Peter Hernandez is a Los Angeles-based musician, performer, and the visionary director of Practical Records. His alter ego, Julius Smack, is either an antique statue come to life, a faun in a business suit, or an alien from the future. This ‘avatar’ also gives voice and form to the challenges of identity and personal definition that many fellow travelers struggle with in the 21st century. Smack's music has been showcased in some of the world's most prestigious venues, including MOCA Geffen and The Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Stavanger Kunsthall in Norway, and Aunt Charlie's Lounge in San Francisco. His boundary-pushing performances blend dance, music, and theater and continue to captivate audiences globally.
Julius Smack's latest album Starlight envelops listeners in a futuristic dystopia where civilization has crumbled, and artists—resourceful and resilient—are among the last survivors. Smack's unique sonic vision intertwines personal history with speculative fiction, seamlessly blending influences from cyberpunk anime, Y2K dance music, and the ever-present pulse of modern technology. At its core, Starlight is a meditation on the intricate relationships between technology, creativity, and culture, creating a space where every moment, whether mundane or profound, becomes part of the artistic process. With DIY production and a deeply personal touch, Julius Smack crafts a narrative that feels intimate and expansive, channeling the essence of human vulnerability and the evolving power of artificial intelligence in a world that is at once precarious and full of possibility.
Just before Starlight’s release, we were lucky to talk to Julius Smack about the album, the role of assuming identities, how the mundane and the beautiful intermingle in Julius’s work, and how AI influences him—and us all.
An Alien From Another Time
Arina: How do you, as Peter Hernandez, view the divide between your personal identity and your artistic identity as Julius Smack? What role does the imagined world and history of the origins of Julius Smack created in Starlight play in allowing you to express aspects of yourself that might not align with your personal life?
Julius: I see Julius Smack as a platform for potential avatars. Over the years, he's taken many different forms. It all started about ten years ago as a statue. I would paint my face white, wear blonde locks under a white cap, and perform as a statue. The idea was that Julius Smack was a statue that had come to life, bridging antiquity with the present.
At other times, Julius Smack has taken on the persona of a faun. I was inspired by Nijinsky's Rite of Spring, thinking about a queer faun who's also a businessman. I would wear a suit during that period.
More recently, though, I'd say people perceive Julius Smack as an alien. People are picking up on the futuristic elements, and I think of him as an alien from the future—though by alien, I mean more in an expansive sense, not necessarily from another planet, but maybe from another time, someone who's time-traveling.
I'm also really into fantasy and sci-fi, so having a character like Julius Smack helps me explore those themes and project stories. There are so many more possibilities when I'm playing with a character instead of using my own name.
Arina: As someone with both queer and indigenous roots, do you see any tension between preserving cultural heritage and embracing queer identities that may not always fit into traditional frameworks or not? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the album track "Huya Ania" seems to be a great example of where these two worlds merge.
Julius: I think there's a tension that can exist between indigeneity and queerness. This has come up for me personally, especially since I started learning the language last year. It's called Yaqui, the language spoken by my father's side of the family. In the classes, I've met a lot of queer and non-binary people from the diaspora who come together in this digital space.
In these classes, traditional pronouns and ways of saying things are tied to specific identities. Sometimes, those identities are misunderstood by older generations, especially when they come from texts or traditions that don't always recognize or respect modern queer identities. So, there's a classic tension where older generations might not fully understand or acknowledge identities the way our generation does. But at the same time, there's a sense of community that I've been able to cultivate with some of these people—those who are very aware of queer culture and respectful of identities that aren't traditionally recognized.
It's been exciting because we're creating a kind of online lineage, piecing together our ancestry and learning the language together. And when necessary, we might eliminate pronouns or use alternative ones where appropriate.
When I think about "Huya Ania," it indeed connects to this blend of queerness and heritage for me. The song draws from my great-aunt and my grandma on my dad's side. There's something my great-aunt said to me that I've held onto. We were walking past a church in my hometown, and she said: "I will love you unconditionally." The other side of my family, who's Christian, condemned me when I came out as gay. She was pointing out the irony of a Christian person rejecting their family for their identity.
So when I sing "Huya Ania" in Yaqui, with the harmonizing voices that build as the song progresses, it's really about everything around us helping us. The song touches on the concept of Huya Ania, which means wilderness, but if pronounced differently, it can also mean tree help. It's a reminder of all the things around us that assist us—flowers, my dog, and even just the idea of God helping us. In Yaqui, there's a phrase, "God help you," but I think of it more broadly as a kind of pluralistic spirituality—whether it's a greater power or just the forces around us and all the support systems we have.
Arina: You've also mentioned drawing inspiration from everyday experiences, such as walking the dog and riding the train. How do these seemingly mundane moments influence your music and creative process?
Julius: I wanted to stop being so precious about what I considered inspiration or material for the music. The creative process can be challenging, and I wanted to give myself more grace in making this album. One of the exercises I gave myself was to understand that there's never a perfect time or way to create anything—and that everything could be a part of it.
