Boygenius On Their Friendship, New Record, Opening for Taylor Swift and More

Boygenius sits down with host LIsa Worden to chat about their start, their friendhip, writing process, opening for Taylor Swift and more.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening. She is the voicealternative artist, So you need to know
all ninety eight seven LA's new alternativeyou're listening to. She's the voice.
And I'm so excited. We've gotboy Genius with us tonight, Lucy Julian,
Phoebe Hi Hi Hi, So happyto have you guys here with us.

(00:20):
One of my favorite things about thisgroup that I wanted to talk about
right off the bat, For peoplethat maybe aren't familiar, you guys seem
like you're best friends. You're fansof each other, You're fans of each
other's music, and I just thinkthat is the most beautiful thing ever.
And if I was ever in aband, that's how I'd want to do
it. I'd want to be withmy best friends. So talk about your

(00:41):
chemistry, your friendship. Let's hearabout that, our chemistry. All these
bands, I'm just gonna throw outall the bands they fight are babies.
Yeah, I have a whole I'vebeen thinking about this with like a whole
thing about like, oh, likemales being asked or like people as sign
mail at birth being like socialized too. H view their like usefulness and their

(01:06):
value is like way more economized andmechanized in us as having like as people
who are socialized as like women.Our values is like caretaking and man like
stress managing no like seriously and solike for us to exist within Like when
my all my best friends in theband that I played with in high school

(01:26):
were my best friends too, andthey were emotionally unaware of dudes. So
we loved each other. How thatkind of family would love each other.
And I'm like, oh, there'slike alternative ways to interact with your family
and something you want to protect.So like we're explicit about being friends because
we put a lot of like workin consciousness into or like wow, I

(01:47):
said work and now I can't.Yeah, had many easy? Yeah,
I tell you what, had manyeasy with these two. But I'm the
least qualified to say that, Likeuh, and like an anniversary of like
a wedding anniversary, like when peoplepost like it's there's been ups and downs

(02:08):
and Phoebe one times like if Punishableby death dating says that we have ups
and downs on the internet. They'regetting divorced, like everybody has. You
don't need to tell the Internet that'swhat I mean. It's day you can
tell. You can tell your spouse. I would like to work for you
and and like even if there arehard days that it's like all worth it.

(02:31):
In a private conversation that is sweetand an active love, but saying
I really have to work at thisrelationship on Instagram is I think punishable by
death? Cry for help? Honestly, why are we thinking that's sweet?
That that could? There are thereare tropes that I like about about like
wedding. Uh posts like married mybest friend. That's cute. I think

(02:54):
it's cute. That seems like alot of people are marrying their best friends
and that's tight. I think that'sright, but up and down to be
like marrying some person like who isn'tmarrying their best friend? That that's that's
why you should get married. Yeah, yeah, I can tolerate this person
and I we married our best friendby being this band. Yeah. Oh

(03:21):
anyway, I love it. Ijust love hearing you guys. I'll talk.
You're just like feeding off each other. You'll be able to get again.
We're talking to an audience that maybeisn't familiar with boy genius. They
might be familiar with you each individually, but as a as the supergroup,
as you guys have been dubbed umtell tell us, tell us in the

(03:46):
audience, how you got your name? Will Uh. We were riffing about
some guys we think are stupid,um that think that they're very smart and
just like the type of creativity thatcomes from never being told that your ideas
are dumb and how actually that there'sa little bit of jealousy there, like

(04:09):
for these people that are so creativeand have never been never experienced self doubt,
they maybe sometimes have really cool ideasand yeah, it's cool to be
stupid and to go big and failbecause they're allowed to think them And so
obviously it's like a little bit enviousof having had the space or the freedom

(04:31):
from scrutiny or the freedom from constantevaluation. Do you feel like girls slash
women are constantly evaluated and scrutinized ina different way? It depends. Yeah,
I don't know. Across the board, I think it's dangerous to talk
about like women's experience as a singularthing. Yeah, even if there are

