Indie folk-rock singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin might be in her Melbourne kitchen but her heart is still in Vegas.

“I talk about Vegas to lots of people. I’m like a Vegas evangelist or something,” the 33-year-old says over the phone.

During her first backpacking trip to America, Jacklin, then 22, flew out to Los Angeles in search of a little adventure. “Being an Australian who’d never been to America before, we know certain cities from the movies and from pop culture and whatnot. Las Vegas, I had heard of it. So I got the Greyhound out of Vegas, and I had one of the best days of my whole life,” she says.

She’s returned several times since, but never as a musician—until now. As part of her Vegas Residency series, Jacklin will perform three intimate nights at Downtown’s Beverly Theater, examining eras of her womanhood, failed relationships and personal growth through the lens of her last three albums. In March, we caught up with Jacklin to discuss her extended stay.

What was your Vegas itinerary when you first came here?

It was my first couple of days in America, so I was just amazed by everything. My introduction was walking down Fremont Street, then I walked all the way to Circus Circus. I only stayed there because it was the one place I recognized from Fear and Loathing [in Las Vegas]. I had a camera, and I just wandered the Strip for hours and hours.I didn’t drink. I didn’t gamble. I was soaking it all in. I met so many interesting people. I went to a magic show. I went back recently [because] I needed to pick a place to stay when I had a three-week break on tour. It’s probably my favorite place in America.

If you had to pick a Las Vegas residency performer to hop on stage with, who would it be?

Two of my biggest heroes are Celine Dion and Britney Spears. In some world I would love to have gotten up there with Celine Dion, but vocally, you don’t want to go up against Celine. I thought it’d be funny to do an indie-rock residency because usually residencies are for people slightly more famous than me. I thought why not? I can book a small venue and I can live out my childhood dreams. I have big dreams but I know that I’m never going to be big Vegas residency famous, and I’m very at peace with that.

On your Instagram, you mentioned you’re going to approach this residency from a sense of play. What does that mean?

I really enjoy traveling and the challenge of touring, but I think creatively, it’s not super stimulating, because you’re just playing every single night, and you’re so tired in between shows. It takes a lot of energy to say, why don’t we try something new tonight? The creative period is never very conducive with the touring period. When I was playing in Sydney, where I grew up, you’re playing once a week, and so you have time to play a show, then sit and think about, what do I want to do differently next week?

Playing at one place multiple nights, it means some people can buy tickets to multiple shows and they are more likely to hear more songs, and it makes me feel a little bit more free. I can introduce a couple of new songs each night ... and maybe even incorporate the city that I’m in into the set. I like writing about the place you’re in. It makes it feel like the set can feel unique each night instead of a bit of a factory show.

Touring sounds exhausting. I commend you for settling down in a city.

At this stage in my career as well, I have to start making decisions that help me to really enjoy this job. For a long time, you’ve been operating in this way, where I’m here to please others. It feels noble and good for a while, but ultimately, if you’re not nurturing yourself, and you’re not doing things that make you feel creatively satisfied, it just makes you want to leave the business. I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and I need to do something different for myself, so I can stay in the game.

It reminds me of that lyric in “Head Alone,” where you say “I had your back more than I had mine.” It makes you think, how am I taking care of myself?

Exactly. It’s something that can feed into every part of your life and totally in your career to the point where it can feel like you want to write music that other people are going to like, which usually means your music gets worse. You’re trying to please this mass group that at the end of the day trusts you, that’s why they’re listening to your music. They want to hear what you like.

You’ve mentioned before you struggle with stage fright. Is playing smaller rooms during these residencies exposure therapy at this point?

The stage fright for me comes from the venues getting bigger. The crowds are getting bigger, but you feel the same. The show you have to play to big crowds is different to the show you have to play to small crowds. Where I get stage fright quite badly is when I’m playing to what feels like a heaving mass. I don’t get as nervous when I’m playing to people I can see. It doesn’t make me feel like I’m literally on a pedestal. I don’t have to be perfect because we’re in the same room. Yes, I’m on the stage and I’m performing but we’re all just human beings and I’m just communicating my life experience. It feels a lot less intense whereas what makes me scared is when I am just standing in front of a crowd I can’t see or feel the individual. It feels like you’re being watched by this blurry mass.

That’s a weird feeling.

Sometimes I love it, but it feels like a very different thing to what I started doing this for. It happened to me quite quickly so I didn’t really get heaps of time to adjust to it. I started to get panic attacks on stage, because I wasn’t prepared yet. You just have to turn into a performer. Nobody really helps you with that.

You played a really cool show in Melbourne this February to commemorate five years of your second album, Crushing. How was that?

That was really cool. It was in a cinema. There were only 75 seats, so it was really small. I realized that public speaking is a whole different ball game when I stood up there. How do you just stand without a guitar and talk to people? But it was cute. One of my best friends, Nick McKinley, who I’ve made most of my music videos with and he’s taken all my album cover photos … we got to sit on the stage and we watched the music videos. Watching back my own videos and myself, I felt for the first time I could watch stuff just as a viewer. I was far enough away from it that I wasn’t really looking at myself. I was able to appreciate the work.

Someone once commented on YouTube that Crushing was one of the best breakup albums of the 21st century. It’s interesting how sometimes an artist doesn’t realize what they’re making for other people until it’s out there being consumed by them.

I think that’s also the only way you can do it. If you’re not thinking about it much at the time. You just have to let it happen. I listen back to Crushing now and I just think, Wow, you did a good job. I made a lot of decisions I still agree with. It’s very hard to be yourself as an artist sometimes. I think that’s good because otherwise you’d just eat yourself alive.

What can we expect from this residency?

I’m gonna hopefully make a record at the end of September of this year so these residencies are me working on that. I don’t have too many expectations of what it’s going to be like. I’m going to be chatting. I’m going to be playing new stuff, old stuff. I want to play some covers. It’s gonna be a nice hour and a half of music and conversation from an Australian who is going through a change.

JULIA JACKLIN April 18 & 25, May 2, 7 p.m., $25+, Beverly Theater, thebeverlytheater.com.

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