New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Following a seven-year hiatus from the music business, singer/songwriter
Julie Neumark is back, this time as half of Whiskey Flower, a new Americana-pop duo she formed with bass guitar player, Holly Lucille. Their debut EP, "Righteous Indignation," features four original songs and one cover, exploring a variety of themes including racism, politics, grief, and self-confidence.
The first single to be released from the EP, "Birth Rite," was inspired by the 2020 beating death of
George Floyd by white police officers in Minneapolis. Though the song is musically up tempo, the lyrics are painfully honest and self-reflective: "Time to wake up / And open my eyes / To the millions of lives not like mine / When I grew up / Thought I was color blind / But I was just blinded by my birth right."
"What happened to
George Floyd awakened me to the fact that systemic racism is very much alive today," Neumark said. "It's not a matter of being woke or politically correct, but simply recognizing that I still have a lot to learn about how people of color are viewed and mistreated, all too often. The path to real change begins with conversation."
Neumark acknowledges that having a rational conversation can be difficult when people on opposing sides of any issue are unwilling to compromise. Such is the subject of the EP's title track.
"The song 'Righteous Indignation' is a commentary on the political tribalism and division that began to surface during Trump's presidency and has continued to proliferate," Neumark said. "It is not about a particular issue, but the massive divide between the Right and the Left; how both sides are so stuck in their own opinions that they refuse to consider any other point of view."
The remaining songs on the EP are: "Yellow Bellied Fear" (about facing personal fears), "Version Of Truth" (dealing with loss), and "Spark," originally performed by The Wild Colonials, and the only cover song on the EP, chosen in remembrance of the loss of a loved one and her connection to The Wild Colonials.
Many fans undoubtedly will remember Neumark for her earlier work, primarily as a solo recording artist, songwriter, and actress. Relocating to Los Angeles after college, the Cincinnati native worked as an actress, landing guest-starring roles on the Lifetime series "Oh, Baby" and the hit CW series "Gilmore Girls," among other projects. It was during this period that Neumark, already an accomplished vocalist, began taking guitar lessons, after convincing a casting director that she could play the instrument well enough for a certain role.
With her newly discovered skill as a guitarist, Neumark began writing songs and performing around LA. Her first album, the independently produced "Dimestore Halo," was released through Hyena Records and initially gained traction in
Europe in 2008, leading to two tours as the supporting act for chart topper
Beth Hart ("LA Song") in 2009. Neumark later signed with Lonesome Day Records, which released "Dimestore Halo" in the U.S. in 2010. One of the album's tracks, "Uncharted Waters," was included in the soundtrack of the motion picture "Steam," starring Ruby Dee and Ally Sheedy.
Neumark's subsequent musical projects included the EP "
No More" (2010) and the album "Giving Trees" (2015). Neumark met Holly Lucille in 2006 and they married in 2008. In addition to being a musician, Lucille is a doctor and media personality, who has been interviewed on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Dr. Oz, The Doctors, Lifetime, and the Discovery Health Channel. In 2007, she was listed in Time magazine's "Alt List" as one of the "Top 100 Most Influential People." In 2012, she launched her own talk show, "Myth-Defying with Dr. Holly" on the Z Living network. She is currently the host of the "Mindful Medicine" podcast produced by RadioMD.
Neumark took a break from recording in 2015, to refocus her efforts in marketing. In 2018, she cofounded a marketing consulting firm called Media & Marketing Minds, of which she remains the chief operating officer.
"I had a painful end to my early career in music," Neumark said. "Once I got some distance from the business side of it all, I finally began to experience joy in making music again. I vowed to keep music as a hobby and never go back into the business again, but then Covid happened. A friend asked if Holly and I would perform at a socially distanced yard party."
"It was so much fun that we said to each other, 'Why don't we start a band?,' and that's how Whiskey Flower was formed," recalled Lucille. It is the most organic band that either of us has ever been part of. We write songs that we believe in, not what record executives are pressuring us to do."