(04:53):
like shared things, like there's probablystuff we could all relate about being socialized
as women. Um, But yeah, like I think there's a lot of
other things that come into play likerace and class and um yeah any who's
yeah, I had I had readthat. You know, sometimes when you're

(05:15):
in the studio and maybe you're creatinga song and you're having a little bit
of soft doubt like is this good? Is this actually going to begin?
You'll be like, hey, getyour boy genius head on or whatever it
is, getting that frame of mind. And that's kind of how that came
about. I had a stupid ideatwo days ago and it was fun to
immediately laugh about it. Remember thelike weird note I tried to get somebody

(05:40):
to play that was like deeply notin the key. Oh. I was
so excited later and you wanted itto be but we all understood. Here's
the thing, too, is thatit's not like we're all just out here
saying every idea we have and everybody'slike so good. It's like i'd note,
it's if you feel like someone cansafely be like naw dog without being

(06:03):
like you've failed me, Like thatis safe. That's maybe a space.
And I also I see boy geniusesdo that to each other, like boy
geniuses that are secure, like weum, you know, we all know
a bunch of like producers and musiciansand stuff, and when they talk to
each other, they're like, ohyou miss that note or like that note
swonky and they're like ah, Likeit doesn't translate to a personal incompetence.

(06:28):
The guys I record with, well, they'll be we'll just be like,
okay, do another take, butnot so stupid, like just do better.
Like it's just a kind like Ithink there's like a speed element to
that. It's just like burst through, like stop belaboring whether it's worthwhile and
just try it and find out.So just like stop wasting time on the

(06:50):
inner dialogue and externalize and sift throughall of it. Yeah, it's like
an embracing impatience or like I mean, honestly, in our recording process,
I feel like that's like um likedelegating labor fairly in a community too,
and like from each according to theirability is the first part of two,

(07:11):
each according to their needs. Youknow, Like I'm five feet tall,
I'm not going to get the jobof getting stuff down from a high shelf
for people. That's me. That'son Lucy. That's not the job I'm
good at. So like I havea way easier time now, things I
used to spin out about. Maybewhen we were recording the first EP for
like five days, like in thestudio, I'll be like, I can't
hit this note. I can't hitthis note. Yeah, somebody else getting

(07:33):
Let's change this harmony. Somebody elsedo this, somebody else play this guitar
part, somebody I don't have todo everything. Yeah, perfect. Yeah,
we're here with boy Genius tonight,Phoebe Bridgers, Julian Baker, Lucy
Dacas. And you just released yourfirst album a couple months ago, called
the Record. It's an exquisite,beautiful piece of art. What was it

(07:56):
like or have you noticed a difference? You're on a major label, and
I feel like most of your workhas been on indie labels. Phoebe,
We know you have your own label, Satisfactory, which is awesome. Um,
how has it been working with Interscope? So great? Yeah, yeah,
it's all indie rock people like Ithink the industry has changed so much

(08:18):
that you know it's fueled by Romanright that Jane John Janeck worked at UM.
It's just like it's cool to watchhow people succeed within the industry and
so we all come from the samebackground. You know, we're not We're
not like going in with a bunchof suits. I think like major and

(08:43):
indie, Like, I don't careas long as it's good people. Yeah,
I care about the music and goodcuration and and and Michelle the art
director is so incredible and hands onand yeah, Chelsea, there's there's just
tons of people we've gotten to meetthat like make our lives easier and better.
That's awesome. Um, I don'tknow. I guess people kind of

(09:05):
like ask this question as if we'veexperienced flak or something like we've lost like
indie cred that what is indie credit? Where am I using my indie credit?
Like I would like to cash inmy indie credit, would like to
cash in my indie credit like that. It's like even toil financial, Like
to be talking about this at allis stupid. There's so much ego I

(09:28):
think involved in that, and I'mjust like, I don't really care as
long as it's being treated well,Like yeah, I just want it treated
well. It's like fundamentally I getthat. I think it used to be
way more on the surface, likethe splintering of genre, on the availability,
like the constant consumption and the shifttowards like content creation versus like a
physical purchase. It's like all stuffthat's really reforming, like recorded music as

