Juliet Lloyd grew up in Bloomfield playing classical piano and jazz trumpet. But even though music has always been her passion, her path in life hasn’t been a straight line.
She studied economics at the University of Rochester in the early 2000s and wrote her first song while living on Lilac Drive before attending Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
Lloyd then launched a career as a singer-songwriter but pivoted when the industry took a toll.
“I did the full-time music thing. I released a couple albums when I was in Boston. I toured,” Lloyd said. “Then I was just feeling frustrated that as an independent artist, like I wasn’t getting the opportunities that I wanted to, and I wasn’t feeling like I was on the pathway to success.”
She considered her options. “In the back of my mind, I was like, I have this other degree. Can I see what the pathway looks like in a more traditional setting?”
Lloyd put her microphone down, got her master’s degree at Syracuse University and ended up working as a communications consultant for years. But songwriting beckoned.
On Dec. 1, Lloyd will return to Rochester to celebrate “Carnival,” her first new album since 2007. She will perform her newest tunes from the record — soulful, lightly twangy and pop-forward — at Lovin’ Cup.
Now living in Maryland outside of Washington, D.C., Lloyd marks the show as a bit of a homecoming, given that the venue is just 27 miles from where she grew up. It’s hardly the first time. She’s performed at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, including in 2023, and aims to stop through on tour about once a year if she can.
The support of a hometown gig, she said, is one of a kind — though it comes with its own worries.
“I have elementary and high school teachers that come out that I haven’t seen in forever,” she said. “Having a community of people who have known you and supported you since you were literally 8 years old is incredible, but also very nerve wracking. You’re in a room full of people who remember you as an awkward teenager.”
Lloyd has come a long way from those years, when she joined chorus, did musical theater and sang in the U of R’s female a cappella group, as well as in local party band Nik and the Nice Guys.
Eventually, she got her office job. But around the time of the pandemic, she paused to ponder her professional career up until that point. Music had not been part of it since she first walked away in 2009. She hadn’t written a single song since then.
But she’d lived. She’d weathered a divorce and other personal challenges.
“I finally felt like I had something to say again,” Lloyd said. “A lot of my early songs, I’ve kind of joked that they were what I thought a song should be. They weren’t super personal. They weren’t super vulnerable.”
“Carnival” is unmistakably personal, with the slick “Pretty” delving into self-image and reckoning with youthful experiences that look darker in the rearview. Its pseudo-sequel, “Call Your Wife,” was inspired by an anonymous text she received as a response to releasing “Pretty.”
“It basically just said, ‘This song that you released, I wanted to ask you about the guy in it, because I don’t think that you’re being fair to him,’” Lloyd said. “I sat on it for a day or two, and then I got really angry and thought, how dare you?”
“Carnival” spans moods and musical styles, much like Lloyd’s own non-traditional career trajectory has spanned several different eras. She said she hopes her own story will inspire others to pursue their own paths.
“I felt like I had to hide this gap on my resume of, ‘I did this music thing for a while. We’ll just not talk about it,’” she said. “What I’ve tried to do is integrate those two halves more intentionally this time around.”
Juliet Lloyd’s celebrates her “Carnival” album release show at Lovin’ Cup on December 1. Doors open at 4 p.m. and the music’s at 5. $10-$15. Ticket information here.
Patrick Hosken is an arts reporter for CITY. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Nov 1-30, 2024.
