From left: Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker of boygenius. Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus are about to release The Record, their debut album as a unit and follow-up their critically-acclaimed EP. The first time you heard a song you wish you'd written. And we talked about it in the car the whole rest of the tour. 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. With a new record and a press tour around it, boygenius is squarely in the spotlight. Phoebe Bridgers' relationship with Emily Bannon was a bit complicated. Baker, 27, is pure raw-nerve-endings. Three years since her debut, Bridgers has returned with a head rush of personal growth, loss, and catharsis in Punisher. For a few minutes, the warm insular Boygenius embrace is extended out. I simply need to talk about the genius (haha) new album from renowned Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker indie outfit, boygenius. The Record, due March 31, will come out on Interscope the first major-label release for any member. It feels like one of Tony Sopranos dreams. By Brian Hiatt. Do I want toast with a sea urchin on it? I'll hold my hands up here. Best friends and band members Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker started boygenius in 2018, and fans have been anticipating the members to spare some time from their solo careers to drop a full album as a band. Best known for her work as a solo singer-songwriter, she is also known for being part of the musical groups boygenius (with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus) and Better Oblivion Community Center (with Conor Oberst).Bridgers made her solo debut with the studio album Stranger in the Alps (2017 . Hardline 2. Bridgers, who grew up in Pasadena and went to Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (alumni include Josh Groban and Alana Haim), had an altogether different experience. Baker says the track is about the wanting-to-poke-the-bear impulse that Im trying to mitigate; its also a meditation on Bernie Bostons famous Vietnam protest photograph Flower Power. It started to remind me of the tension between unrest and discontent with your life individually and the world writ large as a child, she says. Her indie folk music typically centers around acoustic guitar and electronic production, with melancholic lyrical themes. I just am in love with her, Bridgers says of SZA. But its not like Im particularly averse to it on a level of principle. Im able to hire my best friends to travel the world with me, and I dont have any shitty people around anymore., That line, by the way, recalls the verse Bridgers contributed to Ghost in the Machine, a standout track on SZAs S.O.S. Theres a way to [be a fan] without filming me without my permission behind the back of my head, chasing me down the street.. The highly-anticipated album's been a long time coming. There was never any passive-aggression. We talk all the time about the ability to leave the room and know that its not going to get f up. That feeling, of trusting each other with our best ideas, is singular. She brews some tea, brings it into her office, lights a candle, and picks a tarot card. I was watching them color outside the lines in a way that they dont in their solo projects, Tudzin says. She finds potential material midconversation, like during lunch with the Boys, when she said, My birth mother told me that in her fifties she found anger like it was under her bed. That sentence rocked me. Looking back on the driving incident, Dacus and Bridgers break it down to a single sentence. The boygenius book club can get weird, especially when a sex scene in Elif Batumans Either/Or comes up. And it takes no effort. Adds Bridgers, The thesis statement came after the thing, you know? No one ever suggested we should start a band that feels genuine, she says they just did it. Boygenius already landed the cover of Rolling Stone. But theyd rather make music together. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Boygenius like to read, and I do not mean that in a casual sense. I try to write more nuanced things than that.. Together they are boygenius - beloved indie-rock supergroup. One highlight from The Record, Leonard Cohen, has already sparked some mild social-media backlash from Cohen fans due to one hilariously cheeky verse: Leonard Cohen once said Theres a crack in everything, thats how the light gets in,' Dacus sings. I was like, I want to do this every year, and I have, even though my mom and I are homies now.. I dont feel that adventurous at 11.. When wed all go to bed, wed text each other about ideas. And its just a bottomless well of love and emotion, and were not gonna run out of love for each other., This summer, Boygenius will crisscross the U.S. and Europe playing festivals and amphitheaters. 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. Then she journals, reads, or writes songs. Once in costume, Baker does pullups on a hanging pipe then lands on a mattress. 2023 Rolling Stone, LLC. Every once in a while I get somebody who is like, How does it feel to be up there? she says. Baker is candid and direct about her sobriety and how its aided her career. 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. Dacus: We let you have food on your face. But when she is in Philly, she keeps a sacred routine: She loves to wake up and not speak for the first couple of hours of the day. Emily Im Sorry is a heart-wrenching song with lyrics like, Emily, forgive me, can we/Make it up as we go along/Im 27 and I dont know who I am/But I know what I want. Revolution 0, initially titled Paul Is Dead, after the Beatles conspiracy theory, is about Bridgers falling in love online. (Bridgers didnt say who the song refers to, but fans will likely speculate its Irish actor Paul Mescal.) Meeting [Lucy] in real life, I was like, Oh, God, you have no idea how familiar I feel with you, she says. I guess I just saw other people doing it and I wanted to try. Thanks, Mom, Baker says to her bandmate, beaming. It was the first time I had arranged chords into my own chosen phrasings and written words of my own instead of listening to someone else's songs. Baker lights up when she talks about her two dogs. We were living and breathing the record the entire time. Fucking love a leitmotif! Baker says. 