(09:52):
a commodity. But it's like wherelike, okay, so an indie is
generated revenue off of itself and nothaving like other investors, so you can
be like more discriminatory about the peoplethat are running it. But also like
there's indie labels with people that Idon't that their values are not mine,

(10:13):
and there are people I don't wantto do business with, and then there's
people from indies that I love,and it's like why not. Also it's
like I never you know, maybewhen I was ten, I was like
major labels is like silling out.It's like, no, dude, I
want every single person to hear themusic I made for them. Yeah,
like I want the most people tohear it. No, it's well sad,

(10:35):
And I think in business in general, it is about the people.
So there's a name, an umbrellaand a you know, logo and what
have you. But at the endof the day, it's the people behind
it, yeah, that you needto connect with and how you use,
how you purpose the resources to likesay, like the thing with the indie
label is its own revenue source,and the like major label has alternative investors.

(11:01):
You're like venture capitalists or whatever.So robinhood whatever that you don't agree
with it, fine, turn itinto gay art. Like let's talk about
not strong enough. I would lovefor you guys to say a few words
about that song. I was listeningto a lot of Frank Black nice pixies.
Yes, but he has an incrediblesolo record with that song, Los

(11:24):
Angeles on it too, which wasalso great. Uh. But I was
just kind of like learning chords,investing around and had this kind of grungy
thing which I've never done, andsent it to the boys and Julian ran
with it. You showed us thatin person, should I did? Yeah?
Oh cool. That was at ourfirst writing trip because we were sending

(11:45):
things through COVID and then we bothgot vaccinated on the same day, and
so fourteen days out we both flewto Phoebe Immediately. I think that's cute
that that's the very first thing thatwe did. And then yeah, you
had this idea of like the verseturning into the chorus kind of seamlessly like
not and I that's just like acool compositional idea, and I think you

(12:09):
were like, and here's like placeholderlyrics that are still there and they're still
goodt It was no true group effortbecause I was like, you played it
and I was like, oh,those are like I just love a weird
chord. And it was like youliterally sitting across from me, like pointing
to the Fritz, and I waslike, Oh, this is so what

(12:30):
music's about is being like, youknow, like the whole thing where they
let George Harrison and the Beatles becausehe knew one more chord than John and
Paul knew together one more chord,one additional chord, and then they learned
together by playing thousands of shows.Yeah, you know, like do you
all write the lyrics together or didsomeone usually write all the lyrics to one

(12:52):
song? Because you're all singing onthat. So that's why I'm like,
what's cute about that is I wrotethe part that Julie and sings. You
only wrote the part that I sang. Um. We collaborated on the choruses,
and then Lucy wrote the end.Yeah, I wrote a little bit
of the last chorus because usually wekind of delegate section, like we have
our song. Cool about it.It's like we each wrote wrote what we

(13:15):
sang, and then, um,you know, the songs that we entirely
sing solo with the others singing harmonyare usually all the person singing. So
this song is cute to me becauseit's such a collaboration. Will be editors
of each other, like, uh, Emily, I'm sorry, Like Phoebe
wrote that whole thing, and thenwe changed a couple of words, and
then like I wrote we were inlove, and then Phoebe change a couple

(13:37):
of words, and then you wroteall of anti Curse, and then we
chang change a couple of things.Yeah. Yeah, it's nice to trust
y'all as editors too. Um.We were just talking about how like you
feel competitive with us, like ina I guess in a writing way.

(13:58):
Interesting cool because I think in general, like we are not not competitive or
kind of like that's a huge partof this whole enterprise is like non competition.
But like the good side of thatis like wanting trying to make each
other better. Yeah. Um,it's not like it's like it's like when
you to succeed, it's a winfor me because I want to do better.

