Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Lucille Bridgers (born August 17, 1994) is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Her indie folk music typically centers on acoustic guitar and electronic production, with melancholic lyrical themes. She has won four Grammy Awards on eleven nominations.

Bridgers has performed music since her youth and was a member of Sloppy Jane. She released her debut solo album Stranger in the Alps in 2017, followed by Punisher (2020), both of which received critical acclaim. She is also a member of the supergroup boygenius, with whom she released a self-titled EP in 2018, followed by their debut album The Record and the EP The Rest in 2023. She was also a member of Better Oblivion Community Center with Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, with whom she released one self-titled album as well as two singles.

Bridgers has also been featured on tracks with Taylor Swift, the 1975's Matty Healy, The Killers, Muna, SZA, Kid Cudi, Christian Lee Hutson, Shame, and the National. Bridgers holds progressive political views, and has advocated and fundraised for various causes.

Early life

Bridgers was born on August 17, 1994, in Pasadena, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mother, Jamie, works in real estate and stand-up comedy, while her father was a film and television set builder. She has a younger brother named Jackson. Her parents divorced when she was 19 years old. She was raised in Pasadena, but also spent some of her childhood in Ukiah, California. As a child, she made extra money by busking at the Pasadena Farmers Market, and started playing guitar around the age of 13. After graduating from the Sequoyah School, she began studying vocal jazz at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts in 2009. She was later accepted into the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out after orientation.

Career

2014–2018: Early beginnings and Stranger in the Alps

Bridgers was a member of various groups while still in high school, including Einstein's Dirty Secret and Sloppy Jane, and frequently played shows around Los Angeles as a solo act. After deciding not to attend college to focus on her career, her growing presence in the L.A. music scene led to her befriending producer Tony Berg, who began working with her on her first album for free. Playing in an Apple commercial with Sloppy Jane had given her some financial security, so she planned to complete her record and then sell it to a label, rather than attempting to get signed first. This allowed her much more time and creative freedom to create what would become Stranger in the Alps. Around this time, Bridgers met American singer-songwriter Ryan Adams through mutual collaborators, and he put out her EP Killer on his label PAX AM. Bridgers also supported Julien Baker on her 2016 tour of the East Coast.

In January 2017, Bridgers released the single "Smoke Signals" and opened for Conor Oberst on his European tour. The two had met the previous summer at a secret showcase, organized by Oberst at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles. He and his Bright Eyes bandmate, Mike Mogis, contributed vocals and production to Stranger in the Alps. Bridgers joined The Joy Formidable and Ryan Adams for select dates on their respective U.S. tours before playing at South by Southwest in March 2017. In June 2017, Bridgers signed to independent label Dead Oceans.

She released her debut studio album, Stranger in the Alps, in September 2017 to critical acclaim. The album was produced by Tony Berg, Ethan Gruska and Rob Moose, all of whom would become consistent collaborators with Bridgers. To promote the album, Bridgers performed on CBS This Morning and the NPR Tiny Desk. Numerous songs from the record were featured in television productions throughout 2018, including Switched at Birth, Castle, Burden of Truth, Lethal Weapon and Trinkets, among others.

Bridgers has been referred to as a "serial collaborator", and has either been featured on or co-released tracks with: Lord Huron, Fiona Apple, Matt Berninger and the National, Andrew Bird, Manchester Orchestra, the 1975, Maggie Rogers, Kid Cudi, Taylor Swift, and SZA, among others. In addition, she has participated in full-album projects with Conor Oberst, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus.

2018–2019: Boygenius and Better Oblivion Community Center

In 2018, Bridgers teamed up with fellow indie singer-songwriters Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus to form the supergroup Boygenius, signed to Matador Records. They released three songs in August 2018 and subsequently announced an eponymous EP, which was released on October 26, 2018, to widespread acclaim. Pitchfork called the collaboration "magic". The band toured the U.S. in November, appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers and the NPR Tiny Desk.

On December 5, 2018, Bridgers released a Spotify Singles session recorded at Spotify Studios NYC featuring a performance of "Scott Street" and a cover of the Cure's "Friday I'm in Love".

Bridgers and Conor Oberst announced the formation of their band, Better Oblivion Community Center, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in January 2019. They released their debut album later that month through Dead Oceans. The band appeared on CBS This Morning, and Bridgers appeared for the third time on NPR's Tiny Desk series. Bob Boilen, creator of the Tiny Desk Concerts, said of their album: "It's that rare musical partnership where each injects vibrancy into the other's creative side."

2020–2022: Punisher

On February 26, 2020, Bridgers released the single "Garden Song" alongside its music video. In April, the 1975 released the song "Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America" with Bridgers, ahead of their studio album Notes on a Conditional Form, which features Bridgers on three tracks. She was slated to tour with them in summer 2020 before the tour's cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 9, 2020, Bridgers released "Kyoto" and announced on Instagram that her second album Punisher would be released on June 19, 2020. Bridgers released the album a day earlier than stated, stating: "I'm not [delaying] the record until things go back to 'normal' because I don't think they should. Here it is a little early." The album received widespread positive reviews. In July 2020, Bridgers released the music video for her single "I Know the End". While working on Punisher, Bridgers also produced Christian Lee Hutson's album Beginners, which was released on Anti- Records in May 2020. That September, she played to an all-virtual audience of 4 million at Red Rocks Amphitheatre as part of their Unpaused Concert Series. In October, Bridgers announced the formation of her own label Saddest Factory, an imprint of Dead Oceans.

While awaiting the results of the 2020 United States presidential election on November 3, Bridgers tweeted that she would cover "Iris" by Goo Goo Dolls if then-president Donald Trump lost. The cover, which was recorded as a duet with Maggie Rogers under the name Phoebe & Maggie, was released exclusively on Bridgers' Bandcamp page for one day only on November 13. The song received 28,000 downloads with proceeds going to Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight Action organization to promote fair elections both in the state of Georgia and nationwide. On November 10, Bridgers announced an EP of four reworked tracks from Punisher, entitled Copycat Killer, in collaboration with Rob Moose. Copycat Killer was released digitally on November 20, 2020. On November 23, she released a cover of Merle Haggard's "If We Make It Through December", with proceeds going to LA's Downtown Women's Center.

Bridgers garnered four nominations at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Alternative Music Album. In December 2020, she released a music video for the song "Savior Complex", directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and starring Paul Mescal. That same month Bridgers also featured on Kid Cudi's track "Lovin Me", on his album Man on the Moon III: The Chosen (2020), and sang backing vocals on two songs by Charlie Hickey.

Bridgers was a musical guest on the eleventh episode of the 46th season of Saturday Night Live, playing "Kyoto" and "I Know the End" and closing the performance by smashing her guitar on a fake stage monitor. On March 9, 2021, Bridgers released a second Spotify Singles session featuring a cover of John Prine's "Summer's End" and a version of "Kyoto" featuring vocals from Jackson Browne. In August 2021 it was announced that Bridgers would appear on The Killers' album Pressure Machine on the track "Runaway Horses", released August 13. That same month, she released a cover of Metallica's 1991 song "Nothing Else Matters"; the song appeared on the cover album The Metallica Blacklist released the following month as one of 12 covers of the song. She also provided background vocals on five tracks from Lorde's third album, Solar Power, released on August 20.