Phoebe Bridgers

• 1. Introduction

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  Phoebe Bridgers ended her Saturday Night Live performance by smashing her guitar on a fake stage monitor. Moments earlier she had played "Kyoto" and "I Know the End" for a national television audience.

  Bridgers was born in Pasadena, California, on the 17th of August 1994. She is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Her indie folk music pairs acoustic guitar with electronic production. She has won four Grammy Awards on eleven nominations.

  That résumé raises questions the rest of this documentary will chase. How does a Pasadena teenager with a guitar reach that point? Why does she keep forming bands and trading verses with other artists? And what brings a musician back after a long silence?

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• 2. Busker To Debut

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  As a child, Phoebe Bridgers busked at the Pasadena Farmers Market to earn spare money. She began playing guitar around the age of 13. Her mother, Jamie, works in real estate and stand-up comedy. Her father was a film and television set builder. She has a younger brother named Jackson, and her parents divorced when she was 19. She was raised in Pasadena but spent part of her childhood in Ukiah, California.

  In 2009, after graduating from the Sequoyah School, Bridgers began studying vocal jazz at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. The Berklee College of Music in Boston later accepted her, but she dropped out after orientation. While still in high school she played in groups including Einstein's Dirty Secret and Sloppy Jane. She also performed solo shows around Los Angeles.

  Producer Tony Berg befriended her as her profile grew on the Los Angeles scene, and he started working on her first album for free. An Apple commercial featuring Sloppy Jane had given her some financial security. That cushion let her finish the record first and sell it to a label afterward, instead of chasing a deal. The patience bought her time and creative freedom, and the result became Stranger in the Alps.

  Ryan Adams, whom she met through mutual collaborators, released her EP Killer on his label PAX AM. In 2016 she supported Julien Baker on an East Coast tour. That same summer she met Conor Oberst at a secret showcase he organized at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles. In January 2017 she released the single "Smoke Signals" and opened for Oberst on his European tour. Oberst and his Bright Eyes bandmate Mike Mogis contributed vocals and production to the album. She also joined The Joy Formidable and Ryan Adams for select dates on their U.S. tours. In March 2017 she played South by Southwest, and in June she signed to the independent label Dead Oceans.

  Stranger in the Alps arrived in September 2017 to critical acclaim. Berg, Ethan Gruska and Rob Moose produced it, and all three became regular collaborators. To promote the record, Bridgers appeared on CBS This Morning and at the NPR Tiny Desk. Throughout 2018, its songs turned up in television productions including Switched at Birth, Castle, Burden of Truth, Lethal Weapon and Trinkets. That same year, she would team up with Julien Baker, whose 2016 tour she had supported, and a third songwriter.

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• 3. Boygenius and Beyond

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  In August 2018, Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus released three songs together as the supergroup Boygenius. The trio signed to Matador Records, and an eponymous EP followed on the 26th of October 2018. It drew widespread acclaim, and Pitchfork called the collaboration "magic". The group toured the U.S. in November and appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers and the NPR Tiny Desk. On the 5th of December 2018, Bridgers released a Spotify Singles session recorded at Spotify Studios in New York. It included "Scott Street" and a cover of the Cure's "Friday I'm in Love".

  Better Oblivion Community Center was announced on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in January 2019. It paired Bridgers with Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes. Their self-titled debut album came out later that month through Dead Oceans, and the band also released two singles. They appeared on CBS This Morning, and it was Bridgers's third visit to NPR's Tiny Desk series. Bob Boilen, creator of the Tiny Desk Concerts, praised the album: "It's that rare musical partnership where each injects vibrancy into the other's creative side."

  In January 2023, Boygenius reunited and announced its debut album, The Record. It was released on the 31st of March, led by the singles "$20", "True Blue" and "Emily I'm Sorry". An EP titled The Rest followed the same year. On the 1st of February 2024, the trio revealed at a secret show in Los Angeles that they were going on hiatus. They reportedly said they were "going away for the foreseeable future".

  The break did not dim the awards attention. Bridgers was the most awarded person at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, winning three for her work with Boygenius.

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• 4. Punisher Arrives

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  On the 26th of February 2020, Bridgers released the single "Garden Song" alongside a music video. On the 9th of April she released "Kyoto" and announced on Instagram that her second album, Punisher, would arrive on the 19th of June. She then put it out a day early. In her words: "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." Reviews were widely positive. In July she released the music video for "I Know the End".

  While working on Punisher, she produced Christian Lee Hutson's album Beginners, released on Anti- Records in May 2020. In September 2020, she played to an all-virtual audience of 4 million at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The show was part of the venue's Unpaused Concert Series. The following month she announced Saddest Factory, her own label and an imprint of Dead Oceans.