(14:24):
I want y'all to be proud ofme so bad because your opinion matters
to me, and I admire y'all. I know that you are okay.
I know I don't need to Thisis actually just evalidate me. But it's
like a total like love affair betweenyou guys. I love it. Let's
talk about the film. How didyou guys pick Kristin Stewart? Did you

(14:46):
go to her? Did she?I think Kristin Stewart would do a video
and I sent her an email andshe responded immediately and was like my dream.
She seems like a perfect choice.Honestly, she's seems like the fourth
band member and she would be sopleased to hear you say that, I
mean, and we are pleased.She was texting us in the middle of

(15:09):
the night with ideas like the way, I don't know. It was neat
to see in a totally different mediasomeone engaging with the same volume of passion.
Yeah, and she's literally so good, Like she did so good.
Yeah she does. And what wasso cool was watching her have an idea

(15:30):
and then she would act it forus. Yeah, so then we would
just call okay, like she woulddo all the blocking and like go from
Kristen to Kristen Stewart acting and yeah, like just so amazing, like I
had never it felt like powerful,and so whatever good we did is just

(15:50):
like a fraction, a little sliverof whatever good she was showing. That's
true. Wow, No, that'sso neat And for people listening. The
film is a three song medley fromthree songs, the first three singles off
the album actually that you guys released, um, and it is that the
videos are beautiful. They're beautiful.They're like watching home movies, but they

(16:12):
all have themes and but they're filmedvery um yeah, like you're almost watching
through somebody's camera role from twenty yearsago. I mean, they're just they
are. I thought she did anexcellent job. Um perfect match. So
yeah, I was curious how howthat all came about? Coacha. That
was the first time really that youguys played new music right live. Yes,

(16:37):
yeah, we were amazing, sonervous and then we all had we
all got sy infections and then hadto take steroids after after I was on,
I was, yeah, we wereshaking, like all of our players.
I just want to like shout outour entire band by name. Yeah

(16:57):
Keys Madden class on drum, LanaDutarte on like Everything, Who's Jason that
we're all fans of, and TianaO'Hara on bass. Awesome. I just
m in love with all of them. Yeah, and they are just good.
They didn't have a day where theyweren't good at the songs, Like
we haven't had to worry at all, and so they were. The production

(17:19):
is big and there's like moving partsand so there's all these things that could
have gone wrong, but then itwas our voices that and yeah. So
but I don't know if people reallynoticed, Like I think we still pulled
it off and it was fun.So I think that in the past we
would have all beaten ourselves up more. But I think we're all kind of

(17:44):
like lifted by the people. Wantto say, as the steaks, you
know, get hirer, they getlower. Yeah, well, also it's
a rot. I've been thinking aboutthis so much when I go back and
listen to like bootlegs or like Iwas listening to like um, there's like
live tapings of stuff or even livecuts like board rips or live streams of
our stuff, and I'm like,no one like the capability of technology to

(18:07):
refine music in the recorded space,I think has put a bigger gap between
what's possible creatively in recorded sound andwhat's possible in live sound. And as
those two things get further apart,I'm more okay with being like it's a
rock show. I was screaming forfifty minutes, Like I mean, you

(18:30):
know, Like also, I thinkit's a thing where I can put myself
in the shoes of like watching aperson or like being in the audience,
And like when I watch the livestream back, I'm sitting on the couch
like two pm. It's not likeall the other mental factors of like a
like they aren't there. And somethinga person told me when I was on
my first record cycle that I thinkof all the time is they they are

(18:53):
invested in you being good too.They want to have a good time when
you see a play or see acomedian or something you don't know the material
before. So we're very lucky tobe in an industry where it's, yeah,
the people are coming to the showbetting for you. Maybe you're playing
a festival in the middle of theday, whatever, but we're gonna win

(19:14):
people. We are incredible live.I just have to shout that out,
like, come see us live.It is crazy in a way that like
when I play solo, I thinkI'm more trying to remind people of the
recordings I made, and this isjust kind of like its own thing live.
It just is amazing. I lovenot singing the whole time. I

(19:36):
love playing guitar, love running around. We're an incredible live hearing the spotlight.
I like not having the full bruntof attention on me, and like,
I don't know, I feel thisweight off with y'all live. That
makes me feel like I can evenjust move around more, like the freedom
of movement is easier just because Idon't know, well, literally, you're

