Written by Taylor Memoli
This interview series is a summer-long series spotlighting the bands performing at Asbury Jams every Thursday at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Produced by ElmThree – Asbury Jams brings rising local, regional and national touring bands from the jam scene to the City that Bruce Built.
When Six Foot Blonde’s lead singer Julia Rusyniak talks about her band, she can’t help but smile. Whether she’s describing the band’s early days as a cover act in Bloomington, Indiana, or reflecting on the release of their debut album, Ask Me How I Am, her love for her job and her band is obvious.
Six Foot Blonde has come a long way from playing in the college music scene. The once-eight-piece band now thrives as a six-member group, featuring Julia on lead vocals, Elliott Obermaier on guitar, Brian Healey on drums, Zach Patrick on guitar, Dom Heyob on bass/vocals, and John Alex Rusyniak on keys. Mixing indie, alternative, and pop, the band aims to lift people up, not just with their sound, but with the message and heart behind everything.
I was able to talk with Julia about her music, the family aspect of her band, current and upcoming projects, Six Foot Blonde’s recent performance at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, NJ, and why playing live never gets old.
Can you introduce yourself and your role in the band for the readers?
Yes, I am Julia. I am the singer and the frontwoman for Six Foot Blonde. I do a lot of the writing for the lyrics and the melody of our original music.
So, how would you describe your sound to someone who hasn’t heard your music before?
That’s a good question because I think every member would describe it differently, because we all come from different backgrounds. I would say, at first glance, we write pop music but with a little bit of a fun, kind of band appeal. So we have a lot of influence from alternative ’90s music and also from,, soul, and from classic pop radio. It’s pop music with influences from everywhere.
So, Six Foot Blonde, what made you think, ‘This is the name of the band.’ What made you really want to name the band this title?
It was sort of serendipitous how it came to be. At the time, we were an eight-piece band in Bloomington, Indiana.
I was on stage and performed with another very tall, incredibly majestic woman named Emma Spartz, who was just so incredible. We started doing covers, and the two of us both had a lot of stage fright. We were really nervous, and I think being together helped us embrace our confidence a little bit more with having each other to lean on. She’s like 6’1, and so having her wear her tallest platforms and have to stand next to her made me feel also like that.
The name felt very fitting because it was this representation of embracing exactly who you are, standing as tall as you can, and just dancing on stage, feeling confident and letting go of any sort of reservations you might have. I love the name. It is obviously very different now because the band is no longer an eight-piece and a cover band; we now write original music, and there are six of us. It’s kind of just like every time I hear it, it’s a little reminder of where we came from. It was just a magical beginning, and I feel very lucky.
I have interviewed multiple bands that consist of sibling acts, and I read that your brother [John Alex] is in the band, so I was wondering how it feels performing with your sibling?
First of all, doing it is just the most incredible experience ever, and I don’t think there is any way to explain the connection that John Alex and I have when it comes to music. Sometimes, I have a hard time being concise, and he’s a very concise individual, so a lot of the time, he knows exactly what I’m thinking. In a writing space, we will have the same ideas hit at the same time. It’s like that little telepathy, so I think having that person there to advocate for you is always such a privilege in a music space. Also, it’s awesome to have family around, especially when you are on the road. It can get a little lonely, and so having a piece of family with you is very special; he is my best friend. We grew up always going to music together. It’s nice to just have my partner-in-crime doing music with me.
Why do you believe so many artists decide to perform with their siblings?
I think for the many reasons I just listed, having that comfort and that unspoken, almost second language that you both speak. I think, too, there is a lot of forgiveness when it comes to siblings. Having forgiveness and unconditional love is something that is really valued in a writing space when it can get a little— not hostile, but when there are a lot of ideas getting thrown around that are very personal to everybody, it’s so important to go in with this understanding of not taking anything personally. Having a sibling in that space is always having someone who is going to advocate for you, but also be someone who is going to love unconditionally, and you are going to love unconditionally, regardless of how many times you guys want to, you know, kill each other. So yeah, I think that unconditional love and forgiveness are such a big part of sibling acts. There’s just this special bond you get when you are performing with your sibling on stage.
Your debut album [Ask Me How I Am] came out in 2024, and I was wondering how this album has changed, maybe the band, or you personally as an artist?
The album has been awesome. It has been really great to perform a whole album’s worth of material that we feel so confident in playing live, as well as having more material for us if we are playing an hour and a half set or an hour and fifteen minutes set. Beforehand, we only had like five songs out, and we had to throw in songs people didn’t know. So now, being able to have a set full of songs that people know in the audience and come prepared to a concert and know the songs, people can sing along. It’s really awesome. It’s so fantastic having that connection with a fan base as well as being able to tell more of a story has changed me so much.
I feel like every day I’m learning how to write more and more, and trying to get better and improve myself. I think having an album out is understanding, in many ways, that life is always changing, and I’m always going to be improving. I’m lucky that I have a piece out now, but it’s so exciting to be able to have something to look forward to next. Now that we have an album out, I realized I loved doing that, and I want to do it more, and I want to put more music out. It’s so encouraging to put more and more music out. It’s been really incredible, and it’s been incredibly fun to have so much out for people. I love having a story out.
