Poetry

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By Mark SavageBBC Music Correspondent

" I hate live music, " announces Phoebe Bridgers , festival headliner, four-time Grammy nominee and one-third of indie/alternative triumverate Boygenius.

" OK, that's not true But , God, 80 per cent of it I hate and 20 per cent is transcendent. "

Her bandmates have some thoughts about this declaration.

" Well, Some People are live music lovers, like my dad, " says Julien Baker . " If he goes to a restaurant and there's a surprise Doobie Brothers cover band, he's thrilled. "

" Oh I find that uncomfortable, " says Lucy Dacus . " You have to perform that you're listening to them.

" But I'm in The Middle of this. Sometimes, I've walked into a bar and fallen in love with every single member of A Band . But I've also walked into a bar and been like, 'I never want to hear music again. '"

" I have automatic tenderness for anyone that wants to play music, " decides Bridgers. " It's just that they lose me at some point, in a myriad of ways. "

" The only way they lose me is bitterness, " says Baker.

" Except for Jerry Lee Lewis: I saw him perform at a festival and someone hit him with a Beach Ball . He was like, 'I didn't play music for 60 years to be hit by a plastic ball. '"

" That's not bitterness, that's self respect, " says Dacus.

" Anyway, " says Bridgers, staring down The Zoom camera. " Do you maybe have any questions you want to ask us? "

At this point, it's a good 10 Minutes into The Interview . We're in London and Boygenius are in LA, perched on a four-poster bed, trading in-jokes, finishing each other's sentences and mercilessly poking fun at each other.

Dacus provokes roars of laughter when she describes her songs as " jolly bops" Baker is roasted for describing herself as A Secret emotional masochist (" there's no secret about it! " ), and there's a long discussion about The items fans throw On Stage .

" It's always bras, " says Dacus.

" Once, I got a rainbow harness, " counters Bridgers, quickly clarifying that she does not condone fans pelting her with sex toys.

" You don't want to get one dead in The Eye , " Dacus deadpans.

'Can we be A Band again?'

For all their camaraderie, Boygenius formed almost By Accident in 2018 when a savvy promoter booked all three ascendant songwriters on a joint Us Tour .

Already fans of each other's work, they decided to record a joint EP as an excuse to end every night with a joint performance.

Recorded in just four days, it was a revelation. Vogue christened them " The 'Infinity War' of female-led Indie Rock outfits" and fans started clamouring for a full-length album.

Instead, The Members went off to make career-best solo records: Baker's Little Oblivions, Dacus's Home Video and Bridgers' Punisher.

The latter became a cultural phenomenon, elevating The Singer to rock's A-list, where she now duets with Taylor Swift , Paul Mccartney and SZA.

But a week After Her album came out, she sent Dacus and Baker a message in their group chat, asking: " Can we be A Band again? "

It turned out everybody had been thinking The same thing, But nobody wanted to be The First to say it.

Within hours, Baker had Set Up a shared folder called " Dare I say it? " that quickly filled up with Song sketches.

After two writing sessions in California, they recorded their debut in a month-long stint at Rick Rubin 's Shangri-La studio at The start of 2022.

Despite The added time, The Sessions were no more relaxed than The ones for their first EP.

" The EP was six songs in four days and This Was 25 songs in 30 Days , " says Baker, " so it wasn't proportionally different. "

" We did to take days off. We'd be like, 'OK, tomorrow, we're going to have breakfast and Go On a walk. ' Then Lucy would say, 'I have this idea for a bridge', and I'd be like, " Well, why don't we just turn on The microphone?'"

Listening to Boygenius's album, you can tell who started each Song - The grungy riff of $20 is evidently Baker's work, for Example - But The Musicians constantly allow their bandmates to twist The Music in new, unexpected directions.

It's a process that requires vulnerability and honesty, says Bridgers.

She describes The Making Of , a delicate examination of self-worth that was The First Song she contributed to The Album .

The Initial demo, she recalls, had a different drum Track - But something about it was bugging her.

" I was like, 'Maybe this is good?' Then Lucy walked in and went, 'Hmmm, it's more 'chilled-beats-to do-homework-to' than I imagined. ' And I was like, ', of course!'"

" I love confrontation, " says Dacus, " because we all have To Live with this forever. I don't want to put out anything that sucks. "

Baker, meanwhile, made it her mission to pepper The Album with what The liner notes call " more sick riffs".

" I missed being in A Band and showing up to practice and going, 'I wrote this riff, what are we going to do with it?' Instead of like, 'I wrote this tormented poem that I set to delicate finger-picked guitar', " she laughs.

'Always subordinate'

Boygenius have been called a " supergroup" But they bristle at The description, reasoning that those vanity projects are usually less than The sum of their parts. They'd rather Just Be recognised as equals in a male-dominated industry.

That's how they got their name - an inside joke about male musicians who are told they're special from an early age - and it continues to inform The Way they present themselves.

They've called their album " The record" in a play on The faux-humility of Bob Dylan 's backing group The Band ; while The Song Leonard Cohen simultaneously praises and pillories one of Dacus's inspirations.

", " she sings. " "

But it's Another One of Dacus's lyrics, " " that gets to The Heart of The Message .

" It's in keeping with why we're called Boygenius, " she says. " [Women are] expected to be docile, always subordinate to some greater power, never invested with The power. "

" Each of us has been pigeon-holed as a tortured artist and that is a depowering thing. "

" Exactly, " says Baker. " When someone writes that This Music fell out of me as a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion, they completely erase all The deliberate, intentional craft I put into it.

" Like, it a powerful emotion flowing out of me at four in The Morning when I made Voice Memo One, But you're hearing 20 voice memos, 30 demos and hours of editing later, when I have meticulously constructed this piece of art into a specific thing to adequately convey my emotions.

" It's not fair for it to be relegated to something that just, like, fell out of me like a magical fairy. "

So far, critics have avoided that trap. The NME praised The record as an " " and Rolling Stone said it was " with both publications highlighting The strength of The writing.

And with The Hard Work done, Boygenius can't wait to get back on The Road as a three-piece.

" For at least The Past year, I've kind of felt like a cover band of myself, " admits Bridgers of Punisher's long promotional campaign.

" I walk up to The lip of The Stage at The exact same time every night during The same Song and have The exact same fan interaction. And that's beautiful. Like, I feel like I'm putting on The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But it's gonna be nice be doing Something New with My Friends . "

" Oh my gosh, I forgot to tell you all this, " Baker interrupts.

" I played a benefit concert for trans rights The Other night and they were like, ''. I loved that. It's like they were introducing just The Green Powerpuff Girl!

" I was so happy [because] you need to be part of something bigger than yourself. That's why people join clubs for sewing and birdwatching. That's why there's a music scene. That's why people accidentally join cults. "

Not for The Last time, The Band dissolve in fits of laughter.

Those concerts are going to be A Blast .

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Source of news: bbc.com