Father John Misty - Bored in the Usa

So, for you, being onstage alone or with other musicians is the same thing?

According to Wikipedia, you and I are more or less the same age…

[laughs] Yes! Growing up in the '90s, my formative genres were late grunge and Britpop. What music did you grow up with?

Let's talk a bit about "Fear Fun": I've listened to it extensively, and there are a couple of things I'd like to discuss with you. The first concerns religion. I know you grew up in a Christian family, in a very religious environment, and you can glimpse a lot of that upbringing in the record – from the Babylon reference at the opening, to the stories of John the Baptist, Mary and Jesus Christ in "Everyman Need A Companion"; some of the tracks, like "O, I long…" even have a gospel atmosphere. Was that an intentional choice, or did it happen unconsciously?

But, at the same time, alongside the Christian iconography you talk about shamans, teepees, ayahuasca, which are the exact opposite…

So you have your own spirituality?

I create meaning for myself.

So it's not just a rebellion against what you used to be, then...

No, if I'd been full of hatred I'd have written like some kind of musical Richard Dawkins. If something is so obviously untrue, to you, you can play with it, you don't have to destroy it, because it's obviously unimportant, you're free to play with it. That's what I do, it's my language. I use stories and biblical references all the time because that's what I grew up with. If you'd been born in an African village, that would have been your language, only you wouldn't have had that much money.

Another way to read 'Fear Fun' is as a novel - an album, in this case - of formation, closely tied to all that literature in which the journey becomes a metaphor for radical inner change. How well does that fit with your experience?

Actually, it's not that far off. I think one of the things that makes the record interesting is that while I'm doing something like that, I'm simultaneously satirizing it, poking fun at that impulse, because today it's such a cliché you can't resist it. It's as if at this point in history there's a kind of hyper-awareness that this is exactly what's expected of a writer. It's no longer unexpected, it's no longer new, we all see how much information is circulating, everyone has already heard every story, every song, everything. Criticizing myself as I write, and criticizing the whole system, I think is something that reassures people, that lets them enjoy it because they know I'm not so childish or vain as to think I'm the first person to do something like this - which is actually where the line "I'm writing a novel/ because it's never been done before" comes from. It's about letting the listener know it's okay to accept that I'm doing this, because I've barely accepted it myself.

At this point I can't help but ask you how much of what you write is autobiographical and how much is fictionalized...

Well, every time you commit something to a page it becomes fiction...

That's exactly why I'm asking you.

You know, truly writing an autobiography means curating autobiographical events, and curating events in sequence becomes fiction. There's also a small part of fiction, because the listener, the reader, doesn't know the facts and fills in the gaps with the blank matter of imagination and narrative. [The record] isn't about a character called Father John Misty, and that's the point - I wanted to force the listener to admit that what you're called isn't important at all, that the name is a totally arbitrary aspect, if you think about it. I've written interesting things about invented characters or events, but for me it's a waste of time, even if it amuses me.

I've seen and heard you asked many times why you released what's been called your most "sincere" record under a moniker, and it made me think of a quote from Oscar Wilde: "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." Is that your case too?

Yes, well, actually I didn't need a mask... it's a great quote, but for me it was much more pragmatic than that. Simply put, I released all those earlier records under my real name, but if you took everything in them looking for what Josh Tillman put into them, you'd find zero, just an accurate emotional snapshot of the time. With music, songwriting, singing, it's not so much the lyrics but how you sing them; it's not whether what they tell is truth or fiction, but how they speak. On 'Fear Fun' it's how the lyrics speak, they sound like me, and I think the most honest thing you can do, as a writer, is write the way you talk.

If none of the previous records had existed, this would have been the Josh Tillman album, but unfortunately they do exist. I wasn't afraid to reveal any of those things.

There's a lot of irony in everything you do. Christy Wampole of the New York Times published a controversial article in November titled 'How to Live Without Irony', in which she writes that for 'Millennials', meaning people born in the '80s, "particularly middle-class Caucasians, irony is the primary mode with which daily life is conducted... The ironic frame serves as a shield against criticism... Irony is the most self-defensive possible mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic or otherwise. TO LIVE IRONICALLY IS TO HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT." How would you comment on that?