I wanted to embrace both the beautiful and the mundane aspects of life, as well as the darker moments and let them be part of the material I worked with. That's why I referenced things like scrolling through TikTok on the toilet, walking my dog, or even him sitting on my lap. These everyday moments gave me a richer "data set" to interact with. Once I gave myself permission to include everything, I realized I could allow many different kinds of moments into the process. For example, I’d pull out my laptop while riding the train and tinker with a melody. Or when I was traveling, there was no "perfect time"—any moment could be a time to record my voice.
I learned through this process that the more I embraced being generative and the less precious I was about what was "appropriate" to work with or when the "right time" was, the more authentic the material felt. And when I went back to edit the work, it crystallized into these moments, like diamonds, that became the album. So, that's the role of the mundane. I see it like a haystack we're sifting through to find the needle or like a diamond in the rough—everything around us is the raw material, and I'm allowing all of it to be part of the process, then distilling it into its purest form.
An Appendage That Observes
Arina: The album weaves together influences from 2000s dance music, cyberpunk anime, and more. How did you blend these varied elements to create a cohesive sound? Were there any particular tools, effects, or techniques you leaned on to achieve the album's unique and cohesive sonic landscape?
Julius: Cohesiveness—thank you for mentioning that; it's something I've thought about a lot. When it comes to the anime samples and the Y2K music, these are all just things I've been paying attention to—things that were around me then and continue to be now. I have this Europop playlist I often listen to, with songs like "Feels So Good" by Sonique and "Happiness" by Alexis Jordan. I love that sound because I was an early teenager when that music came out, and it resonated with my young queer self. It was a time when I was falling in love with dance music.
I'm a very sentimental person, and I tend to hold on to those memories and aesthetics. Plus, that sound is having a comeback right now—people are playing it in clubs and it's showing up in popular media. For example, the album Brat by Charlie XCX draws from that era of music, and it felt like the right time to bring it into my music.
The song "Happiness" by Alexis Jordan, which samples Deadmau5's "Ibiza," became the backbone of the Starlight commercial. At the same time, I also incorporated samples from cyberpunk anime. I've always loved the aesthetic of cyborgs, AI, and robots, especially how anime uses these ideas to communicate both AI’s power and potential dangers.
I feel like that's something missing in popular culture today. AI is everywhere now, but we don't have a visual or aesthetic language to express its gravity or how to personify it.
In terms of the tools I used, Loopback was essential for recording from my computer. I also used YouTube download websites to pull videos off the internet and screen recording on my iPhone to capture sound. This album is the first one I've composed using Logic, whereas before, I made everything in GarageBand.
It's been a great change because Logic lets me control the pitch of my voice on a single note, which helped me pay much closer attention to details I might have missed before. GarageBand gets a lot of flack, but I think it's very powerful software. It's democratic because it's available on every Apple device, making it a great entry point for people, and you can do a lot with it. But I've learned that you can do even more with Logic.
Arina Korenyu: Your album delves into the intersection of humans and a fictional AI collaboration. How do you see AI influencing creative and labor economies in the near future?
Julius Smack: AI is already making an impact, with artists turning to it for generative features and agent-like capabilities, where we assist each other in new ways. I've used it to help with tasks like figuring out how to write a character or preparing for an interview. In a way, it's become an extension of Google for me.
However, my interest leans more toward science fiction than real-world science. I'm fascinated by the possibilities of AI and often find myself thinking about the darker outcomes it could produce—especially in areas like cybersecurity and international warfare.
For the album, I explored the idea of a future where AI has decimated civilization, and artists, being resourceful, are among the last survivors in this dystopian world. That's the direction AI took me in with this record.
Arina: With the inclusion of AI-generated content, such as the TikTok clips in your dataset, what role do you think generative AI plays in shaping the way we consume or interact with art?
Julius: When it comes to the TikTok clips, I've been thinking about how I consume them passively. Often, I watch them during little breaks—when I'm between tasks at work, between projects, or sometimes just passing time, like when I'm on the toilet.
It became interesting because something subconscious is happening while there’s conscious engagement. I started thinking about the fictional AI assistant from earlier—this appendage that observes and takes in the data of what you're doing. What if the TikTok clips I enjoyed casually became part of the information this AI assistant would consider important for the record?
Some of these clips felt significant. For example, there's one of a Ukrainian singer harmonizing with the sound of air sirens in the song "Huya Ania." Another one features a deepfake of Biden and Trump singing a romantic Mandarin duet. And, of course, there's the clip of Kamala Harris laughing. These were all recorded mostly this past summer when the election was very present and in the air.
That time was very much in line with the feeling of Starlight—an era filled with suspense, disbelief, possibility, and a sense of dread. And honestly, that feeling is still very much here right now.
A Futuristic Take on a Present Situation
Arina: In Starlight, the art is seen as a form of nourishment, yet it also produces toxins that must be expelled. Could you explain what this metaphor represents for you and how it reflects your view of art?
