Julia Cumming's My Life —the opening song and first single from her debut solo LP, Julia— is quite the introduction.

It finds the 30-year-old musician, longtime member of the rock outfit Sunflower Bean, trying on the wardrobe of classic '70s singer-songwriter albums, delivering lyrics that hit back at a world that'll never be happy with you.

"When I wrote My Life, it gave me the confidence and the idea that I was ready for a different chapter, and a different sound, that had always been gestating," says Cumming.

The song came out of a decade and four albums where Sunflower Bean tried to navigate the music business, with Cumming feeling that whatever she did was never enough.

"I've had this experience in music and in fashion that is a heightened version of something that we all feel," Cumming offers. "I think everyone, in some sense, feels that they're not enough. Or, at least in a lot of ways, that they'll never make everybody happy."

In conversation with The International Pop Underground's Anthony Carew, Cumming talks about setting out on her solo career, the desire to be liked, what it means to live as an artist, and working with the sensory qualities of music.

Feature image: Ebru Yildiz