Holed up in west London since Virgin Music took him under their wings, the Brooklyn émigré is, in his own words, the son of "two massively insane individuals": mum's a former 'Jeopardy' champion who loves to knit and smoke; dad is a "diabetic Frenchman who screams, he just yells at people. He used to work in computers, a massive nerd, has a PHD in mathematics." All of this is infused in Julian, a man who's as enthusiastic as he is angry, amiable as he is attitudinal - a fireball of energy forever stoked by his genes.