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The members of boygenius—Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus—seem less like a supergroup and more like best friends who happen to be gifted musicians. Sitting together for an interview with Newsweek, there is a lot of joking and laughing between the three Their chemistry is evident on their just-released the record (Interscope Records), boygenius' first full-length studio album since their 2018 self-titled debut EP.
After touring together in 2018, the band members went back to their own busy solo careers: Bridgers released her 2020 album Punisher and in 2021, Baker put out her album Little Oblivions and Dacus released hers, Home Video.
"I think saying goodbye to each other felt like 'until next time' to me," Bridgers says. "Did you guys feel that? Did you really feel like it was the last time ever?"
Dacus says, "Like most big things in my life, I try to hold pretty lightly. And I was like, 'This is already too good to be true, and so I should just be grateful for what this was and not get my hopes up too much,' for sure."
A demo of a Bridgers' song, the beautiful "Emily I'm Sorry" got the ball rolling again in 2020 and a Google Drive was set up for the musicians to trade song ideas. "My record had just come out," Bridgers says, "and also COVID was happening. I had started writing a song and I was like, 'Oh, this is pretty clearly a boygenius song.' And I sent it to the boys. We had a lot of extra time on our hands to communicate, and then we all started adding to the Google Drive."
Baker says, "I was relieved when Phoebe was like, 'Can we be a band again?' I was being sheepish about wanting to write with y'all again sooner and so excited about it."
Dacus adds, "It took 10 months between [Bridgers] sending 'Emily I'm Sorry' and when we saw each other for the first time. When Julien and I were vaccinated, we flew to L.A. and met up with Phoebe for our first writing trip for this record. Having that set in the future made the deadening isolation feel less imposing to me."
Co-produced by the band and Catherine Marks (whose credits include St. Vincent, Alanis Morissette and PJ Harvey), and recorded in Malibu last year, the record picks up where 2018's boygenius left off. The opening track "Without You Without Them," has an Americana/Carter Family sound that hearkens back to "Ketchum, ID" from their EP. The record also expands the trio's range, especially with the addition of guitar-driven rockers like "Satanist" and "Anti-Curse." What hasn't changed are the members taking turns on lead vocals, their gorgeous harmony singing and their introspective, often emotionally heavy, lyrics touching on such subjects as relationships, insecurity and friendship.
"The album is sequenced thematically, I think, where it starts with songs that we had almost completely finished before bringing them to each other," says Bridgers. "And then the second half of the record becomes about making the album and our friendship and closeness." Dacus says, "I think that a lot of the songs end up being about contributing to each other's self-belief, affirming each other's confidence or nodding at each other when any one of us has something difficult to share."
The latest single is the uplifting "Not Strong Enough," which has been described in a press release as being about feeling "self-hatred while having a God complex." Bridgers says, "I didn't actually feel any darkness when writing that specific song. I think it's kind of like talking to your friends about the things you struggle with mentally, like you're not actually emotionally activated in the moment when sharing or talking about it. Whereas I can feel more emotionally activated when I write by myself. I was kind of joking about our neuroses together. So, the lightness is weirdly also thematic in the lyrics, just because you can only feel so bad when you're sharing something with your friends."
The song "$20" was among a trio of boygenius songs (including "True Blue" and "Emily I'm Sorry") unveiled simultaneously when the record was first announced in January. The fiery rocker conveys a sense of liberation. "I wanted to write a riff that made me happy," Baker says. "I had been working on this song that was loosely about escapism and a chaotic longing for abruptly changing your situation in order to exert some agency in your life. Then I brought it to the boys and it became more focused. In this band, I feel free to do what I want without judgment of it deviating from someone's perception of me because I feel able to be wholly understood."
If there is a particular song on the record that represents the closeness among the members of boygenius, it's the elegant ballad "We're In Love," which features the lyric: "If you rewrite your life, can I still play a part?" On whether it's about a particular person, Dacus says with a laugh, "It's about Phoebe and Julien. It's just speaking to them as a unit about memories that we share, kind of telling them that I would be devastated if we weren't in each other's lives."
The new album concludes on a heartbreaking note with the subdued "Letter to an Old Poet," in which the narrator addresses their significant other with such lines as "You don't know me" and "I'm ready to walk into my room without looking for you." Bridgers says, "I was sick of conceptualizing what I wanted to make and started writing what I was thinking about all the time and writing what I wanted to write without really thinking about the melody. What ended up coming out was very similar to a song I'd written before. Thematically, I felt like I had just kept writing "Me & My Dog" [from 2018's boygenius EP] but years later. And I was like, "Well, I can't sue me." (Laughter from the other boygenius members) That seems to be necessary, so I guess I'm gonna do this. And bringing it to the boys and having them put the final touches on it was healing for me in writing such an intense thing."
Prior to forming boygenius and the release of their 2018 EP, Bridgers, Baker and Dacus (who originally hail from California, Tennessee and Virginia, respectively) had crossed paths as they were building their individual careers. Given the emotional similarities in their music it almost seemed inevitable that they would join forces. Baker recalls having first heard Bridgers' music online; then the two performed a show together in California. "I was like, 'Okay, this person is gonna be too cool for me,'" says Baker. "And then we met in person and were instantly friends. And then a very similar thing happened to me with Lucy."
"There was a day I came to New York," Dacus remembers. "I never heard of Julien. And from morning to night, I heard Julien's name eight times. I was like, 'Who the f*** is this Julien Baker person?' I opened this email and Julien's manager emailed me asking if I wanted to open for her. I was like, 'I feel all the signs are pointing me to just do this.' And then the same with Phoebe...Julien was [saying], 'You have to check out Phoebe.'"
The uniqueness of boygenius is that their bond comes across as genuine; the video for "Not Strong Enough," depicts the band having a goofy day out at an amusement park and a museum. Their chemistry appears unblemished by the commercial pressures and ego that have saddled previous rock supergroups. Bridgers says in boygenius, no one is struggling to be heard. She says, "I have no idea how people don't get along if they're making something they like."
Dacus says, "None of us are super-interested in glory. We are interested in the art. We're not trying to make music that will get us somewhere, we're trying to just make music from where we are."
Baker adds: "It's prioritizing how much I care about this project and these people in my life that makes me want to sacrifice ego. It feels like a non-option to put something ahead of that because this is important."
The band's upcoming tour will take them to various parts of the U.S. (including two dates at Coachella in April), the U.K. and Europe. Will they work together again after the tour? Bridgers says: "We're treating it like our last day on earth. So who's to say?"
Baker says, "Anything could happen." Then she says to her bandmates, "But I anticipate y'all being in my life for a long time."
▸ David Chiu is a freelance writer. Follow him on Twitter at @newbeats
