JubyPhonic

JubyPhonic (aka Juliet Simmons) is a YouTube artist as well as professional voice actress/ vocalist. Sometimes going by Juby, she is a fairly popular VOCALOID & anime YouTube singer who writes her own translyrics, among many other things. She began singing on her channel May 29th, 2012, summer before her last year of high school-- just for some summer fun. As luck would have it, six years later she's recorded now about 200 covers & reaches well over half a million subscribers worldwide. And JubyPhonic's YouTube channel will hit a quarter of a billion views this year. (May 2018). As Juby likes to say, her 3 yr old self filled with anime dreams would fall to her knees in shock at her life today! Summer fun became a passion & though it's a lot of really hard work 24/7, she has learned to embrace the insanity of it all. And though there have been several years of limited monthly releases and a hiatus of near a year, she has kept coming back! She's just very glad to have this opportunity to do something she loves--reaching hearts and sharing great music around the world. Juby also wanted to give more visibility to the many young 'bedroom composers' she loves, that speak eloquently thru music on so many human, even difficult issues. So she began with the hope that singing English lyrics would reach more people around the globe & build appreciation for these songs. And that's finally happening. Since 2017, Juby's YouTube covers are now being translated & subbed (CC) by fans in over 30 languages: Arabic, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese. (May 2018)

Besides recording cover vocals and writing her own translyrics/ lyrics, Juby also often provides her own subs for her English covers, does some of the artwork for her site and covers, mixes audio and edits video. When time allows, she enjoys collaborating on original projects and re-mixes with other artists, composers and musicians. Her real hope though is in time to do more of her own original songs and re-mixes.

Although she often does most of her work alone (excepting the rare duet or collab) in 2015 she started doing more elaborate projects and artistically directing her own paid collaborations, now made possible with the support of her fans through Patreon.com. These time consuming projects can take a few months to up to a year to complete. Juby often balances directing around 35+ projects on the back burner with others--and that's besides the many she is working on, at various stages of progress, on her own.

Her voice has a characteristic stability, clarity, and brilliance along with a certain bounce to it. She is also known for being emotionally expressive and touching her fans' hearts. A soprano with a wide vocal range, she records in bright straight pop tones--contemporary pop. Her signature VOCALOID/ anime style varies from piercingly resonant in high pop/rock/electronic, to a gentle, intimate voice for acoustic & jazz covers in the mid-tones. Juby has been acting and singing onstage plus had vocal training since young.

Something unique about Juby is that she is able to bring her musical theater and voice over acting experience to each song's story and "become" the person in her covers. Performing as the character in the song's story, at times her singing voice and mixing may vary to suit the character or the different vocal styles of the songs.

Her skill with incorporating idioms and correct pronunciation/syncopation in her Japanese to English translations has made her translyrics favorites of many of her fans. At best she manages to preserve the intended meaning and feeling in rhyme as well as in singable lyrics, while still hitting the appropriate beats of the original composer/lyricist.

A third of her covers have well over one million views. A few of her most popular English covers to date: "Drop Pop Candy" (12M views), "Game of Life", (7.8M), "Lost One's Weeping" (7.7M), Echo (6M), Childish War (5.5M), World is Mine (5.5M), Bad Apple (5.5M), Witch Hunt (5.2M), Wildfire (4.5M),  Rolling Girl (4M), A Female Ninja But I Want to Love  (3.7M), Death Should Not Have Taken Thee (3.6M). (May 2018) YouTube carries the majority of her covers. Soundcloud has over half of her covers plus different versions, acoustic, experimental collaborations with new composers, new re-mixes and mashups. Nico Nico Douga (Japanese YouTube) carries less than half of her covers but also has several new covers that are not available anywhere else. Between YouTube, Soundcloud & Nico Nico Douga, she has released well over 200 covers. Also you may find JubyPhonic covers (uploaded by fans) on BiliBili (Chinese YouTube). She has yet to open a channel.

She supports her fan's creative expression and all new creative works in general, thus her translyrics and covers are available for use as long as she (and the original work) is properly credited and used in projects for fun (non profit).

She depicts herself with pink/reddish hair, often with a yellow hoodie with long rabbit ears. Her pet and avatar is a rabbit in pink and white. She sees the rabbit as a symbolic invitation. The avatar rabbit beckons all to follow her down the rabbit hole--into another world of music and imagination. The idea of a rabbit was born of her very first channel (Usagi-chan).

In 2015 she branched out-- she ran her first "Skochbox Summer Cover Contest". And she had also already started streaming some fun/ serious talk shows with utaite friends, sometimes bringing in a guest, & always encouraging fan participation, Q&A. Four years later, The Unholy Quartet--Juby, Rachie, Kura, Anthong--is still doing streams, dependent on their availability. The 'utaite friends talk' group begun by Juby now has its own avatar and social media sites on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Discord.

A professional voice actress, Juliet Simmons (real name), has been working for over 5 years with Sentai Filmworks while still in college. She has performed supporting and leading roles in about 65 shows plus been featured as a vocalist (May 2018). Recently she sang & voice acted the lead in Anonymous Noise, Nino Arisugawa. She appeared on national tv on Cartoon Network’s Toonami in Akame Ga Kill as Kurome plus she played Chiyo Sakura in Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-Kun to rave reviews. Chiyo was a fun dream role and a favorite character. In 2016 she was nominated for BTVA Anime Dub Awards 2015 for Best Female Lead Vocal Performance in an Anime Movie and in 2017 nominated for 2016 Award for Best Vocal Ensemble Performance in an Anime series.

