Chicano indie-rock artist, Manuel Joseph Walker known as Foliage started creating music in his bedroom, and released his debut single at the age of 16 on SoundCloud – Now, racking up millions of streams on Spotify alone. Walker has defied the odds of becoming a talented musician in a city of crime, violence and lack of music scene. Starting at backyard shows to now playing at music venues throughout the US. Foliage talks to us about his journey on becoming the artist he is today.
I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Foliage in front of Phoenix’s Trunk Space music venue. After a walk around Downtown Phoenix, our conversation started with growing up in San Bernardino. Walker grew up in a high-crime city filled with lots of gang activity. He recalls skateboarding around the city with his brother and seeing police tape everywhere. While not feeling safe as a kid in his city, Walker found a niche to keep himself away from the negatives surrounding him
He started creating music at the age of 16. “I was a high school kid making music… a lot of people judged me because of my fashion sense. People would be like… oh… you’re doing music now? Like okay – weirdo. Lots of judgmental stuff. People were probably laughing at me behind my back but looking at it now… it is a whole different thing,” he explains as he looks out in the distance. He goes on to tell me about playing backyard shows at this age. “Everybody was around 16 to 18 years old and everybody liked getting drunk and high… doing things like that. I was younger at the time so I wasn’t really partaking in things like that but lots of backyard shows and crazy house parties – that cops would come and shut them down frequently,” he chuckles.
But, music was something that he never expected to be doing. Walker didn’t find himself to be very talented. “I had a couple phases… well not phases but like I’ll always be into these things… but dreams in life. When I was growing up as a kid – I wanted to be a wrestler because I fucking love WWE and shit and then I wanted to be a pro skater. I grew up skateboarding – I still skate sometimes… you know… I still love wrestling and skateboarding so much but music was one of those things – yeah.. I can’t play any music”, he says smiling still gazing out.
Walker recalls stealing his sister’s iPod and listening to songs like; The Smiths, The Cure, and Bloc Party. He gets nostalgic explaining how he would put his earphones on and would be filled with goosebumps of serotonin listening to his favorite songs. This was where his inspiration to create music started. At the age of 14, he received his sister’s guitar. He felt foreign to it and hard to learn. Despite the challenges he faced with learning, he never gave up and kept practicing until he mastered the guitar. He began creating music and realized that he was getting good and that what he was making sounded pretty legit. At the age of 16, Manuel released his first ever song, “The Things I Do For Love” on Soundcloud under the name Foliage.
10 years later, Foliage is still going strong and playing live shows throughout the US. He expresses his joy of being on the road, especially with friends and meeting fans of his work. “I am surprised by how many people came out to see Foliage,” he says. “We played a full show in LA and people were like… we drove all the way from Vegas to see you or we drove from Fresno to see you. Same thing in Seattle,” he continues. Walker goes on to say how great it feels to hear people in the audience sing back his lyrics. “It’s always a great feeling. Especially when you can hear people singing and it’s coming through monitors… feeling the energy of the room is just amazing.”
Late January, his new EP “Throwaways” was released – giving us a sneak peek of what to expect from his upcoming album. You can check out Foliage on all streaming platforms and follow him on Instagram @foliage_man to keep up with his upcoming work.
