Julien Baker has been writing about God in public since she was 19. Prayer, doubt, addiction, grace and self-loathing — usually inside the same verse — and never once packaged as inspirational.
She also hasn’t made a record on her own in five years. That looks like it’s about to change.
This week Baker started leaving clues where people would find them.
She made a brand-new Instagram account, separate from the one she already has. It follows exactly three people. One is her. The other two are Calvin Lauber, who engineered her last record, and Matt Gilliam, who has played drums with her since they were kids in Memphis and was in her old band Forrister.
Gilliam is the interesting one. On 2021’s Little Oblivions, Baker played nearly everything herself — bass, drums, keys, banjo, mandolin. There are two videos on the account. Both show her walking into a practice space. Both cut off before she plays a note.
The newest post announces a last-minute set at the Blue Room inside Jack White’s Third Man Records in Nashville, with Kate Teague.
Five years is a long gap, though she hasn’t been idle. boygenius — Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus — released The Record in 2023, won three Grammys, played Saturday Night Live, and went on hiatus after a secret acoustic show in 2024.
Last April she and TORRES put out Send a Prayer My Way, a country album with both their names on it, then cut the tour short that May so Baker could focus on her health. She’s turned up on other people’s records since — Bridgers’ Lost Weekend, Turnstile’s covers collection. Last month she played a farm in Nantucket. In August she walked out during Dacus’ Outside Lands set to sing “Bullseye.”
Baker grew up in a Christian family in Memphis, left the Church, went back, and has been circling questions ever since.
“I never set out to be someone to speak about faith intentionally,” she told Denver’s Westword in 2016, when she was 20 with one record out. “I believe you can tell what is important to a person by what they talk about, and all my mental faculties are going to those questions about God. This is my experience, problems, concerns, how I feel — I’m never imposing a belief upon a listener.”
In the same conversation she named her reference points, and they’ll be familiar to anyone who spent their twenties in RELEVANT’s orbit: “I never wanted to make K-LOVE type music, but there are some artists that kind of toe the line, like Me Without You and Sufjan Stevens.”
She’s since said plainly which parts she kept.
“I don’t doubt God,” she told the New Statesman in 2021. “I am, in fact, certain that there’s something out there, even if it’s just God manifested in the dignity of other human beings.”
Facts Only
* Julien Baker has written about God publicly since age 19, covering prayer, doubt, addiction, grace, and self-loathing.
* Baker has not made a personal record in five years.
* She started a new Instagram account following herself, Calvin Lauber, and Matt Gilliam.
* Matt Gilliam played drums with Baker since childhood and was in her old band Forrister.
* The newest post announced a set at the Blue Room inside Jack White’s Third Man Records in Nashville with Kate Teague.
* Boygenius released *The Record* in 2023 and won three Grammys.
* Baker released *Send a Prayer My Way* in April with TORRES, which was cut short to focus on health.
* She has played on other artists' records, such as Bridgers’ *Lost Weekend* and Turnstile’s covers collection.
* Baker grew up in a Christian family in Memphis, left the Church, and returned.
* In 2016, Baker stated she never set out to speak about faith intentionally.
* She stated, "I don’t doubt God. I am, in fact, certain that there’s something out there, even if it’s just God manifested in the dignity of other human beings."
Executive Summary
Full Take
The narrative pivots on a shift from private, experiential wrestling with faith to public articulation through carefully curated associations and veiled content. The formation of a new platform linked to known figures—Lauber, Gilliam, and past musical collaborators—suggests a deliberate construction of an audience based on shared cultural and artistic orbits rather than direct theological instruction. The act of leaving "clues" signals an awareness that direct messaging is constrained, necessitating a cryptic approach to convey deeply personal truths about doubt and certainty within a public sphere.
The tension lies between Baker's stated conviction—certainty in the dignity of others—and the persistent theme of internal conflict (doubt, self-loathing). This framing suggests that the public presentation functions less as proselytization and more as an invitation to shared vulnerability regarding complex existential questions encountered during a life lived outside traditional religious structures. The established artistic success (Grammys, high-profile performances) provides a foundation of authority that bypasses overt doctrinal claims, allowing the discussion to reside in the realm of lived aesthetic experience rather than formal belief systems.
The implication is that cognitive sovereignty is negotiated not through definitive answers, but through the controlled release of ambiguous personal terrain. The pattern observed involves leveraging established cultural capital (music scene figures) as a bridge to address internal spiritual wrestling, suggesting an underlying mechanism where authenticity is proven by the shared context of experience rather than the certainty of doctrine.
Bridge Questions: What role does the shared musical history play in establishing credibility for these public disclosures? How do audiences interpret the juxtaposition of artistic achievement and spiritual ambiguity? What specific mechanisms are employed to maintain agency when presenting personal doubt as a source of certainty?
Sentinel — Human
The text reads as a human-written feature synthesizing biographical details, public statements, and career chronology surrounding an artist, displaying the nuanced style expected of in-depth journalism.