Just before embarking on the collaborative ‘Better Oblivion Community Center’ with Conor Oberst, and the supergroup ‘boygenius’ with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus, we spoke to Phoebe Bridgers about finding down time and browsing bins.
This feature originally ran in issue seventeen of Deluxe, printed in July 2019.
Photo: Lera Pentelute
Deluxe: So, how are you doing?
Phoebe Bridgers: I am well, I just got home from being gone all year touring, (laughing) so I'm doing great!
D: How was life on the road? Is it nice to be home?
PB: Yeah well, both are nice but it's definitely nice to be home for sure.
D: How do you find touring? Is that something you're kind of into?
PB: It is, I feel like I'm getting better at it. The first couple times I went, I was so, somehow over prepared and underprepared.
D: (laughing) How?
PB: Like over-packed, I only used like the first two inches of my suitcase, my giant suitcase. I also get bad at acquiring stuff - especially if I'm in the UK or Europe.
D: That's dangerous.
PB: By the end of the run, my bag is huge, they have to like tape it up with giant like, heavy tape at the airport… I feel like I'm getting better for sure.
D: Have you got any tips for people who are new to going out on tour? What are your most important things to take with you?
PB: Well, definitely checklist are first. You feel like you don't need a list and then you are on a plane - an international flight - and you don't have a phone charger. Also, don't like overestimate yourself with books.
D: Okay.
PB: I would say, bring one book. Bring a book, and then you'll like actually read it. And then if you finish it, just like buy another one. You know? The first couple times I went on tour, I brought like three books. I was like, "Yep," you know, cause I read every night?
D: (laughing) That's pretty ambitious.
PB: Very, yeah. So I would say like, don’t overestimate yourself. Oh! also don't pack anything you've never worn before. i’m the worst for that… like, "But it could be awesome?!"
D: Just go with the comfy stuff.
PB: Accept you’re gonna wear the same jeans every day.
“I remember being so horrified because the guy at the label was like, “You need to start tweeting like, Elliott Smith lyrics”...”
Photo: Frank Ockenfels
D: Did you get much downtime? Did you get to kind of see anywhere nice when you were touring?
PB: Not much downtime. My favourite stuff is like stuff I accidentally do. You know? when I go on walks or something. You end up in parks and it's pretty and people are hanging out. You get days off in weird places.
D: Talking about your debut album, where did the title come from?
PB: The title?
D: Yeah (laughing), ‘Stranger in the Alps’, When did that land on you?
PB: Uh, (laughing) definitely around a table at the studio, like you know, just talking about a bunch of different things with the producer and my guitar player and stuff. Someone mentioned the whole story* and the producer Tony was like, "That's an album title." I was like, "That's absolutely gonna be my album title”.
D: (laughing) it’s really good.
PB: I feel like nobody really believed me. You know, like when people started seeing like the first drafts of the album out and they were like, "Oh, shit. Too serious."
D: It was completely above my head if I am honest.
PB: Well, I think that's kind of the point too. I love how banal it is. But why did I choose that? It's so weirdly poetic and actually, like, the imagery that it evokes. I was just really drawn to it. I didn’t want to be too self-serious, a lot of my personality is where real things meet joke things.
D: This has carried over into things like your instagram and twitter and website addresses - phoebefuckingbridgers.com, the “millennial falcon” and “_fake_nudes_” - I really got the impression that you're having, like, a lot of fun with it?
PB: (laughing) I am for sure. I feel like I get in that argument with people, the internet is so funny to me, as long as it doesn't like suck you down into the abyss of like comparing yourself to people or whatever. I think that it is fun.
Photo: Frank Ockenfels
D: Yeah, definitely. Easier said than done though. We did a whole issue based around Twitter a few years ago, how people interact with the platform and as a consequence directly interact with people
PB: Oh, really?
D: Some people are very apprehensive and some people really embrace that connection. It would seem that you're quite giving?
PB: Well, I think it's a little bit of both. Like, obviously my record's very sad, but I definitely think that other part of personality kind of shines through. One of the first ever meetings when I was like a teenager with a label, I remember being so horrified because the guy at the label was like, "You need to start tweeting like, Elliott Smith lyrics”...
D: (laughing) brutal!
PB: (laughing) yeah, “people need to know that you're deep and like that's your personality." And I was like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" I love being able to make a serious record and act totally un-serious online at the same time.
D: Do you ever worry about giving away too much on social media?
PB: Uh-huh, I mean yeah, sometimes. I have tweeted something and then immediately delete it.
D: I didn’t mean it negatively. I guess I was getting at the instant engagement...
PB: ….Do you mean it's too much as in like personal?
D: Yes, I would imagine you have to be a little mindful with what you share about yourself if you want it to remain something about yourself.
Phoebe: Yeah, totally. For sure.
D: You're an L.A. native.
PB: I am.
D: if I could possibly go right back to the start, what was your very first record shopping experience?
PB: I went to Amoeba Music in Hollywood and I bought Odelay by Beck.
D: Oh wow. (laughing) I mean that's a really good one.
PB: It was a great one. I remember it so vividly, it was middle school, side bangs were in and my mom took me to a like a fancy haircut place and I got side bangs. And then she took me to Amoeba and I bought - with my own money - my first CD. Amoeba is like all encompassing. I could literally go in there with like a grocery list of things that I hope are in there, and nine times out of ten I'm gonna find what I'm looking for.
“a lot of my personality is where real things meet joke things.”
D: I think that's a really interesting thing about Amoeba. Although they kind of have everything imaginable in stock at all times, they still seem to have a real genuine kind of charm to what they're doing in that store.
PB: Totally. They have like the little, like employee notes and whatever and then they have the whole seven inch section in a weird dark corner. I love walking the genres, It'll be like 70s country and then there'll be like emo and then there's like black metal.
D: Do you recall seeing either Killer or Stranger in the Alps for the first time in a record store?
PB: Oh, yeah. (laughing) I remember trying really hard not to like be seen taking a picture of it. I was in Amoeba. I like went as an experiment. I was like when they say that this thing is like "out", do they mean it's like truly out, and yes they do, because I went into Amoeba, and I looked for it in that seven inch section and I found it. And I was like trying really hard to take a picture of it but not be seen.
D: I love the idea of you taking a picture of your seven inch.
PB: Yeah, the same thing happened with my record too. Yeah. And then on a road trip and I went into a like a random record store in Boise and I saw it like almost on the front counter... That was sweet.
D: What for you is the most important thing about record shops?
PB: Uh...I'm just thinking of all my least favourite things (laughing)
D: We can do that!
PB: I hate it when they're like rude you with you. I love that in Amoeba you can like seriously ask questions and they'll look stuff up for you and they'll like talk to you genuinely about what you're buying, if they have anything to say. If they don't have anything to say it's not like they can make something up.
D: So contact?
PB: Um, but yeah, I like the like, community environment. I also love feeling like getting into something, seeing a display and knowing that an employee like, cares about it.
D: So perhaps more the curation then?
PB: Yes, that! I love making a discovery that way, you put on headphones and just like flip around through random stuff. It’s about discovering.
I found Jeff Rosenstock that way. It has to be genuine interest in music from employees through to the people who own it.
* The US cable channel Comedy Central often had to dub out unsuitable language based on audiences. At times it lead to some very bizarre dialogue, and on broadcasting The Big Lebowski, John Goodman’s Walter Sobchak character (during the infamous interrogation of the teenage Larry) screams that “this is what happens when you find a stranger in the alps”. ‘Find’ and ‘Alps’ might have the right number of syllables, but it does all rather change the original context of the threat!