The paddocks stretch out beyond it, green and open under the late afternoon sun. The kind of quiet that used to scare me because it meant there was nothing to drown out my thoughts.
Now, it steadies me.
Mostly.
On good days, anyway.
Today's jury is still out.
The door opens behind me but I don't turn around because I already know who it is.
“What’s up?”
One of the perks of running your own label—you can pretend your time is your own, even when it absolutely isn't.
He drops his guitar case by the wall and leans against the console instead of heading for the booth. That alone tells me something's off. Julian usually moves with purpose. Watching him hesitate feels wrong. Like seeing someone fluent suddenly struggle for words.
"How are you holding up?" he asks, cutting straight through the bullshit.
Julian's never been that guy, never wasted time on pleasantries when honesty would serve better. I respect that about him.
“Yes and no,” I say finally. "Just trying to keep it together for my family right now. Alfie's funeral is in a few days."
His face softens immediately, and the shift happens—he sets aside whatever he came in here to work through and makes space for mine instead. An instinct I recognize because I do it too. This prioritizing other people's pain over your own.
"I'm so sorry, man. I know he meant a lot to you."
"Yeah." I nod once, the weight settling again. "He did. But it's been harder on Nick more than anyone. Alfie raised Nick when Nick's actual parents left.”
"Some guy," Julian says quietly.
"He was definitely one of the good ones."
"Rare breed."
Julian's mouth quirks slightly—not quite a smile, but an acknowledgment that humor and grief can coexist in the same breath.
"It's hard, losing someone who saw you when you were still figuring out how to stand," he says.
"You should put that in a song or something."
"Have you listened to my lyrics? I don't just talk shit."
I laugh.
He's twenty-one, still young enough that some people would dismiss him as a kid, but there's an oldness behind his eyes. A lived-in awareness that doesn't come from age so much as endurance. From surviving things that should've broken him and somehow coming out the other side with his heart still intact.
I found Julian two years ago at an open mic at Sonder. The second he opened his mouth and sang into that microphone, everything else in that room disappeared. Not just talent—though he had that in spades. It was honesty. The kind of raw, unfiltered truth you can't manufacture or teach, it’s just something you’re born with.
He sang like he had nothing left to lose and everything to say.
I signed him within a week.
Together we built The Row around his vision, his sound, his refusal to compromise what mattered for what would sell.
And somewhere in the years since, in the late-night studio sessions and the conversations that happened in the margins of work, he stopped being just an artist on my label and became something closer to family.
Not a replacement for Jake—no one could ever be that—but someone I could invest in, believe in, steer in the right direction. Though honestly, Julian rarely needed steering. He's one of those annoyingly well-adjusted people who survived hell and came out kinder for it instead of bitter.
