“I got pummeled by the waves to where I couldn’t keep my head up long enough to get my bearings,” she says. During a Malibu writing trip, she went for a swim, ignoring Bridgers’ warning that the tide was too high. The Tennessee native can count the number of times she’s been to a beach on one hand, which is probably a good thing. I like myself better around them.”īAKER IS NOT a beach person. “I feel an uncomplicated pride about it.”Īdds Bridgers: “We’re obsessed with each other. “There’s a realm in which I feel permitted to be ambitious in this band, in a way that I can’t for my own solo stuff, because it’s something shared with people that I love who are the greatest songwriters ever,” Baker says. “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.”īaker, Bridgers, and Dacus could have kept charging along with their solo careers and personal ambitions. “We were able to commiserate about the less enjoyable aspects of this job,” Dacus says. They were acclaimed songwriters living parallel lives, yet they sounded like one cohesive, awesome unit - partly because of how much they relate to one another on a fundamental level. Their emotionally intense guitar music tapped into the qualities that made rock the music of a generation - several generations back - making it feel like it just might be that again. It was falling in love.”īoygenius’ self-titled EP, released that fall, stunned fans and critics. “We set out to make one song, and made six,” Bridgers says. Muna Welcome Boygenius to Crash Coachella Stage for 'Silk Chiffon'īaker met Bridgers a month later, and when the three found out they’d be touring together on a triple bill in 2018, they decided to head into the studio, thinking they’d record a seven-inch single to promote the shows. (Her review of War and Peace, which she read during lockdown: “It’s sick.”) Together as boygenius, they’re “like the Avengers,” as their friend Hayley Williams of Paramore puts it (Williams may have crashed the boygenius photo shoot).
We all get the high of each other being in the front, which is so sick and has been the ethos of this band since day one.”īaker, the heart of the band, emotionally bulldozes you with her fierce vocals Bridgers, the soul, eloquently brings lovesick, melancholic melodies and Dacus, the brain, writes songs with a dramatic heft worthy of the Russian novels she tears through. “Lifting each other up how we create,” Bridgers says. 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. Except these Boys don’t take themselves too seriously.īaker, Bridgers, and Dacus are all beloved solo artists, though Bridgers broke through to the music-your-dad-has-heard-of level during the pandemic with her sophomore album, Punisher (which earned her four Grammy nominations), and collaborations with Taylor Swift, McCartney, Lorde, and others (she’s slated to open for Swift in the spring). The trio is strolling along the beach with the kind of swagger the Backstreet Boys had in their “Anywhere for You” video. It’s all real, though: The three generation-defining songwriters of boygenius got together last year for the first time since their debut EP in 2018, knocked off a fantastic debut album, and are here this morning to start talking about it all for the first time. “We’re meeting you in purgatory,” says Dacus, 27. When I express this thought aloud, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus - otherwise known as boygenius - erupt with laughter. Or maybe I died and I’m in some kind of hazy afterlife, one where you get to hang out with the world’s most exciting indie band. It feels like one of Tony Soprano’s dreams. The late-November sky is the precise shade of a cerulean crayon, and the lighting is almost too perfect.
IN MALIBU, and Zuma Beach is empty, save for a husky on the shore and a surfer waist-deep in the ocean.
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