Photo courtesy Isabel Figueroa
TAKING ITS NAME from a gender-neutral religious figure from the 1700s, Public Universal Friend has released two albums, with a third set to drop early next year. Each one is a reflection of lead singer and songwriter Jody Galadriel Friend’s personal evolution. Though she started playing guitar at the age of 12, Friend says that when she came out as trans in 2020, “I rebranded everything and had to effectively start over.”
As a result, her band’s “queer Appalachian doom punk” sound became a beacon of trans representation, touching on themes of ostracization, survival, and strength. Her performances are mesmerizing, among them a four-minute, one-shot music video for the song “Brave” that Friend choreographed herself with a troupe of local dancers.
The audience at the band’s album release party at White Rabbit Cabaret in 2023 was treated to a celebrity cameo when Friend was joined onstage by one of her “dearests,” Madeleine Jurkiewicz of the Indianapolis folk pop duo Lily & Madeleine. But Friend says her most memorable show took place on the main stage at the 2023 Indy Pride festival, where she rocked a red velvet minidress. “It was one of the coolest experiences of my life—thinking how three years earlier, I was closeted and watching so much of my life crumble because I wasn’t honoring myself. And then here I was, getting to celebrate who I was in the presence of so many other people who were celebrating who they were.”
