Outside Bands

Outside Lands Is San Francisco’s Most

Anticipated music festival of the year. The three-day fest combines everything that makes the city so rad: food, wine, and most of all, kick ass bands. We caught up with some of our faves to snap photos, talk shop and have a little fun.

You Guys Are Working on a New Album. How Will It Compare to Your First?

It’s going to have stuff that people have

come to know and love about Fitz and the Tantrums, but it’s a good two steps forward at the same time. There’s a little more ‘80s influence in there, a couple of synthesizers in there and maybe even a guitar this time!

What Do You Want Fans to Take Away From Your Performances?

We’re trying to have them to take away joy, The amazing experience I have when I go see a band I love that kills it onstage, and I feel

like I’m floating a foot off the ground...

that’s how I want our fans to feel.

Yacht

You’ve gone through several incarnations throughout your career, how did father john misty come about?

I got older. my ideas about writing and what I wanted to accomplish, and what only I can do as opposed to what I would like to be, all those things kinda changed. Ya know, at some point, the music started changing so drastically that it didn’t make sense to call it what I’d called it previously, which was my own name. If I had started writing now then I probably would have called it the Josh Tillman experience, but I had already used my name before, so...i like upheaval. There was something really thrilling about saying I’m gonna buck everything, everything I built, I’m going to destroy it and call it something completely different. It was symbolic.

What Were Some of Your Influences for This Album?

Before I started writing the album, I went on a bit of a “Fear and Loathing” road trip and I was getting pretty out there, and I started writing a novel that’s in the liner notes to the album. And during that process of writing that book, I noticed my real conversational voice was emerging and my sense of humor...things that had always been off limits in terms of writing music, because I wanted to be taken seriously, and I wanted to convince the archetype in my head that I was a serious and smart or whatever...i had so much more fun writing in my own voice than attempting to adopt a a “songwriter” voice.

So after I wrote [the novel], I started trepidatiously picking up a guitar again. Nothing was off limits and that was unbelievably invigorating because I had always previously been like “No, that’s not something J. Tillman would say...that doesn’t work with the aesthetic” and constantly having to navigate this minefield. With this, there’s nothing that’s off limits and that’s way more exciting to me.

What Do You Want People to Take Away from Your Live Shows?

I think that there’s something with the type of music I’m playing, rock and roll, country...it does something live that other types of music can’t totally evoke and that’s exhilaration­—I want people to feel exhilarated.

Geographer

We’re All

About Telling Stories Through Art. How Does Your Latest Album, “Myth,” Fit Into Your

Story?

Lyrically, it’s just where I was at the time, just thinking a lot about how confusing life is, and how no one seems to pay much attention to that on a day-today basis. So I was think about all the things that people do to unconsciously deal with that, and the fact that we live with a lot of “myths” in mind. We think that we live in a mythless society, that we’ve explained everything away with science, but really we still look to those impossible goals and things to comfort us in our

times of existential need.

And then musically, we just feel really proud of it..it shows how

we’ve grown, and our musical trajectory.

If you guys could sum up your sound in one senctence, what would it be?

Spacy...dark and vibey.

You Guys Are All Native New Yorkers— How Has That Influenced Your Sound?

You can do whatever you want in New York City, it’s really open. You really just have to work hard and you can use the city as your inspiration

When you say, ‘you can do whatever you want there,’ would you say you take the same approach with your music?

You have to do that with everything, ya know? this? is?

Then What Just Made You Guys Say, “Fuck It, We’re Just Gonna Do This”?

I think we were all best friends for a long time before this band and, the projects we were all working on, some together, some separate, just the stars aligned and it just worked out that we hung out every day anyways and we wanted to play music together.

Older projects had all sort of run their course, and then the timing was first. It all happened on January 1st, new band, new day.

What Were You Guys Trying to Get Across with Your First Album?

We’re trying to set a positive vibe. We felt it was an opportunty to do just whatever we wanted to do, so why not? We had already tried many things, and those were all great moments, but this was one time where we were just where we could do what we want.

W H at ’ S T H E Cr E at I V E Process Like?

We all just hang out and get inspired by each other. Listening to tons of records, figuring out which ones inspire us.

Jukebox the Ghost

Where did you draw inspiration for your latest record, “safe t r av el s ” ?

Songs are a funny thing; there’s never one source of inspiration. There’s a song on the reocrd that came from a depressed rumination about the nature of mortality, and then there’s a song on the record from hearing Katy Perry on the radio and thinking, “I want to write a song like that!” It’s all over the place, and sometimes embarrassing. You can’t control it.