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. "Phoebe was like, 'You have . Bridgers smiles thinking about another contender. Diary-like candour: Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker, AKA Boygenius. Just an adult being like, What youre doing is important and it matters. Next comes a collective dreamy recollection of said teachers: Libby Germer, Georgianne Stinnett, Mr. Wilhite. Someone throws a bunch of pearls around a stuffed bear and they get some pics with that too. Bridgers posted a photo of herself with hot-pink hair, sitting alongside her father and sharing headphones with him. That should be the headline, Dacus says. On their own, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus are three accomplished singer-songwriters. 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.. : You said all my friends are on my payroll/Youre not wrong, youre an asshole. Some fans theorized that bit was about Mescal, while I wondered if it was Bright Eyes Conor Oberst, her bandmate in Better Oblivion Community Center, whom she is rumored to have also dated. Oh, wait, she says, clutching her phone. Citadel Is a $300 Million Disaster for Amazon Straight up, youre not. Its kitschy and fun to roll up, Dacus says. The instantly relatable song became her Thunder Road. (Although she recently placed second to Bruce Springsteen on her dads Spotify Wrapped, her dad told her, You know youre my number-one songwriter and always will be.), Hayley Williams remembers how much she clung to Night Shift amid her 2017 divorce. Dacus [to me]: Sorry if your birthday is in February or something. The real-estate company that owns the studio responsible for landmark albums from Frank Sinatra to Green Day announces mass layoffs and a shift in direction. My embarrassing demos are, like, an 18-year-old kid who said he worked with Justin Bieber and auto-tuned me like crazy. Her black skinny jeans are rolled above her Doc Martens. Yet equality has always driven the bandmates, all of whom identify as queer: There is no frontwoman, and everyone is encouraged to suggest or veto ideas. Bridgers is reading Katherine Dunn's 1989 novel "Geek Love" at the urging of the boys. Ive been like a prototypical queer lady redirecting the conversation to dogs, she says. Every single one of them, Pedro Pascal just out Pedro Pascal'd himself at the Met Gala 2023, The best sex toys for men, whatever your kink, 10 of the best rock albums of all time, ranked, Inside Donald Glovers new creative playground, The untold story of Karl Lagerfelds Chrome Hearts obsession, The Idol soundtrack: all the inspirations behind The Weeknds anticipated new album, Print copies & Digital access for only 1. By Rachel Syme April 1, 2023 If Night Shift was the ultimate breakup song, Were in Love is the definitive love letter to friendship a stripped-back, spellbinding ode to the band that made Catherine Marks cry while recording. Their evocative musical arrangements and honest, relatable lyrics have earned them a reputation for leading an artistic vanguard that celebrates self-reflection and splendid songwriting. There is a part of me that gets very easily intimidated by stuff because I have a country-mouse complex, she says, now sitting in a cozy restaurant nearby. For the groups just-released full-length debut, The Record, it signed with the major label Interscope. Had this interview taken place a few years ago, Julien Baker says, she might have tried harder to publicly reconcile being both gay and Christian. n another life we were arsonists, goes a lyric on this first album from, Watch the video for Boygeniuss Not Strong Enough. They were in Bridgers Tesla with her pug, Maxine, heading back to Los Angeles from Healdsburg, when they discussed great songs with no chorus. Bridgers, a 28-year-old L.A. native who recently bought a house in nearby Calabasas, is in her signature black attire, except for a beige baseball cap that reads Lucy loves me, Dads fear me. It refers to Thumbs, a track off Dacus instant-classic 2021 solo album, Home Video, where she fantasizes about murdering her friends shitty dad. Dacus makes sure I get a paper towel and a moment to stanch the bleeding. The three artists' relationship has also become a site for undertaking, as Baker has put it, "a learning process to know the difference between being scrutinized and being seen." It's a concern. At some point of their working relationship, Boygenius members realized one huge life-fact they all had in common, Dacus says: We all benefited from people not telling us that we were s as children. Baker and Bridgers agree, smiling, and Dacus continues: Maybe the earlier you start, the sooner you get to something that you feel, that does the trick, that you can be proud of. We were like, Yo! Dacus grew up in Richmond, Va., Baker in Bartlett, Tenn. And we were hanging out and she gave her leftover takeout meal to this random homeless man in the park. Leslie Feinbergs Stone Butch Blues. The boys, as they call themselves, are Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, all solo artists in their own right. Its so hard to relate to people. It was the first date of their tour together, and the first time any of them had played that historic venue; it was also the debut of a collab a girl group that they'd come to call, with clever irony, boygenius. Anyone who loves boygenius intensely lovesick 2018 track Me and My Dog will be even more devastated by Letter to an Old Poet, a brutally honest monologue about an all-consuming love. That song is about when someone has so much power over you, they stop being a person, she explains (while declining to say who its about). Being like, Im not strong enough to show up for you. It didnt, which speaks to the strength of the sessions. Julien Baker. Her first official release was the single "Killer" in 2015, followed by her . Theres a real sense of levity and humor while still sticking true to their intensity and their depth as songwriters.. While the song has broader meaning about a dysfunctional relationship . Bridgers and Mescal were said to be engaged and, later, rumored to have broken up; Bridgers didnt comment, other than to say she is not presently engaged. C.S. That you can come together every once in a while, make something good, and then stop. Manicure by sreynin peng at opus beauty. If you've ever been to one of her intimate live shows, you'll know this: alone on stage, she uses only a guitar, a keyboard and a loop pedal. I got pummeled by the waves to where I couldnt keep my head up long enough to get my bearings, she says. Im about to lose a chess game. Julien Baker is the boygenius member with whom I'm least enamoured. Honestly, it was the most fun Ive had making a record in my entire life., As for the content of the group chat, the boys their preferred collective terminology are good with banter. We both decided that the song mattered more, Dacus says. who owns the ivy restaurant in los angeles,