Phoebe Bridgers says she’s terrible at homework, but you’d never know it from the résumé. “I’m horrible with assignments, so I would never,” she laughs, talking about how her song “Sidelines” ended up in Conversations With Friends. Instead of a fresh composition, she just pulled a half-finished demo her drummer had started back in the early COVID days. “We finished it with this in mind, but barely. And it fit kind of perfectly, which rocks.”
It’s classic Bridgers: write a definitive line like I’m not afraid of anything at all and then immediately acknowledge how absurd that is. “Definitive statements about your feelings are always ridiculous,” she says. “Even with ‘Funeral,’ which is about always being sad—when you’re depressed you feel like you’ve never felt, or will never feel, any other way. Hopefully people find the humor in it.”
Bridgers has long leaned into imagery that toes the line between funny and bleak. The ghost sheet on her debut album cover, the skeleton suit on stage—it’s the sort of progression that invites over-analysis. Is she becoming a fully fleshed-out person? She laughs at the suggestion. “I’ve honestly never thought of it that way. Maybe my next character will just be a person with muscles. Blood and guts. Mr. Goodbody style.”
When she’s not touring in skeleton pajamas, she’s running Saddest Factory Records, her label that’s quietly become one of indie’s most enviable rosters. “I’ve been a MUNA fan forever. Saves the World is one of my favorite albums,” she says. “The opportunity to sign them was a no-brainer.” Her philosophy of A&R is refreshingly blunt. “I just have to like it. That’s pretty much it.”
Her extracurriculars tend to arrive in surreal bursts. She covered the Carpenters’ “Goodbye to Love” with Jack Antonoff for the Minions soundtrack. It wasn’t exactly a dream come true. “Jack sent it to me. It’s a great and very depressing song, so it made sense. But it was the wrong key for me, so he had to pitch down the entire track. I’ve never played it live. I doubt it’s even possible.”
Hollywood came sniffing too, but she’s not buying it. “I’ve tried acting a couple times. People want you to cameo in a movie, but I can’t even play myself,” she admits. “So I’ll stick to what I’m actually good at.”
Even with Punisher still clinging to “album of the decade” energy, she insists she isn’t rushing a follow-up. “I just want to take my time and put the next thing out when I really, really love it,” she says. “As much or more than the last one.” That’s a steep hill to climb, but she says it without flinching.
Not that she’s short on distractions. She played Louisville’s Forecastle Festival, she’s shepherding Saddest Factory, and she’s about to share a bill with the Rolling Stones. “It’s just one show,” she shrugs. “We could play the set in our sleep now. Even if people would like it more if we catered to them, we won’t. We’re just gonna play the set.”
The Stones are notorious for pulling their openers back out for a duet, but Bridgers is indifferent. “I’ll show up for whatever,” she says. “I don’t know how to rock in my voice, but yeah, that would be super fun.”
Her career, meanwhile, has become a collage of improbable collaborations. McCartney. Taylor Swift. Kid Cudi. “It’s easy when you’re a music fan and you like what you’re working on,” she says. “It would be exhausting to collaborate with people I wasn’t a fan of, but I haven’t had that problem yet.”
It’s a modest way of admitting she’s already played in the majors and keeps getting invited back. For someone who insists she’s bad at assignments, Phoebe Bridgers has aced just about every one that’s landed in her inbox.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the video below.