  On the 10th of November 2020, Bridgers announced Copycat Killer, an EP of four reworked Punisher tracks made with Rob Moose. It was released digitally on the 20th. The album also brought four nominations at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards: Best New Artist, Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Alternative Music Album. In December 2020, she released a music video for "Savior Complex", directed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and starring Paul Mescal.

  The pandemic had cancelled her planned touring, but not for long. The Reunion Tour opened in St. Louis, Missouri, on the 3rd of September 2021, and it ran into 2023.

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• 5. Serial Collaborator

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  Lord Huron, Fiona Apple, Andrew Bird and Manchester Orchestra all appear on a long list of artists who have shared tracks with Bridgers. Maggie Rogers, Kid Cudi, Taylor Swift and SZA are on it too. She has been called a "serial collaborator", and the label fits.

  The 1975 were early partners. In April 2020 they released "Jesus Christ 2005 God Bless America" with Bridgers ahead of their album Notes on a Conditional Form, which features her on three tracks. She was due to tour with them in summer 2020 on the Music for Cars tour, but the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled it. In December 2020 she appeared on Kid Cudi's "Lovin Me" from Man on the Moon III: The Chosen. She also sang backing vocals on two songs by Charlie Hickey.

  August 2021 brought a run of guest spots. She sang on "Runaway Horses" from The Killers' album Pressure Machine, released on the 13th of August. She provided background vocals on five tracks of Lorde's third album, Solar Power, released on the 20th. She also covered Metallica's 1991 song "Nothing Else Matters" for The Metallica Blacklist, which held 12 versions of that song. On the 7th of September she featured on Muna's "Silk Chiffon", released on Saddest Factory. Noah Gundersen's "Atlantis" followed in October. On the 13th of October, her version of Bo Burnham's "That Funny Feeling" opened at No. 2 on two Billboard digital song sales charts, Rock & Alternative and Alternative.

  On the 12th of November 2021, Bridgers appeared on "Nothing New" from Taylor Swift's re-recorded album Red (Taylor's Version). The song debuted and peaked at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100, her highest-placing entry on that chart. She later opened multiple shows on the U.S. leg of Swift's The Eras Tour. In May 2023 she opened and performed with Swift in New Jersey.

  On the 15th of April 2022, she released "Sidelines", featured in Conversations with Friends, a Hulu adaptation of Sally Rooney's novel. On the 8th of July she released a cover of the Carpenters' 1972 single "Goodbye to Love" for the Minions: The Rise of Gru soundtrack. Four days later, she was announced on "Stonecatcher" from Marcus Mumford's solo album, Self-Titled. In August 2022 came news that she would star in I Saw the TV Glow, an A24 horror film directed by Jane Schoenbrun. Emma Stone and Dave McCary produced it. In December she took the part of Sally at two of Danny Elfman's concerts of The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.

  On the 9th of December 2022, she appeared with SZA on "Ghost in the Machine" from the album SOS. The track earned her first Grammy, for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and it was the fourth she took home at the 66th ceremony. In February 2023 she joined the band Shame, a Dead Oceans labelmate, on "Adderall" from Food for Worms. The National's First Two Pages of Frankenstein, released on the 28th of April 2023, features her on "This Isn't Helping" and "Your Mind Is Not Your Friend". Her brother Jackson Bridgers directed the video for the second, and she appears in it. She joined the National again on the title track of Laugh Track, released on the 18th of September 2023. A 2026 film called Primetime is listed among her completed screen projects.

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• 6. Songs and Skeletons

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  Elliott Smith is the artist Bridgers has named as a favorite and as the biggest influence on her songwriting and production. Her song "Punisher" imagines meeting Smith if he were still alive. Her other influences include bluegrass music, Bright Eyes, the Replacements, Blake Mills, Tom Waits, Avril Lavigne, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, Taylor Swift and Nine Inch Nails.

  Critics have filed her music under pop, indie rock, indie folk, emo-folk, indie emo and indie pop. Acoustic guitar often leads, surrounded by atmospheric strings, studio production and electronic touches. Writers have called the result anxious, melancholy and haunting. Death, trauma, therapy, depression and strained relationships recur, undercut by dry wit and a straightforward delivery. Bridgers has spoken openly about her own depression and anxiety, and has sought therapy.

  Many songs trace real events. "Kyoto" grew from her relationship with her father. "Motion Sickness" is about Ryan Adams, with whom she started a relationship in 2014 while he was still married to the actress and singer Mandy Moore. In a 2019 report by The New York Times, Bridgers and six other women accused Adams of emotional abuse. "ICU" is about her relationship with Marshall Vore, her touring drummer, who co-wrote it, and the two remain friends and collaborators. She also dated Conor Oberst for four years. Paul Mescal was her partner from 2020 to December 2022, and she has dated comedian Bo Burnham since that month.