(20:02):
not singing as much as solo.Like that was the weird thing for me.
I'm like, oh right, Ican watch also well, And that
was going to be my next questionis how different is it from when you
perform solo too, when you're witheach other and you just answered that it's
just better, just better. Itis better. Yeah, I mean,
I love my band, but it'smy name, but it's yeah, it's

(20:23):
your first name, last name.It's not about the band. I like
being a part of something more thanbeing something in general all right and our
sixteenth heavy thing said by Lucy.No, I agree, Phoebe. You've
opened some shows for Taylor Swift andLucy and Julian. You even joined Phoebe
for some of those shows. Whatare these shows? Mental? I mean,

(20:45):
I haven't seen it yet. Itlooks freaking insane. It's a sight
to see. It's so many people, it's like no one, Yeah,
exactly, Like I don't think nervesreally are a fact or because it just
stops being anyone. Well. Also, like Phoebe was the opener and then
we were a surprise levels removed fromexpectation, and yeah, I was weirdly

(21:10):
not nervous, and I was like, am I just associating? No?
Are you more nervous do you thinkfor your own shows than? Yeah?
I can see that. Also,Taylor is just a joy to be around.
And she's on stage for like threeand a half hours, singing full
voice the entire time. It's insane. So so being a baby in any
way around her is like impossible.Also, you're not the most You're not

(21:36):
the headline of the Taylor Swift show. So I'm like, oh, I
hit that flat knowne and cool aboutit. It's like, guess what,
no one remembers the Era's tour.Yeah, seeing her handle everything with grace
is really rad. Yeah, youknow, just like I've seen like indie
rock dudes crumble at like like they'reheadlining a festival and they like act like

(22:00):
a baby all day. Not fromnerves. I totally sympathetic nerves, but
like be a brat and like yellat someone backstage because you're stressed, or
like, yeah, I've seen thathappen so many times, and I'm like,
calm down, Taylor. Taylor's walkingoff stage and like being a human
and so kind and cool and yes, I also want to say this that
show like watching the Era's performance,like, well, I've never seen Taylor

(22:23):
Swift performed before, but I waslike, oh, this is actually so
big of a deal to so manypeople that it is pushing the like commodity
of music in the music industry.It's so ubiquitous that it is now just
culture and it's almost it's like sounique in the way that you can't It's

(22:45):
like if she were Sully from Monsters, Inc. And we were like,
if we were gonna do the capitalistthing and evaluate like the success of what
she does on like Bottled Joy seven, the noise of seventy thousand kids getting
their life is undeniable. She's making. It's outside of a capitalist space,

(23:08):
it's outside of an economy. Itis a gift. It's like a thing
that she does. And also shecame into it at the door that she
was in and it is like givingevery like she's actually subsumed in giving everything
to all these people. It's solike she's making music popular. She's making
like people pick deep cut songs likestuff that we used to do with like

(23:30):
hardcore bands, but for pop.Yeah, it's truly unique. Like the
place that she holds in society,she just completely invented for herself. I
also, like I like to thinkabout the Picasso effect, like like Picasso
was good at rendering things and thenall the stuff that people are like my

(23:51):
kid could do that was a choice, you know, whereas like you have
like this sick beat, but thenthere's these other lyrics, like she's such
a great lyricists, and watching likeeleven year olds with their mom's sing along
full voice to these actually kind oflike deep and profound and emotionally aware.
I'm like, are are these girlsgoing to grow up being like emotionally better

(24:12):
because of their right understanding. Materialanti Here is like the is like the
top song on Spotify, and ithas two lyrics that are like, is
there such thing as a selfless act? Out of publicized altruism. It's so
great to hear you, all threeof you speak so highly of another woman
who You're right. She's doing it, she's putting in the work, and

(24:33):
she's one of the hugest, hugeststars in the world. Yeah. Here
in my husband and is a dynamicperson. It's just cool. Yeah,
it's cool. Yeah, thank youfor being on the show tonight, boy
genius, thank you so much,Thank you for being on the show.
Of course, is the voice thefemale musicians that are creating tomorrow sound.

(24:53):
He is the voice on All ninetyeight seven, eli's new alternative