Father John Misty is back with a fantastic new album called Pure Comedy that unflinchingly confronts the political and social issues of modern society using his signature sardonic-yet-earnest songwriting style. We’ve already heard the title track, watched a film of the same name with multiple snippets of other songs, and heard “Two Wildly Different Perspectives” along with “Ballad Of A Dying Man.”
With all that new material out in the world, Josh Tillman had plenty to talk about when he stopped by Beats 1 Radio to discuss all things music and politics with Zane Lowe. They had an incredible conversation, which you can read snippets of and listen to the entire interview below.
On growing up:
“I think the way that I grew up really plays heavily into this record. On one hand there’s like Ecclesiastes or something like which is my favorite book of the bible in a positive way. And then the other just the alienation and confusion that I experienced as a child growing up in this really pentecostal environment. Every adult I know was deeply suspect to me and they were telling me just insane things. You know I mean I grew up speaking in tongues and slain in the spirit but also being told that none of this is real. So having to make these kind of like really nonintuitive decisions about life. When everything you’re told is inverted in this way that just — nothing that you can touch, or see or feel is real. This is all just some sick joke and then we go to heaven and sing forever. Which sounded horrible to me. [laughs] The idea of just singing all the time… No. I don’t want to do that. But I think I brought a lot of that perspective, the way I felt growing up into this record.”
On the making of Pure Comedy:
“I just knew I wanted to make something fundamentally different than anything I had made before and so my life was gonna have to reflect a fundamental change too. A lot of the songs of the first two records were like four in the morning drunk in bed with like pizza hanging out of my mouth. It was just like very one to one, I had this experience and this song came to of it. This record — this is the way that I felt my whole life. So in that way I’ve been I guess refining these ideas for a long time.”
On the failure of political solutions:
“When I started writing this album I just felt really aware of kind of the failure of political solutions for the human experience. And when I wrote ‘these goons they elected to rule them’ that goes beyond the political elect who rules us in a million different ways day in and day out. We give people power of us in an infinite number of ways before you even get to politics. I think that we absolve ourselves of a certain responsibility via politics, you know personal responsibility. It’s kinda a stand in for the much hard decisions about they way we want to live and who we want to have control.”
On Trump:
“There is something about Trump that — I mean I have to say this carefully or choose my words carefully but Foucault said it’s better to have a King because you can see the King coming at least and then you can defend yourself and you can unlock your defiance an authentic form of defiance. And relating to the power structure that way, he thought was more natural to the human disposition or experience or whatever. Fast forward to now where the power structure is largely sending these messages of ‘be yourself’ ‘have fun’ ‘find something you’re passionate about’ ‘be an individual’ ‘be a rebel’ and those messages when the power structure is telling you to rebel it makes it so its very difficult to have an authentic form of rebellion and it is in no way a good thing unless you take a really macro view. But in the day to day now people are experiencing psychic trauma in a way that they probably haven’t in their life, they’re scared it’s like there’s an evil king. But it’s definitely clarifying it brings everything into focus in a way that a more established form of politics allows us to get away with never really having to examine.”
On writing “Hold Up” for Beyonce:
“That was never an ambition. Our friend Amil played her some of my music. He was having a meeting with them and played her some of my stuff and I guess she really loved it. Sent me an email and said she wanted me to write. With “Hold Up” they just sent me the beat and the hook. I wrote that first verse and the ‘jealous and crazy’ part. I can play you my demo if you want. After we recorded I was like ‘we cannot send this to her. This is ridiculous.’ I just couldn’t. My voice is not — the song is not intended to be sold by me. But it was never an ambition it was never anywhere near — it’s completely absurd that Lady Gaga and Beyoncé are my only co-writes. Everyone else is like ‘ehhh’.”
On writing with Lady Gaga:
“That was way more immersive than the Beyoncé thing. Oh, we were hanging. It was like five in the morning, someone handing me an acoustic guitar and I’m just like, ‘what are hands.’ We had so much fun. Mark — just watching him produce, it was amazing.”
Listen to the whole thing here.