Every night, in every city I play, someone comes up to me and says "I don't want to bother you" or "I don't want to interrupt you" or "I don't want to be one of those people" or I don't want to be whatever BUT can we take a photo, can I have ten minutes of your time, can you sign this, can you answer a question? - which to me is functional irony, or ideology, words that mean "I want this thing, and I want it enough to come up to you and ask, but I want to protect myself from the consequences of asking you for something with the preamble of 'I don't want to'", that is, "I want what I want but I don't want to be judged for it".

Irony is different in different hands, everyone uses it in their own way, I think you can take a work, like an album, that includes irony without it being ironic in itself... I think there's real irony in 'Fear Fun', the record is all about me, it's my voice, but the fact that I talk about myself using that name is absolutely stupid, that there's some guy who looks like an idiot on the cover (who isn't actually me) – that can make it real irony. Nobody's making fun of anybody, that's the point, whether or not you use irony your intentions still come through, but I think I know how to use irony without losing myself, which is one of the hardest hurdles when you're trying to write.

Yes, absolutely. With being afraid of passion. Passion isn't cool, and there's an excessive use of irony in that sense in the music world, the kind of thing like "Ok, I wrote this record, I found a label to put it out, I planned a tour, I agreed to play on TV, I agreed to do all these interviews, and then once I'm there I act like it's the last place in the world I'd want to be" – it's always a way of protecting yourself. It's everywhere, but in the United States certain feelings are missing, we're constantly entertained, we're surrounded by a manufactured comfort, and we're told that's the reason to be happy. We feel guilty about it, about our own feelings, because we're constantly told that the way we live is the best way there is to live.

You think?

Yes, it's Catholic! Christianity, at its core, historically, in a Cartesian sense, held that we're not part of the Universe, but separate entities, that no one is part of this world – it became a collective way of thinking that predated classical Christianity, but it was a profound shift in the collective human subconscious, ideas like "I'm not part of this thing, I'm a free-moving agent, and I'm not part of anything." This way of thinking has been pushed further and further for thousands of years, a non-holistic view of the world, of which veganism is a symptom, like the idea that you can save the planet by recycling; basically, not taking your place in the cycle.

Ah! Really?! [laughs] No, that never happened! [laughs] We talked about it... when I got to town Jonathan kept asking "Who is that guy?", I suddenly knew everyone, and he was like "Ok, now I get what kind of guy this is..."

It really only started thanks to mutual friends. I'd just moved to Los Angeles, and everyone kept telling me "You absolutely have to meet Jonathan, he has a studio, he's really cool, he knows a ton of musicians" and I was thinking "Fuck, sounds like a nightmare." Then we met and became friends, we hung out for a year before we started working on the record. It was just like that, I was working on these demos and one night I played them at his place; he wanted a copy, I sent it to him, and his response was "we absolutely have to make a record." As simple as that.

I don't know, did it really get such a great reception? I don't know, I can't really get any perspective on it, and I'm always suspicious of reactions. It's not cool music, it's not like 'Breaking the Wave. The Dark Side of Indie' [the name of the club night on the flyer in front of him], it's not like Beach House or Grizzly Bear, the right bands at the right moment, that's what's cool, and I'm over here like "[imitates with his voice the guitar intro of 'Tee Pees 1-12']", singing ridiculous stuff, so I'd say the reactions it got make sense, to me. But I'd be a monster if I told you I expected a bigger reaction. [Laughing and shouting] "I expected so much more!"

[laughs] I'm still negotiating with Food Network to work out the details and specs of the production!

Yeah, that one's not bad at all. I tried to make my own podcast called ‘Pizza Revelry with Josh Tillman’, I recorded the first four episodes. Basically me and a comedian were supposed to improvise, with the premise that the night before we'd gone out for pizza, and talk about our experience. But the whole thing was completely made up, we had to keep a straight face and describe what kind of pizza we'd ordered, and really take the piss out of it; the only problem was I ended up being better at it than everyone I invited on, and it got pathetic. But I'll make a gorgeous coffee-table book out of it someday. A scratch-and-sniff coffee-table book.

Thank you!

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