She was last in town with her band Fur Patrol but this time she is travelling to promote her album Modern Fables.
Joining her on stage are Richie Pickard on electric and double bass (one at a time, clearly) and Redford Grenell on drums.
"Lisa Crawley is opening the show and I have fiendish schemes to drag her back on stage with me for some tasty backing vocals," Deans says.
Following her solo album, there had been rumours of the demise of Fur Patrol.
However, Deans says the band plans to carry on in a similar fashion to one of the more famous Dunedin bands.
"That's a good way of putting it. At this stage, we're taking 'The Clean' path."
The former Christchurch singer is still based in Melbourne, though says change is afoot.
Like any songwriter worth her guitar strings, Deans says she has more material waiting to see the light of day.
"There are a few songs that didn't make it to the album, and a whole swag of ideas in their infancy.
"I'm looking forward to finding some time to sit down and try to finish them and to come up with new ones."
Recently Deans has been playing well with others, including Tiki Taane.
"I've been working with my brother [Sean Deans] who writes wonky hip-hop beats, I've been collaborating with Jon Toogood [of Shihad], which has been great fun, I recently did a Madonna-inspired pop song for a couple of guys called Tokyostreetgang, and also Anika Moa and Anna Coddington and I are making plans for a chick-rock super-trio. We've had one jam so far and it was awesome."
At Chicks tonight, she will be playing songs from the album, plus a couple of extras.
"There's a chance I may be persuaded to do a couple of Fur Patrol covers, maybe."
She says Lisa Crawley "writes beautiful, quirky pop songs with a delicious dark twist. The girl can sing and she's incredibly charming on stage".
• See them
Julia Deans and Lisa Crawley play at Chicks Hotel tonight.
