Galli J’s Newest Single - Stuck on Why
From touring with Toto, to being a BGV for Jane’s Addiction, Jules’ voice and stage presence have proven why he belongs on stage with some of the greats. Being the front man for the band Levara, alongside Trev Lukather (Guitarist) and Josh Devine (Drummer), Jules Galli has graced the music scene with his rock star spirit and angelic falsetto all over Europe. Despite being with Levara, Jules has put out some amazing music as a solo artist under the name “Galli J”. Taking some time out of his busy schedule as a musician and family man, I was able to talk to Jules about his most recent single; One that holds a special place in his discography.
I know you’ve been really busy lately and you have a European tour coming up, right?
“Yeah, yeah, in November.”
Is this a solo tour or...
“This is with my rock band Levara, which I’m fronting with guitarist/producer, Trev Lukathur, and drummer Josh Devine. We’re going to tour 5 or 6 different countries in November.”
That’s sick! I remember your first time touring with the band; it was in 2019, correct?
“The summer tour. We were called ZFG at the time and we opened for Toto and we also opened for Foreigner; It was a crazy tour. In between those opening sets, we did club gigs on our own in different venues as well. I think we did 22 shows in 29 days.”
That’s insane, you guys didn’t get any rest, huh? (Laughs). So meeting Trev, how did that happen?
“Making music in LA, releasing songs. We had known of each other from going through different jams, like the Viper Room jams and stuff like that. But he wanted to build a band and then he found one of the videos of me recording one of my songs in the upper rock register type of thing and he reached out. He was like, ‘Hey, would you like to write a song and see where it goes?’. And that’s how it started”
What was that song? Do you remember it?
“The song’s called ‘My Everything’. We never released it, but we did play it live though. We didn’t release a lot of ZFG because we found a certain sound with a song we wrote on the same tour that we got our record deal from. Then they were like, ‘can you write more songs like this?’ and we said yeah. Then our ZFG catalog had shifted and so did our sound. So that first song never made it on the 1st album.”
With all the live performances, you aren’t a stranger to touring! I found out you toured with Jane’s Addiction?
“Yeah, it wasn’t as much of a tour as a festival show, a festival gig. It was supposed to be more, but eventually they changed their minds in thinking, realizing they didn’t need a background vocalist, you know, as we did. My job in Jane’s Addiction was to essentially support Perry Ferrell, the lead vocalist, live vocals. It had been awhile since they did live shows together and thought he might need some help. But he really didn’t, he was on point. It was a great experience, especially the rehearsals.”
It definitely sounds like an amazing experience. But I do want to get more into your music! Not necessarily Levara’s, but Galli J’s. If you could, how would you describe your music in a few words?
“It’s hard because I’m very eclectic and I like to do different things and I have tried different things. The easiest way for me to answer that question is to think about how I present myself live. ... How can, you know, if a stranger walks in that room and see this band playing, which songs are gonna win them over? Right now I feel it’s the rock band, that funky shit with the rock attitude, that’s kind of like the heartbeat of Galli J right now. So, Funky Dance Rock”
So going more into your newest single, Stuck on Why, it seems like you have a story on how this song came about, one that you mentioned is nostalgic. I remember your Instagram post talking a bit about it and I wanted a bit more insight.
“It goes all the way back to high school and of literally learning how to speak and write English, because I’m from France. When I moved to Miami, I met one of my first American friends. We were in the same swimming team and he became my best friend and my first ever musical peer, collaborator, co-writer, and guitar player, Reece Hofmann. One day in Miami, because of my wedding gigs, we (Reece and I) make a point to meet, even if it’s late at night or whatever, and just hang out like we used to. So, he had prepared a beat because he’s always creative and making songs for his own pleasure. He had created a special beat that very night while waiting for me to finish work. He played it to me and I literally put my phone down and started singing. We actually have a video of that. The whole melody, the whole song comes down, just like literally felt like a download. Verse, chorus, bridge, everything; we’re like, holy shit, that’s a song man. That’s a song. But no lyrics, you know how it goes. Like, you just sing at the top of your head and sometimes you got words, but most of the time you don’t, you have gibberish. I wrote [that] on my phone because it felt like that, nostalgia.
