics, performing live, and poetry.
Within minutes of our call starting, she mentions the fact that being in the Minnesota city Minneapolis at the moment is tough. As we speak, ICE is leading what the US president Donald Trump is calling a crackdown on migration in the blue state. However, the force’s actions constitute an assault on the people of Minnesota’s rights and just days after we talk, officers shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti, who was attempting to peacefully intervene when agents were abducting his neighbours. Despite this chaos unfolding outside her home, Eubanks is calm and well spoken. As our conversation progresses, it becomes more and more clear that she has a deep sense of empathy that informs both her personal and work lives.
Eubanks reveals that one of the reasons for changing the group’s name was that some people had misinterpreted ‘Creeping Charlie’ to be similar to a ‘peeping tom’ — unsurprisingly, she didn’t want the connotations that come alongside the phrase to be attached to the band. She says that it is actually the name of an invasive plant species that she describes as “kind of pretty, it’s like ground ivy and it has purple flowers and it’s essentially impossible to kill and it comes back all the time and people hate it, so I loved the name for that reason”. So where did the new name come from? She explains that changing the band’s name “unclogged this artery of being like ‘I’m just gonna set this all free and drive forward with a lot less fear.’” She adds that, while her middle name and her great-grandma’s name are both Agnes, that is not the only reason why she picked it. When hiking through the French Alps, Eubanks got a vision of a rabbit and the mantra ‘Agnes’ got stuck in her head. In order to set it free, she came up with ‘Agnes Uncaged’, immortalising the folkloric, supernatural moment.
The band’s first project under the new name is an album called ‘Cyanotype’, released earlier this week. Originally scheduled for release on the 23rd of January, the band decided to move the drop date due to the strike organised in Minnesota to protest ICE’s operations. The album is gritty, layered, and charged with emotion. Eubanks says that each song has its own sound but the influences remain the same across all of the tracks.
90s Pacific Northwest grunge provided the main source of inspiration for the album, but Eubanks also credits Mazzy Star, Built to Spill, Smashing Pumpkins, and fellow Minneapolis dweller Samia as influences. She explains the album as “a blue impression of white-hot moments”, which is also a reference to its name, taken from the photography printing process which uses an iron solution and UV light to create prints that are cyan blue and white.
The third track on the album, ‘Philosophy Test’, is a sort of tongue-in-cheek take on a multiple choice exam that “explores the dangers of accepting objective truths shaped by men thousands of years ago”. It recounts Eubanks’ experience of failing a test given to her by a misogynistic teacher. She describes it as a warning not to accept “what is fed to us as objective truths”. Eubanks’ background of studying diplomacy and philosophy have a clear influence on her work. She views art and politics as fundamentally intertwined, saying “music, and art as a whole, are so integral in progress… there is so much to be said about soft power and how important and underrated even just being cool is for promoting a social agenda. The US previously remained so relevant in the international political landscape because we have such huge entertainment exports”.
Eubanks has been a longtime fan of poet Sylvia Plath, whose work has been an endless source of inspiration to her songwriting. On the first listen of the album, I notice the line “Chewing the skin on the tips of my fingers” in ‘Garbage Truck’, that reminds me of the first lines of Plath’s ‘Cut’. When I mention it to her in our interview she says that it is not a connection that she had made before but that she often thinks about how “if you write from the heart, you see these similar themes coming through; we’re both trying to express some sort of anxiety and discontent”. On a more specific note, Eubanks reveals that the song ‘Sinkhole’ references Plath’s fig tree analogy in its chorus and ‘Charlie’ almost directly lifts “I think I made you up inside my head” from ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’. It is clear that Plath’s poetry has had a profound impact on Eubanks’ writing, even to the point of it bleeding into her work subconsciously.
The lyrics to the album’s fifth song, ‘Charlie’, reference its other tracks, a creative decision that Eubanks says she had wanted to act on for a while: “I knew I wanted to have something that felt referential to the other songs because I love when projects do that so you can kind of tell that it’s cohesive in some way and it’s also [about] this feeling of falling and maybe blaming yourself, so I pulled those various aspects from other songs into ‘Charlie’.” She reveals that the version on the album was the second take that they did, giving it a very raw feeling.
So far, the tracks ‘Capricorn’, ‘Rabbit’, and ‘Philosophy Test’ all have music videos, each of which have their own, tailored look. Eubanks says that this was a conscious decision, as the group had clear visions for each of the songs. Turning specifically to the video for ‘Philosophy Test’, directed by Elijah Valter, Eubanks says that he came to them with an idea, in which the two sisters are “happy in this abstract world and objective truth is this evil camera man, so when [that] becomes clear, you’re being chased.” The video for ‘Rabbit’, which was directed by her sister’s roommate, Leila Boisvert, ended up getting featured in the Chicago International Film Festival, which is quite the achievement. Eubanks reveals that she also wants to do a video for ‘Charlie’ featuring collages but that it all depends on whether she can get round to it — watch this space!
Out of all of the tracks on the album, Eubanks is most excited for people to hear ‘Picture Diver’: “I love that song so much. It’s all about nostalgia and time being what you make it.” She cites her favourite line from the track as “Time is shaped like water” because she thinks that time “takes the shape of whatever it’s in and the memories and the future”. With nostalgia appearing as a key thread in current cultural moments, this song is sure to stand out to listeners.
Finally, we turn to the two staple Karma! Questions. Fittingly, Eubanks says that if she or her art were a colour, she would pick blue, like the cyanotype prints that were a key inspiration behind the album. She uncovers the reason behind calling the album ‘Cyanotype’, saying that “everything is through your own filter and a lot of [the songs] are through a slightly sad filter and [about] growing up and having this blue film over these stories, memories, and sounds, so ‘Cyanotype’ made a lot of sense because it’s like the impression of what’s left in the blue.” As for her song recommendation, she suggests that Karma! readers listen to her own band’s track ‘Paperdoll’, because it is already proving to be a fan favourite.
Eubanks is resilient and very talented — two qualities that are sure to bolster her budding career as a musician and take Agnes Uncaged to the next level. ‘Cyanotype’ is out now and well worth a listen. Connect with the band on social media to keep up to date with them and get a ticket to their album release show at 7th Street Entry on January the 31st to celebrate with them.
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