I
t’samondayafternoonin
NewYork,butFatherJohnMisty
hasalreadytakenLSD.“Ithelps
with my depression and anxiety,”
says Misty, real name Josh Tillman,
slumped on a couch at the Bowery
Hotel.“It’sjustathingthatworksfor
me.” Thirty-six hours earlier, the sing-
er made his biggest appearance yet, on
Saturday Night Live, performing two
tracks fromPure Comedy, his morbid
and hilarious third LP, which takes a
hard look at narcissism, Internet ad-
diction and PC culture in the age of
Trump. “I couldn’t believe they booked
me,” says Tillman, who played drums
inFleetFoxesuntil2012,andbroke
outwith2015’sILoveYou,Honeybear.
The SNL afterparty was everything
he hoped it would be: “There was de-
bauchery.IthinkIwasoutuntilnoon
thenextday.”OnSNL, you sang the line “bedding Tay-
lor Swift every night inside the Oculus
Rift”. There was a lot of outrage after-
ward. You must have seen that coming.
The press won’t get people’s atten-
tionbywriting,“Areamansingsabout
the potential narcotic, soul-killing haz-
ards of entertainment.” And who else’s
name rhymes with Oculus Rift? I lost
sleepoveritbecauseIknewwhatIwas
doing.Ididallkindsofacrobaticsin
my head to find a way around it and
changethelyric,butultimatelyIhad
tosingwhatIwrote.NothingIcan
doisgoingtopleasepeoplewhoare
determined to get bent out of shape
about something. You have to be wil-
fullyignorantofthefactthesongis
about more than that.
Still, it’s hard to think of a single person
on Earth more likely to cause a bigger
reaction than her.
Right,whichmakesittheperfect
subjectforasong.Atsomepointweall
need to grow up. Bob Dylan would ref-
erence actresses by name in a surreal
waytomakeapointabouttheculture.
You were raised in a strict evangelical
household. Can you understand why
evangelicals supported Trump in such
big numbers?
Overthepast20years,we’ve
thoughtofconservativesasbeingthese
moralistic, financially austere people
who believe in dignity and free speech.
With Donald Trump, we’ve seen none
ofthemreallygiveashitaboutallof
that.They’reapplaudinghimdumping
a trillion ghost bucks into the economy
and expanding the military and cutting
taxesforthewealthiest.Heisclearly
notaChristian.Whatitshowsisthat
thecentreoftheirworldviewisacul-
ture of resentment. That’s the hum-ming dynamo at the centre of all of it.
ThereissomuchanimosityforHillary
Clintoninthatworldthatpeoplelike
my parents vote for Donald Trump.
What obligations do artists have to
combat Trump?
People kept asking me what I was
going to do onSNL.Ithinkyouonly
have to pull stunts if the content of
your music is meaningless. Artists
need to consider whether they can live
with themselves if they’re just singing
about breakups and whatever. Lorde
isontheshownextweek.Thedichot-
omybetweenmyperformanceand
hers...I’mnotgonnagetintothis.We
need to realise there can be different
typesofmusic.Butpeopleonlywant
symbolic victories in pop music, where
you can vaguely project feminism even
thoughtheindustryissoclearlyanti-
woman. If it’s vague enough, narcis-
sistscanproject.Andwearelivingin
anarcissistculture,soitmakesper-
fect sense.
It’s hard not to be bummed out while lis-
tening to Pure Comedy.
Well, there’s a difference between
art and entertainment. Entertainment
is really about forgetting about your
life, and art is about remembering your
life. Sometimes remembering your life
involves stronger emotions than the
narcotic glow of entertainment. Jimmy
Fallon is a fucking entertainer. What
I’vesetouttodoismorethantojust
entertain.
You have songwriting credits on Beyon-
cé’s and Lady Gaga’s new albums. What
did those experiences teach you?
Igottabecarefulhere,butIwillsay
this: When the average person imag-
ines how a record is made, they envi-
sionpeopleinastudioplayingtogether
and the artist taking the reins. Even
when they hear someone else wrote a
song,thepresumptionisthatit’ssome
kind of minor tweak. It is interesting
when fans find out someone else more
or less wholesale wrote a song. They get
angry. What I see in certain corners of
the musical intelligentsia right now is
theideathatpopmusicisrootedin
feminism. But this industry is horrible
to women.
Horrible in what sense?
There’sjustsolittledignity.Around
the Nineties, the industry decided it
didn’t want to work with artists any-
more because they’re a pain in the ass.
They realised, “We just need people
withdreamsofbeingapopstar.Not
peoplewhoworktomakemusic–peo-
ple who submit to anything it takes.”
This hilariously incoherent idea that
feminism is the byproduct of that world
drives me insane.20 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com Ju ne, 2017R&R
Father
John
Misty
Folk rock’s sharpest wit
explains his dark worldview- and why there’s no dignity
in the music industry
BY ANDY GREENE
GUY LOWNDES