  Pop culture runs through the lyrics. Joan Didion's writing, ASMR videos, the television series Fleabag and the podcast My Favorite Murder all influenced Punisher. On the 15th of December 2021, she appeared on My Favorite Murder to discuss her hometown crime story, the murder of 16-year-old Marissa Mathy-Zvaifler at the Sunshine Theater. Critics have also praised her complex storytelling and vivid imagery, with "Garden Song" as an example.

  Both albums carry Halloween-style visuals. The cover of Stranger in the Alps shows a ghost, and the cover of Punisher shows a skeleton. She is known for wearing variations of a skeleton onesie, inspired by a reported love of "creepy and corny stuff". Away from the stage, she was a pescetarian for many years, which her school peers mocked, and she is now vegan. Her fans are often called "Pharbs", a play on the name Nicki Minaj's fans use, the Barbs.

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• 7. Causes and Convictions

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  In 2019, Bridgers, Fiona Apple and Matt Berninger rewrote Simon and Garfunkel's 1966 song "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night" for the present day. Their version touched on the murder of Botham Jean, the opioid epidemic in the United States and the testimony of Mick Mulvaney in President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. Bridgers is associated with American progressivism, and her music is only one channel for it.

  In 2020, as the George Floyd protests unfolded, she urged fans to give to racial justice charities through her website. Around the release of Punisher, she also called for the abolition of police. In October 2020 she performed at the virtual fundraiser festival "Village of Love", which benefited Planned Parenthood in Los Angeles and New York.

  On the 3rd of November 2020, while awaiting presidential election results, Bridgers tweeted a promise. If then-president Trump lost, she would cover "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls. She kept it. The duet with Maggie Rogers, released as Phoebe & Maggie, appeared on her Bandcamp page for one day only, the 13th of November. It received 28,000 downloads, and the proceeds went to Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight Action, which promotes fair elections in Georgia and nationwide.

  Covers became a seasonal habit. On the 23rd of November 2020, she released Merle Haggard's "If We Make It Through December", with proceeds going to the Downtown Women's Center in Los Angeles. On the 30th of November 2021, she released Tom Waits's "Day After Tomorrow", benefiting an organization that supports refugees and human trafficking victims in California. On the 18th of November 2022, she covered the Handsome Family's "So Much Wine" for the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Andrew Bird, Ethan Gruska, guitarist Harrison Whitford and her then-partner Paul Mescal supplied vocals. On the 28th of May 2023, her single "Waiting Room" came out on Bandcamp with all proceeds donated to Music Will.

  At SXSW in 2022, Bridgers and Caleb Hearon criticized Greg Abbott's position on gender-affirming care for children. They invited the progressive politician Greg Casar onto the stage. In May 2022, at a concert in Florida after the passage of Florida House Bill 1557, she repeatedly expressed disdain for Ron DeSantis. In September 2022, after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, she shared an Instagram post that mourned the victims of colonialism and called the monarch a war criminal.

  At Coachella in April 2023, Boygenius spoke in support of trans rights as states like Florida and Missouri proposed bills. Bridgers added a line backing abortion and swiping at DeSantis again. In a 2022 interview with Teen Vogue, she expressed disdain for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In May 2022, after the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion, she revealed that she had an abortion in October 2021 and said everyone should have that right. She is bisexual and an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights.

  At the 66th Grammy Awards, Bridgers called out Neil Portnow, the former president of the Recording Academy. She criticized his remarks about women musicians and pointed to accusations that he engaged in sexual violence. Her red carpet outfit, coordinated with the rest of Boygenius, included Artists4Ceasefire pins calling for a ceasefire during the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

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• 8. Roswell Return

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  Following the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, Bridgers said she planned to step back and take a break for the rest of 2024. The pause continued through 2025.

  On the 7th of May 2026, she was announced to be playing a show in Roswell, New Mexico, the following day. Flyers posted around town circulated online, and fans confirmed with the venue that the concert was real. Posters said no recording devices would be allowed inside. On the 9th of May, a show in Lubbock, Texas, was announced for the same night. Attendees at both concerts confirmed that Bridgers performed new music. On the 11th of May, she played another surprise show, in Little Rock, Arkansas.

  On the 1st of June, she announced a surprise concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City for the 4th of June. Tickets cost between $1 and $20, and the proceeds went to the Immigration Bond Freedom Fund of Community Justice Exchange.

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