As of 2015 Juliet Simmons (aka JubyPhonic) started accepting invitations to conventions across the country, where she periodically appears as a guest artist, panelist, and host, so she can meet some of her fans.

Juby also writes under the pen name Gooby, as a contributing writer for GoBoiano---an anime and Japanese pop culture online publication. To find her articles, google GoBoiano.com/ Gooby.

Before becoming a Utaite and a voice actress, she wrote her own comic strip called Juby's Word of the Day.

For trivia, links to interviews & Juby related sites, keep scrolling down.

Trivia

 * She started performing in musical theater shows at age 3 and sang in school choirs beginning in elementary. At 12 she was taking private voice lessons---after attending and watching her siblings lessons weekly, since age 4.
 * Besides voice, she grew up taking years of training in stage/ film acting, dance, choir, art & electronic media.
 * She took Japanese classes in college. Latin Honor Society in high school.
 * She was in the gifted program through most of school. Dean's List in college.
 * She often shared the musical theater stage with her siblings and parents. Being creative runs in the family--singers, lyricists, poets, writers, artists, dancers, actors as hobby/work. Her sisters work in NYC in entertainment.
 * She likes Yoko Kanno, Maaya Sakamoto, Megumi Nakajima, Osamurai-san, Kikuo, Rasmus Faber, Linkin Park, Lady Gaga, Coldplay and UVERWorld.
 * She loves to interact with her fans. She replies to e-mail, YouTube comments, her tumblr blog, and tweets in a funny and teeny way. In 2015 her sister, Alissa, began helping to answer the many fans on YouTube and in 2016 she appointed a JubyPhonic Moderator OFFICIAL so Juby's increasing fans around the world were cared for.
 * She took the name "JubyPhonic P" because it rhymed with "Juby comics", which she had been drawing at that time. She added the P "because it seemed right".
 * She started going by just "Jubyphonic" after realizing that the P in her name can also stand for "producer".
 * She sings in English because, at first, as a perfectionist she believed she would just be embarrassing herself by singing in Japanese. Soon she realized she chose to write her own translyrics and sing in English because many English covers just didn't sound right & couldn't match the original Japanese song. English translations/ tranlyrics usually didn't have singable lyrics that could rhyme or hit the musical beats. Most importantly, she fell in love with these evocative, heartfelt songs & wanted them to reach more people around the world--people that otherwise might not have been adventurous enough to listen to a song in Japanese, but might listen to it in English. And now, since 2017, with the help of fans around the globe, you will find her YouTube covers may be translated & subbed (CC) into as many as 30 different languages.
 * Initially, her brother taught her how to mix. Based in Silicon Valley but moving back to Houston, he writes cutting edge software & owns his own intl company. His company, Awesomium, will soon be re-named Ultralight, after his latest cutting edge software release in 2018.
 * Her sister, Genevieve Simmons, is a film/stage actress while helping run a digital publication in NYC. A voice actor with Sentai, she has done supporting and lead roles in over 50 shows. She won BTVA Anime Dub Awards 2013 (Breakthrough Actress) plus nominated for Best Female Lead (Anime TV series). She was also nominated in 2014 & 2015 for Best Supporting Female (Anime TV series) and in 2016 for Best Female Lead (Anime TV series). She is a guest at conventions.
 * Her eldest sister, Alissa Simmons, is a singer & film/stage actress while not booking entertainment in NYC. Interestingly, she did film capture for both Deunan and Nyx in Tokyo for "Appleseed Alpha" (2014). She sings cabaret shows in NYC and is an Off Broadway theater company member--when she is not busy filming (writing, directing, starring, songwriting) in indie films. She is a guest judge @ conventions.
 * Her whole family watches anime, reads manga, goes to conventions, and shares music files on Kanno Yoko, etc
 * She lives in Houston.
 * Her favorite utaites are Kashitaro Ito, Reol, Kanseru, and kradness.
 * She has been working professionally as a voice actor for Sentai Filmworks for over 5 years while still in college. She has performed supporting and leading roles in about 65 shows plus been featured as a vocalist (May 2018). Recently she sang & voice acted the lead in Anonymous Noise, Nino Arisugawa. She appeared on national tv on Cartoon Network’s Toonami in Akame Ga Kill as Kurome plus she played Chiyo Sakura in Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun to rave reviews. The comedic fun of Chiyo was a dream role and favorite character. She was nominated for BTVA Anime Dub Awards 2015 for Best Female Lead Vocal Performance in an Anime Movie/Special for her role as Ryoko Sato in Aura: Koga Maryuin's Last War and in 2016 nominated for Best Vocal Ensemble for My Love Story!!.
 * She is a guest at conventions.[5]
 * Juby also writes under the pen name Gooby, as a contributing writer for GoBoiano---a top anime and Japanese pop culture online publication. To find her articles, google GoBoiano.com/ Gooby.