Are you working on anything new right now? Possible upcoming album?
We are! I can’t say too much right now, but I will say we have been working on stuff and we are excited about it. The last album we went into it not necessarily knowing it was going to be an album, and this time we are going into it extremely intentionally. I think it is going to yield a result we are really confident in. That’s all I’ll say for now, but yes, new music is hopefully coming out.
So, for new music, what is moving you to write lyrics this time around? Anything specific in your life or anything in the band’s life that is coming to the surface with these new songs?
We’re moving. So I guess for one, there is a lot of music about a different chapter of our lives. We are moving to Chicago, or [just have]moved to Chicago. It’s fresh, but that’s a big part and a big message in the album. Also, with the upcoming music, we just want it to be positive. I think the world just needs some positivity right now. [We want to make something] that can bring together a community. That’s our goal with our music; we want to create positivity and a place for people to escape reality. That’s our goal right now, making positive music. Ask Me How I Am is positive, but it also has its down moments, and I don’t think we will have as many as those in this potential next project.
You recently played at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, NJ, and I was just wondering how the show was, and have you ever played in Asbury Park before?
First of all, it was awesome playing at the Wonder Bar, and yes, we have played in Asbury Park before. We played once before at the Low Dive, which is on the boardwalk. It was so incredible and so fun. I grew up going to the shore, so I had been to the Wonder Bar a couple of times before, so it was cool to be able to perform somewhere that I had stood in the audience there, and also just be in a place that feels like a second home to me. So yes, it was fantastic, it was a great experience, and we hope to come back.
So what draws you to the stage to perform? Why do you choose to perform because I know some artists are just studio bands.
I think the human connection is the number one reason. I love to perform, and also, I think I can speak for them– the band loves to perform. It’s just connecting with people and seeing new faces and just seeing how our music is affecting people. I love seeing people sing along to different songs and seeing them sing passionately or almost like they have their own story to tell through the lyrics. That’s just so special to me, and no matter how exhausting I am or sleep deprived, whatever it is on the road, that keeps me going every single show. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. I just feel very lucky, fortunate, and privileged to be able to get on a stage and be able-bodied and be able to perform, and also to be able to be in a position where I can put my music out and have people listen to it, love it, and find their own stories within them. I think I have the coolest job ever.
Do you have any pre-show rituals that you do?
Personally, I sit at the desk and do my makeup. Sometimes it’s the floor, sometimes it’s in the van, but I like to put my headphones in and do my makeup. I like to think it’s very meditative. I do my warmups, and I sometimes drink some tea and some water. Then, as a band, we do it, I guess, depending on the “tour” we are on, but for the Ask Me How I Am tour, we would get in a circle, and we would put our hands, and I’ll just go, “How are we?” Then everyone goes around and says how they are feeling because we thought it was kind of cheeky with the album being called Ask Me How I Am. Then we have an interlude on the album called “Let’s go play mermaids,” so I count to four and then—this is so cheesy, I love that I’m telling you this—we put our hands in the middle and say, “Let’s go play mermaids!” It’s like a little silly thing we do, but it’s an ode to the album. I think it’s a tradition that will keep up, but alter as new music comes out and new adventures are made.
If you weren’t doing music, what do you think you would be doing? Or is that not even a possibility in your life?
That’s a good question. There are a lot of things I’m passionate about outside of music. I originally went into college to study medicine, and once I joined a band, it became a lot to study medicine at the same time so I switched to art and art history. I fell in love with art history, specifically ancient art history. I think maybe if I weren’t doing something in medicine I would probably be doing something in archaeology and antiquity, something with ancient art. I adore it, I studied abroad in Greece and we studied ancient art there and it was magical and incredible, so one of those two paths, but I’m pretty happy and lucky that music is the path that ended up being the one for me.
Do you think your love for art comes through in your music or performing, or even your look?
For sure. I mean, all of the art we have, for example, on our merch and our album covers, with some exceptions here and there, has all been my art, so it’s been really influential. It’s just coming from the same entity that the music comes from. I think with Ask Me How I Am, we went in with a very clear vision of how it was going to look aesthetically and the story that we wanted to tell through colors and through imagery, so it’s definitely influential and it plays a part in how I dress when I perform on stage. We are thinking about it all the time, like how art and our love for art and my love for art positively impact, and how we can use that all as a tool to kind of help the viewer and listener experience better.
So I had one more question. I just wanted to ask, what do you want your listeners to feel or take away after listening to your music?
With Ask Me How I Am, I think the number one takeaway is that I want whoever is listening to take away whatever they need to take away from it. It has so many emotions. The album is called Ask Me How I Am because it goes through a million answers. I really think there is a song for everybody there. We wanted to create a song you could dance to and a song you could scream to a song you could cry to because people cope and heal differently through music. I love to listen to positive music and dance along to feel better, but I definitely have days when it is raining, and I want to listen to sad music and just feel my feelings. I think whatever the listener wants to take away from it is enough. I just want to have somebody feel the way they need to or want to; that’s really all I could ask for. And obviously to have fun with it; I think music is meant to be enjoyed and to inspire creativity, so I just hope it inspires people.