Do you remember how the writing process went?
“I wrote down like, okay, Reece’s house, nostalgia and kept it like that for a little bit. I went back home and figured I’d finish writing and put a story to that, you know, put some lyrics. I really wanted to sing it because I love that melody, it’s so hook-y. It had 3 chords, you know, Reece gave me the chords so I could play it at home. Instead of writing about a great nostalgic feeling about being in your best friend’s childhood home, which is what it was like for me, I wrote it from a romantic perspective. I wrote it about the energy being in my best friend’s house, with whom I’d been writing songs with since I was 16 years old. It wasn’t like a nostalgia of like, a negative way or of regretting something. It was like the feeling of looking back on your summer fling or you met this girl and it didn’t work out. Not because it was bad, just that that’s the way it is. You can look back on those days and be like, that was great ... I can immerse myself in the way it felt to be back there. That was the concept that we chose.”
Ahh, and you finished it everything when you got back here (in Los Angeles)?
“Yeah, we produced it here in LA. My manager, Jonathan Doss, connected me to this incredible family of creatives, the Gittens family. Will Gittens is an incredible songwriter and artist and his brother, Sterling Gittens, is a producer, a really great producer. They have an entertainment company (with their sister, Nikki) and move together as a unit. I’m very drawn to that as a family man and God believer, and that’s exactly who they are. That night that we got together and met for the first time, we talk and they’re like, what are you working on? I was like, I just finished writing a new song, literally finished the lyrics a couple days before. ... It was like, let’s see what we could do together. I’m showing them a song that I wrote with the first person that I’ve ever wrote songs with. It had this full circle moment that really just puts so much weight, so much presence into why that song is important to me. And they killed it. They really just got it, really quickly. Will is well versed and successful in the R&B world as a songwriter and Sterling as a producer too. We did the song, like the production was done in one session and then the next time we met was vocals and Willmproduced my vocals, which was amazing because he’s such a freaking boss.”
This song was a “meant to be”. I think there were a lot of “meant to be’s” in this whole process because of how everything seemed to line up. So it sounds like this songs going to have a special place in maybe an upcoming EP?...
“Well, what I can say is that Levara is about to go on an album cycle and a huge tour for the next year. So it’s going to be Levara year 2027. This song might very well be the tail end of Galli J, this era of Galli J. Meaning it might be the last single that I release for a little while. As I go into Levara and the rock band adventure for the album, but when we come back, it’ll be time to do solo stuff. Yeah, it’ll most likely be more than an EP and might be my debut album. Which by then, after another year-ish of development and writing and recording and producing; I’ll be able to answer your question a lot more clearer and of what my music is supposed to be like. ... But yeah, Stuck on Why serves as a marker, like a checkpoint in my career as an artist. The fact that it might be the last single for awhile is great because I want this song to have a life of it’s own and who knows, the best has yet to come. We’ll see.
Going forward, is there anything we can expect or look forward to for Galli J?
“So the next show will be on September 2nd , which is a birthday show, I’m a Virgo. It’s Virgo season and it’s gonna be at a place called ‘Hello Stranger’ in Little Tokyo. It’s with my friend Alan Savori, who’s an incredible artist as well, we are doing a joint birthday event together. It’s going to be 4 different acts and it’s going to be great. It’s going to be free for people to come through. I will also have another Galli J single that’s in collaboration with the EDM world with my really good friend, Lucas Gesualdi from Brazil. He got us this incredible collaboration with a very popular DJ called JØRD. It’s coming out September 16th. It’s very Galli J, very funky, falsetto, it’s like a modern ‘Don’t Stop til You Get Enough’ like funk. Then Levara has our tour in November, November 11 thin Paris. November is going to be crazy crazy."
Written and photographed by Richardesque