J. Tillman
J. Tillman
Joshua Michael Tillman, also known as J. Tillman or Father John Misty, is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and drummer. Maintaining a steady output of solo recordings since 2004, Tillman is a former member of indie rock bands Saxon Shore, Fleet Foxes, Jeffertitti's Nile, Pearly Gate Music, Siberian, Har Mar Superstar, Poor Moon, Low Hums, Jonathan Wilson, Bill Patton, The Lashes, Stately English, and has toured extensively with Pacific Northwest artists Damien Jurado, Jesse Sykes, and David Bazan...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth3 May 1981
CountryUnited States of America
I would play my Dungeons and Dragons songs and watch people's eyes glaze over, and then I would start joking around between songs, and all of a sudden people were lighting up and engaging.
I've never taken the steps to be 'successful': I've never had a manager or signed to a publishing house.
I've been writing a lot about my encounter with love. Which is the white stag as far as songwriting is concerned because love songs are so banal, and my experience with love is anything but that.
My last album as J. Tillman, 'Singing Ax,' that was really a premeditated death rattle of the aesthetic precedent I had set. I realized I wasn't creating spontaneously; I was enforcing all these parameters. I was too self-loathing or something, and there was this obvious dissonance between my conversational voice and creative voice.
With sad music, or music that's perceived as sad, there's a sense of solidarity that can be really powerful. My songs are all joyful to me.
When I was young, I had this contrarian thing, and my music for a long time was an extension of that. I didn't want to entertain people; I had too much vanity to be an entertainer. I think that some layers of vanity came off.
It's a vanity to think that a legitimate shamanistic experience can be purchased.
There's a lot of risk in putting what you suspect you really are into your music.
I was like, 'Josh Tillman, you are not a songwriter. You are an ape. Stop thinking of yourself as a songwriter.'
Laurel Canyon is kind of grotesque. It's this nature-themed place, and everybody is kind of angry.
I was kind of bored playing drums in a band. Which was depressing, because playing in the band was kind of a golden ticket.
I play sad bastard music. For the money.
I had this revelation, you are a lot better at the between-song stuff than you are at the song stuff. That was devastating. And I usually find devastating things to be pretty valuable.
If my peers had a significant impact on my music, my music would probably be a lot more popular.