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.
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've never taken the steps to be 'successful': I've never had a manager or signed to a publishing house.
It's a vanity to think that a legitimate shamanistic experience can be purchased.
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.
There's a lot of risk in putting what you suspect you really are into your music.
I play sad bastard music. For the money.
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.
My humor is my creativity, and my skepticism is a gift.
Love is just an institution...
I guess with the way that I've conducted myself I'm in the logical spot and I'm fine with that. Even my limited interactions with success have left me confused and bummed out, so I don't think the two can co-exist.
My idea of that[idea of career] is constantly changing. I mostly just throw it out to the universe and I can't really do much after that. I've never taken the steps to be "successful": I've never had a manager or signed to a publishing house. I've talked to people about it but I've never followed through because it gives me the creeps.