MEET JULIEN BAKER, THE EMO-FOLKIE PHOEBE BRIDGERS “RIPS OFF”!

“I thought I was possessed by the devil.” JULIEN BAKER

PHOEBE BRIDGERS, who knows a thing or two about songwriting, is a huge Julien Baker fan. “Sometimes Julien’s music makes me want to go home and write, and other times it makes me want to quit music forever,” she tells MOJO. “By being in a band with her, I hope to divert attention from how much I rip her off.”

That band is Boygenius, the all-female trio that united in 2018 after US singer-songwriters Baker, Bridgers and Lucy Dacus co-headlined a US tour. Following a Boygenius EP and gigs, the band returned to their own individual pursuits. In Baker’s case, it was to her base in Nashville, and work on her third album. Little

Oblivions unflinchingly reflects on the traumas that have defined Baker’s young life to date, channelled through haunting melodies and her plaintive, country-lonesome voice. Baker’s first two albums, 2015 debut

Sprained Ankle and 2017’s Turn Out The Lights, were 95 per cent voice and electric guitar: a hybrid of folk and emo. Little Oblivions is no less intimate, but Baker has upgraded to soaring full-band arrangements. “I’d never before had more than a week to make a record, but I was able to workshop Little

Oblivions,” she explains. “Really, I just wanted drums – they felt good!”

Her love of drums stems back to 2005, when the 10-year-old Baker discovered Green Day. Despite a devout Christian upbringing, she was encouraged to express herself outside of religion, starting on her dad’s guitar. Following “an esoteric rabbit hole to punk and hardcore,” Baker eventually arrived at slowcore emo band Pedro The Lion.

“They were the first super-personal music I’d heard. I realised I didn’t have to express myself aggressively to be impactful. I didn’t want to scream.”

Baker nevertheless had good reason to scream. Though her parents and church accepted her homosexuality, “I couldn’t escape without mental baggage,” she says. “I thought I was possessed by the devil for being gay.” Alcohol and drug dependency only made it harder to accept herself. She left her home city of Memphis for Nashville to study audio-engineering, but remained committed to her first band, Star Killers (later renamed Forrister), a dream-pop vehicle for her revealing songs. When her bandmates couldn’t make a free recording session in Richmond, Virginia, Baker made

Sprained Ankle alone – and won a record deal.

After a very rough ride, Baker feels she’s finally getting to a better place. “One lyric that didn’t make

Little Oblivions, because the song didn’t fit, is, ‘I wanted so bad to be good when there is no such thing.’ That,” she says, “was a very freeing thought for me to start to believe.”

Little Oblivions is released on February 26 on Matador.