Julius: It's an extrapolation of our current relationship with social media. So many of my performance gigs and opportunities come from DMs and interactions, creating this constant force I must reckon with. I'm scrolling endlessly, looking for content and ways to make sense of the moment, but I also feel like it creates psychic and emotional toxins that I have to work through in my artwork.
There's a "serpent eating its tail" aspect to dealing with social media and devices today. When I say extrapolation, I mean imagining what this relationship might look like in the future—when artists, perhaps, lose touch with certain artistic forms taken over by AI. Just like we turn to AI to navigate our lives in the real world, we may also turn to AI to navigate our inner, artistic worlds.
In the world of Starlight, I imagined a conditional relationship with an AI assistant—one that only helps you when a shooting star appears. It's a physical, limited opportunity where you only have certain windows of time when you can use it. During those moments, you can use AI to generate new art, which helps expel those emotional toxins, but in turn, it also creates more toxins within you. So, this natural accumulation of toxins reflects how we experience technology today—particularly in terms of mental health, posture, and how it's affecting our bodies.
Ultimately, it's a metaphor—a futuristic take on a present situation. It's a fantastical, absurd idea, but one that speaks to how we interact with technology today.
Arina: Your live shows blend dance, music, theater, and video, with a painted toilet acting as an intermediary between ingestion and expulsion. What does the painted toilet represent for you in the context of your narrative, and how does it fit within the themes of Starlight?
Julius: The toilet is an interesting object because it's so every day—in almost every home, ideally in every business we enter. It's a private space but also a public one since it's shared. It's intimate, too, because it's where things you're ingesting are excreted. It's also where many people mindlessly scroll through their phones and doomscroll.
For all these reasons, it felt like a powerful place to project the world of Starlight onto. As we discussed, Starlight is about digestion, processing, and eliminating toxins, and the toilet is a perfect site for that. It feels like a visual and metaphorical device that works for this performance.
And honestly, I don't think I've ever seen an artist sitting on a toilet, singing, or playing a keyboard. So, I think I just wanted to see that.
Arina: Definitely! How are you going to, if I may ask, tour with it? I read that you plan the tour around the US, Asia, and Europe. Is it possible for you to transport it with you?
Julius: The toilet can't be transported easily because it weighs 200 pounds, and it's a vintage Kohler Lowboy that I found on Facebook Marketplace. But I think it will be really useful for the LA shows. The fact that it's painted also adds something exciting—it gives it a throne-like quality, elevating it to a new level. I just think it's a really interesting and striking image.
Arina: The album's artwork was created by Danny Espinoza. How do you think the visuals of the album complement the music?
Julius: Danny did an amazing job, and I'm so glad we worked together. He's a longtime collaborator who created the artwork for my 2015 album *Tomb Songs*. We've only met in person once, and even then, I didn't get to talk to him, but I saw him in the room before he left. Despite that, we've continued to interact online since then.
I absolutely love Danny's aesthetic. He's really into anime and has made artwork influenced by that. More recently, though, he's been creating these abstract, beautiful glyphs that remind me of an aesthetic used by tech companies like Figma, Canva, and Google in the 2010s. It's called Corporate Memphis—a colorful, optimistic, and highly compressed two-dimensional style.
What I love about Danny's work is that he seems to play with that style, but it has this patina, like an ancient fragment we're discovering much later. It was serendipitous because while I was composing the Starlight music, he posted artwork on his Instagram that fit perfectly with what I had in mind. I realized that the Starlight artwork should look like marketing material or the user interface of what the Starlight assistant would be.
So, I asked Danny to create something that felt like a wallpaper or screensaver for a device used as an AI assistant, drawing on that Corporate Memphis look. The result was incredible. I particularly love the blurry blob overlaid on the black-and-white background. Every time I look at the edges of that blur and the background, I see new colors and interesting gradients.
I honestly don't know how he did it, but I think the blur and how it interacts with the background is the soul of Starlight. It's exactly what Starlight feels like to me.
Arina: Coming back to your tour, are there any dates that you can share with us already?
Julius: I'll be performing on April 12th at Koen in Nakameguro, Tokyo. Then, on April 19th, I'll be at Organ’s Melody in Yuda Onsen, Yamaguchi, Japan. On April 27th, I'll be at Scribble, Los Angeles, CA, and on May 3rd, I'll be performing with Earthling in San Francisco, CA. There are also some shows coming up in June, but those details aren't finalized yet.
Arina: What's next for you after Starlight? Are there any new directions or projects you're excited to explore?
Julius: I feel like I'm just getting started with Starlight. There could even be a sequel to it. But I also want to make an album about love, which would be new for me because I've never made a love album before. I don't usually write love songs.
I want to explore love in all its forms—not just romantic love but also self-love, loving others, and the desire for love. I think love is a universal theme, and now, more than ever, it feels important. In times of darkness, the ability to love is something we really need.
Check out Julius Smack at juliussmack.neocities.org and follow him on Instagram and YouTube. You can purchase Starlight from Bandcamp or Qobuz and listen on your streaming platform of choice.
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