Fashion direction by alex badia. SZA met Bridgers when the R&B superstar cold-messaged her online, and after chatting a bit the pair agreed to collaborate and turned the track around in about a week. Craigs Beds was previously sleepily serene. The story thats being told here is that people can find other people that they love and work with them without that, eventually, making everyone hate each other. It was a heavy thing to connect on, but shes such a great person to have those conversations with because shes wildly intelligent and really fucking funny., After recovering from opioid abuse, Baker quickly found herself in the straight-edge hardcore scene. Or maybe I died and Im in some kind of hazy afterlife, one where you get to hang out with the worlds most exciting indie band. The record has sonic influences but, on a deeper level, were influenced by the space and opportunity to make bad art for a long time., That leads to a digression about, as Baker puts it, that one cool teacher who was like, Hey kid, I heard your band is releasing a record you dont have to turn in your homework! Phoebe Bridgers was born on August 17th, 1994, in Los Angeles, California. We meet here because they make espresso tonics, Bakers favorite coffee beverage. For the group's just-released full-length debut, "The. Kiss Paul Stanley Has 'Thoughts' About Parents Who Support Kids Gender Identities And we talked about it in the car the whole rest of the tour. While narrowing down tracks, Baker voted to cut Were in Love from the album. To mark what is set to be yet another step up in her already accomplished young career, we spoke to the Memphis-born singer who is also one third of supergroup Boygenius with Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers about the firsts that shaped her career. I guess I just saw other people doing it and I wanted to try. Its kitschy and fun to roll up, Dacus says. The Record was recorded over a month in early 2022 at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, with everyone sleeping on the premises and grinding out 10-hour days. That rush was inspired by Bridgers, when she was in a major Frank Black phase. We were sharing a backstage space. But its not like Im particularly averse to it on a level of principle. Just kidding. Directly after the albums release, the next big moment will be Coachella. In 2018, singer-songwriters Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers, all known for their solo acts, debuted as boygenius with their self-titled EP. Because before that I was just listening to heavy bands, just Winds Of Plague, thinking the only way to express my emotion was doom metal. That was all the money I had, so I would buy the one CD and if I didn't immediately like it I wouldn't have anything else to play. A majority of our lunch is spent discussing literary fiction, where they ping-pong across the table with their recent reads. The album in question, The Record, more than lives up to expectations, with Rolling Stones Rob Sheffield giving it an instant classic rating. Weve all drunk a bottle of bourbon the night before., Two weeks into the process, they brought in Illuminati Hotties Sarah Tudzin for engineering and additional production. It was so cold and there were like ten people there, but when we were playing a whole bunch of people we'd never met before knew all the words to a song we had recently put out. Crying Wolf 6. Recorded in Memphis, TN, the record weaves together unflinching autobiography with assimilated experience and . Looking back, Bridgers thinks she subliminally started writing for boygenius right after she released Punisher in June 2020. She rarely gets to be home for the past year and a half, she says, shes been there roughly five days a month (and when shes flying, by the way, she always listens to CSNs Helplessly Hoping). Rest in peace dad, she wrote. Baker, Bridgers, and Dacus could have kept charging along with their solo careers and personal ambitions. But Cameron Crowe Wont Let the Music Die, The Raw, Unfiltered Magic of this New Seventies Neil Young Bootleg. Meeting [Lucy] in real life, I was like, Oh, God, you have no idea how familiar I feel with you, she says. Who knows, maybe all three of them will make out. @phoebe bridgers. I hadnt talked to my dad in a couple years before Covid, she explains. Options by Pedro The Lion. Dacus, Bridgers and Baker identify as queer, which has largely led to an outpouring of good vibes. Hardline 2. I should put that in a song!, Dacus was adopted and raised devoutly Christian in Richmond, Virginia; she chronicles that upbringing which included church four times a week in Home Video. She was just very kind and warm. Where Stranger in the Alps focused on desire and depression, her sophomore. n another life we were arsonists, goes a lyric on this first album from, Watch the video for Boygeniuss Not Strong Enough. Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus set 'the record' straight on boygenius LP. I was just like, Diamond Eyes? The Record track that best exudes this kind of joy is Not Strong Enough. Its the most communal effort, and the chorus, I dont know why I am/Not strong enough to be your man, builds and explodes in indie euphoria alongside sharp riffs and chaotic drums. Like, When are you going to get a real job?, When Bridgers mom got that tattoo recently, it was actually at a Friendsgiving gathering Bridgers hosted (her assistants roommate is a tattoo artist). I was watching them color outside the lines in a way that they dont in their solo projects, Tudzin says. Phoebe Bridgers is speaking out after she joined Mandy Moore and five other women in coming forward with allegations of harassment and emotional abuse against singer-songwriter Ryan Adams . It was falling in love., Boygenius self-titled EP, released that