Before you read any further, there’s a few things you need to know: First, it’s okay to be self-absorbed. Second, hooking up with a girl in a graveyard is not disrespectful. In fact, it’s actually a better way to commemorate death than a funeral. And finally, sometimes it’s worth leaving one of the most successful folk bands in history in order to be true to yourself. These are just some of the lessons learned from the church of Father John Misty. He’s both loveable and erratic and, like all good spiritual leaders, his ministry started when he wrote a book.
Father John Misty, of course, is Joshua Tillman (also known as J. Tillman). And the band that he recently left was Fleet Foxes. Although the move seemed incomprehensible to many (Who leaves a talented, critically-acclaimed band right in the middle of their greatest success?), it made perfect sense to Tillman.
“It seemed very natural to me,” he said. “I was exhausted from trying to keep my own creative ambitions in the margins of my life instead of making them the main event.”
So, that’s what he did. He packed up and started over – just like he packed up and left Seattle at 3:30 a.m., leaving without a destination in mind. He took off in his van for eight months during which he rediscovered himself and wrote a novel (which is printed on the liner notes for “Fear Fun,” his debut Father John Misty album).
“I started writing this book where there were no boundaries, and I discovered very quickly that I was writing the whole thing in my own conversational voice,” he says. “It wasn’t particularly precious – mostly kind of funny, satirical.”
“It was kind of this turning point where I was having fun in my creative pursuits as opposed to conducting them with fear and trembling,” he says.
In that moment of clarity, he says he realized that his conversational voice was good enough to write in, so he stripped off the pretense that comes with traditional songwriting and realized that to really write from his own experience and his own voice, he needed a fresh start in every way – which included a brand new name. You could almost call it a come-to-Jesus moment.
The tongue in cheek treatment of religion (bordering on sacrilege at times) woven throughout “Fear Fun” is no mistake. Tillman is more than aware of what he is doing – perhaps painfully so. Having grown up in a religious setting, Tillman even briefly considered becoming a pastor as a youth – only to later become disillusioned and angry at his upbringing.
“At some point my number one mission became to make as big of a joke out of it as I could,” he said during an interview with LA Weekly.
And there’s no doubt that this philosophy leaks into his music, as he admits himself when discussing the way that his experience in Fleet Foxes and making music as J. Tillman shaped his career. (“You can’t really talk about [the music] without talking about my experiences,” he says. ‘It would take forever to explain the myriad of ways my experience has informed what I do creatively, but I’d definitely say there [would be] no music I’m making now without those things as experiences.”)
But when I speak to Tillman, there is no talk of religion. And he doesn’t seem angry. In fact, he seems quite comfortable as he puts me on hold momentarily to light a cigarette. Maybe it’s a sign that he’s finally where he’s meant to be – doing his own thing without having to conform to the wishes of anyone, whether that be his family or a religious institution or a band like Fleet Foxes.
“I think it took me a long time to work up the courage to admit to myself that I’m just a little narcissist who only wants to do his own thing, and that’s ultimately okay and of little consequence,” he says. “It’s not something to wring your hands in existential angst over.”
It doesn’t take long for listeners to realize that Father John Misty is most definitely a departure from J. Tillman or Fleet Foxes. It’s satirical. It’s witty. It’s unexpected and borderline transgressive at times. Yet, it’s not all fun and games. There are still soul-searching moments of inquiry peppered throughout. One of these moments is captured in the now single “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sleeps.”
The track draws listeners in with its very first notes and is simultaneously grungy, gripping and compelling, wrestling with the concept of life and death over the backdrop of a funeral. It tells a story that sounds too detailed and too personal to be fabricated – and since it’s a Father John Misty song, it’s not.
“The song was kind of an accumulation of these two experiences,” he explains. “I was going to my granddad’s funeral, which was a bizarre experience in that I had been absent from all family events for 10 years or something. And I was struck by the misery of the modern western style funeral. It was kind of addressing a fantasy as opposed to commemorating anything that life is really about – and to me sort of suppressing the natural instinct or response to death. It sent me into an impotent rage. The next time I was at a graveyard was at a party at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. I was hooking up with a girl thinking about the continuum between sex and death and all that stuff and was really struck in that moment by how much more of a tribute that may be than a funeral.”
“It’s really just about me and my deeply conflicting impulses and ideas,” he adds. “And the cross section of that dissonance is absolutely where the song lies.” And, perhaps, in its finer moments, it can be said that is where the album itself lies. But “Fear Fun” also disguises those moments in jokes and outlandish satire – and that might be because it’s who Tillman really is or it might be because that’s how he’s grown accustomed to presenting himself. Regardless of the reason, I can’t help but think that his parting comments are somewhat telling. Before we exchange goodbyes, I ask him what viewers should expect from the show.
“It’s like watching an epileptic clown give his final thesis for his speech writing class,” he says.
I ask, “How so?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” he says mysteriously – a joke, of course. But then again, they always say that there is a lot of truth in jest.
Father John Misty will be performing with Youth Lagoon at 8 p.m. on Friday, July 13 at the Crofoot Ballroom in Pontiac. Tickets are $13 in advance or $15 at the door and can be purchased at thecrofoot.com.