Doiron started playing guitar (later switching to bass) in
Eric's Trip at the age of 18, having joined the band at the insistence of her then-boyfriend, Eric's Trip guitarist
Rick White. Shortly before the band's break-up in 1996, she released a solo album under the name
Broken Girl, which followed two previous 7-inch EPs ("Dog Love, Pt. 2" & "Nora") also released under that name. All of her subsequent material has been released under her own name. She started her own label,
Sappy Records, to release several of her solo efforts. Although most of her solo material has been written and performed in English, she also released an album of
French language material,
Désormais, as well as several
EPs of material sung in
Spanish. In 1999, Doiron performed at the 1999 Stardust Picnic festival at Historic Fort York, Toronto. That year she recorded an album with the Ottawa band
Wooden Stars, which was the first time she had worked with a band since the end of Eric's Trip. Also in 1999, she was featured in a film, entitled Salt, which was filmed that fall. The film was created by the National Film Board of Canada, and released in 2000. She shared a
Juno Award for
Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars in March 2000. Eric's Trip reunited in 2001, and have played shows periodically ever since. She has also appeared as a guest musician on albums by
The Tragically Hip (2000s
Music at Work),
Gordon Downie (2001's
Coke Machine Glow, 2003's
Battle of the Nudes and 2010's
The Grand Bounce), and
Herman Düne. In 2006 she helped launch
SappyFest with Paul Henderson and Jon Claytor as an extension of the reinstated Sappy Records. She has also released a
split record co-credited to the
alternative country band
Okkervil River, and collaborated with
Frederick Squire and American musician
Phil Elverum on the 2008
Mount Eerie album
Lost Wisdom. She played with indie rock band
Shotgun & Jaybird until their demise in 2007. She also played drums as part of a short-lived duo with Fred Squire. Initially called "Blue Heeler", they changed their name to "Calm Down Its Monday", and released a split 7-inch EP on K Records, with two solo Doiron songs on the flip side. Apart from her musical career, Doiron is an avid photographer, having published a book of her photographs entitled
The Longest Winter with words by Ottawa writer Ian Roy. She often does her own promotional photos and cover artwork along with her ex-husband, painter Jon Claytor. Her album
Woke Myself Up was shortlisted for the
2007 Polaris Music Prize. In 2009, Doiron told a reporter from
The Strand, a college newspaper at the
University of Toronto, that she and
Chad VanGaalen were exploring the possibility of collaborating on an album. She appeared on a track from VanGaalen's EP of
Soft Airplane B-sides that year, but no further news pertaining to a potential album collaboration has been released. During the tour to support the 2009 album
I Can Wonder What You Did with Your Day, the mayor of
Bruno,
Saskatchewan proclaimed June 7, 2009, as "Julie Doiron Day". Doiron performed at the local All Citizens arts centre on that day. Over the three-year period between
I Can Wonder and her 2012 album
So Many Days, Doiron moved several times, residing at different times in
Montreal,
Toronto and
Sackville. While living in Toronto, she had difficulty making ends meet due to the city's high cost of living, and began teaching
yoga classes, and performing a weekly residency at the Saving Gigi club, to help pay the bills. In July 2014, Doiron's song "The Life of Dreams", from
I Can Wonder What You Did with Your Day, appeared in an
iPhone commercial. In 2016, Doiron collaborated with musicians
Jon McKiel, C.L. McLaughlin, Michael C. Duguay, James Anderson and Chris Meaney on the project Weird Lines, whose self-titled album was released on Sappy Futures in July. She then collaborated with
Eamon McGrath, Mike Peters and Jaye Schwarzer on the project Julie and the Wrong Guys, which released a self-titled album in 2017 on
Dine Alone Records. In 2017 and 2018, Doiron has also released several EPs of
Spanish language renditions of her own previously recorded songs. In 2021, Doiron released the album
I Thought of You. Her first full-length solo recording in nine years, it includes musical contributions from
Daniel Romano and
Dany Placard. In February 2025,
the Numero Group announced a campaign to reissue
Broken Girl on vinyl for the first time and
Loneliest In The Morning back in print for the first time since its initial release cycle in the 90s. The Numero Group also announced that Doiron would be joining the line up for the Numero 22 anniversary show in April 2025. == Personal life ==