fall, stunned fans and critics. Baker asks if Im OK. Bridgers shares a consoling story about herself getting jammed in the mouth with a glass bottle and then breaking out into tears. Im trying to look back with love at that person. Five years later, the powerhouse women of Boygenius masterfully recapture the same magic in their first full-length album, "The Record." In another life we were arsonists, goes a lyric on this first album from Boygenius, the supergroup consisting of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus three of the most thoughtful, wry and quietly powerful indie-rock songwriters of the past decade. Her first official release was the single "Killer" in 2015, followed by her . But so far the commitments that we have, theyre just my job at a different scale. And then Covid was this built-in boundary [where] we cant see each other, so it was nice to realize what I actually wanted: to be able to talk with no strings attached. Not long after our interview, Bridgers dad died at age 60. Shes sitting at the table in a black sweater, explaining over miso soup that shes running on just two hours of sleep from straight hangin with the Boys the night before. Then she journals, reads, or writes songs. I wasnt like, Damn, I need to get better. I was like, Im God., That prompts Baker to share her early days in a bro-y hardcore music scene where all she wanted was to shred so much that everyone will have to respect my band, like, Look how many f scales I can do f fast, look look look look look. And around you guys, I feel like I can be the try-hard pick me guy I wanna be because thats all I ever was. Then all three brush themselves off and get to posing. On the breast pocket of her hunter-green jacket is a patch from the Norwegian black-metal band Mayhem, and beneath its sleeves, knuckle tattoos peer out: One hand spells out Hard, the other Work. When a bee sneaks up behind her, she tenderly apologizes: Im sorry we built a house on your house.. Now, when she goes through LAX, she's tracked by paparazzi, and online fans rabidly tear apart whoever walks alongside her, speculating about her romantic attachments. Diary-like candour: Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, AKA Boygenius. With the attention span of being in lockdown, it was just really beautiful, she says. She recalls early morning yoga, runs and walks, then intense long days everyone doing something. Baker made chicken wings for the boys. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Dacus [to me]: Sorry if your birthday is in February or something. The record has sonic influences, says Lucy Dacus, but, on a deeper level, were influenced by the space and opportunity to make bad art for a long time.. [Now] thats one of my favorite songs on the record. Later, when the band listened to it together in the car, Dacus and Bridgers held hands. Id need a break. She orders an orange juice in her oh-so-SoCal speaking voice, and reluctantly accepts water when told OJ is not an option. 2023 Rolling Stone, LLC. I was still in school but I was on a tour in New York and Sharon Van Etten had reached out to me over Twitter. Dacus and Baker met in 2016, when they played a show together in Washington, D.C. I came into the dressing room and Luce was in there, reading The Portrait of a Lady, Baker recalls. It's the Wednesday between Coachella weekends. Relative Fiction 5. I was in OSS a lot, says Baker out-of-school suspension. But if you can nail it, its a transcendent piece of art. When Rolling Stone broke the news back in January that Boygenius Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker had reunited and made their first full-length album, it felt like the first time in ages that young music fans were truly excited about a band. 11. Bridgers: Im going to have a toxic tattoo year, I can tell. By Samantha Rollins. (modern). Phoebe Lucille Bridgers (born August 17, 1994) is an American indie musician from Los Angeles, California. The band cliche is a cliche for a reason, she said, whereas this was three awesome mates who wanna hang out together. But Hardline is different. The pair were also photographed together at the GQ Men of the Year red carpet event in 2019. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Dacus grew up in Richmond, Va., Baker in Bartlett, Tenn. And every last one of them has to squeeze, single-file, into the narrow central walk space between all of Craigs aforementioned Beds. For the groups just-released full-length debut, The Record, it signed with the major label Interscope. The beloved indie trio is on the cover of Rolling Stone's February issue, wearing suits and staring down the camera in the same way that Nirvana did in 1994.. Ive never experienced that.. When Bakers tuna poke doesnt arrive, a concerned Bridgers asks the waiter of its whereabouts. I am embarrassed in retrospect I was overconfident. We were like, Yo! All rights reserved. The end result of all that hard work and loving s talking is already landing some of the best reviews of the year. Baker, 27, is pure raw-nerve-endings. Its a telling line for music that blazes with feeling, and is unabashed about drolly skewering and examining the male ego (see: songs about internalised notions of masculinity and lines such as And I am not an old man having an existential crisis at a Buddhist monastery writing horny poetry on a track called Leonard Cohen). We had a long day yesterday, Dacus says, and in the Uber home I turned to Phoebe and was like, Im so glad we agree most of the time. She carries on speaking to Bridgers directly. We have a shared experience that is not shared by a lot of other people in our lives. For Bridgers, being around the Boys means being constantly validated that my problems are real problems., It would take four years for them to cut a full-length album.