Background

Joshua Michael Tillman was born on May 3, 1981, in Rockville, Maryland, United States.

Tillman was reared in a strict and turbulent evangelical Christian household, and, in many respects, his career is an elaborate, improvised rebellion against it. His mother, Barbara, grew up mostly in Ethiopia, the daughter of missionaries. His father, I.C., is an engineer at Hewlett-Packard. They met at a Christian youth group, in Maryland, when they were in junior high after I.C. had declared himself to be born again.

Joshua is the oldest of four children. He has a brother, Zachary, who is sixteen months younger, and two sisters, Kelci and Amanda, younger by seven and fourteen years.

He has always been game to talk about the household ban on secular pop music. When Joshua and Zachary were in high school, their father removed the car stereo, to keep them from listening on their drives to and from school. They picked up what music they could at friends’ houses or on a portable radio under the covers, and managed to sneak in a few CDs (Doc Watson, Bob Dylan) under the pretext that they were Christian rock. Josh remembers his father instructing him to smash a Red Hot Chili Peppers album to bits. All this left him, as he once said, with "a bazillion musical blind spots," and no real connection to the pop culture of the time. "I feel nothing when I hear Michael Jackson," he told in his New Yorker interview. "I never put the Smiths on."

Education

Josh’s education was an odyssey of religious and secular schools, he attended an Episcopal elementary school, then a small non-accredited Messianic Pentecostal Jewish school. There was speaking in tongues, laying on of hands, baptism by fire, slaying of the spirit - his first psychedelic experiences, in a way. He was told that he was possessed by demons. But, if he was possessed by anything, it was anxiety and fear of drama at home. "When I was a kid, like fourteen, I mastered the art of shutting down completely," Tillman told in an interview. "I was terrified."

Josh Tillman didn't give any thought to college. "I sort of assumed I was just going to pack up a bindle sack and start roaming the earth," he said. "My parents went crazy with rage." A member of their church was on the board at Nyack College, and helped get Tillman a spot.

"I can't even tell... how unhappy I was at this place," said Tillman about Nyack College. "Sex was not even within the realm of the possible. I was a virgin till I was twenty-two."

When Tillman dropped out of Nyack, in 2002, he hitched a ride to Seattle with a drummer he knew. He lived in the drummer’s brother’s basement. He donated plasma, worked construction, and washed dishes.

Career

In his early twenties, Josh Tillman worked at a bakery in Seattle by day and recorded his songs at night. He reportedly slept on floors, arranged acoustic paneling for bands, and handed out his self-recorded demo tapes to bartenders across Seattle.

One of Tillman’s demo tapes landed in the hands of an indie rock singer-songwriter, Damien Jurado, who gave him the opportunity to open for him at performances.

From 2001 to 2004, Tillman also performed with "Saxon Shore" on their albums "Be a Bright Blue" and "Four Months of Darkness." In 2004, Josh's first album, "I Will Return" was released.

In 2006, Josh Tillman met Eric Fisher, who produced his second album "Long May You Run" that was released by "Keep Recordings." Later that year, another label "Fargo Records" released Tillman's first properly distributed solo album, "Minor Works," and reissued "I Will Return" and "Long May You Run" as a two-disc set.

In 2007, "Yer Bird Records" released Tillman's more elaborately arranged fourth album, "Cancer and Delirium."

In 2008, Tillman became the drummer for Seattle folk-rock band "Fleet Foxes" on their tour of Europe and Australia.

In 2009, he signed up with "Western Vinyl" in the United States and "Bella Union" in the United Kingdom to release two albums "Vacilando Territory Blues" and "Year In The Kingdom." Tillman said he wrote the title track of Vacilando Territory Blues to describe imagery he associates with his move to Seattle.

In 2010, his seventh album "Singing Ax" was released.

Josh Tillman continued to tour with "Fleet Foxes" until early 2012 when he was promoting their album "Helplessness Blues." Later that year, he created the moniker "Father John Misty" and released the album "Fear Fun" under that name, which many claimed was influenced by hallucinogens and drug use.

In 2013, Tillman worked on American musician, Kid Cudi's, album "Indicud." He also gave the soundtrack for a short film directed by his wife, "The History of Caves," and penned a lengthy essay on Damien Jurado's new album "Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son."

In 2014, Tillman toured with the singer Lana Del Rey on the North American leg of her "Paradise" tour.

In 2015, he released a widely acclaimed concept album "I Love You, Honeybear" that had a lot of his personal life experiences. He also did covers of some Taylor Swift songs that received much press coverage.

In 2016, Josh was featured in Lana del Rey's music video "Freak" and was part of a song by the Australian rock group "The Avalanches." He made headlines when he stopped mid-performance at the "XPoNential Music Festival" and delivered a speech on the numbing role of entertainment.

In the first half of 2017, he continued to release singles, which culminated in the release of his album "Pure Comedy" in April that was followed by the album world tour.

In June 2018, Tillman released his next album "God's Favorite Customer," where he spoke about his battle with depression and nervous breakdown. He acted in a film, "Hotel Artemis," as a bank robber, and released a song "Gilded Cage" that was part of the film.

Achievements

• Josh Tillman is a world-famous singer, songwriter, and musician. He began his solo career in 2004, after working in indie rock bands such as 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. He also took part in recording albums of such popular artists as Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Kid Cudi.
  
  Tillman recorded 12 solo albums: Untitled No. 1 (2003), I Will Return (2004), Long May You Run, J. Tillman (2006), Minor Works (2006), Cancer and Delirium (2007), Vacilando Territory Blues (2009), Year in the Kingdom (2009), Singing Ax (2010) - as J. Tillman; Fear Fun (2012), I Love You, Honeybear (2015), Pure Comedy (2017), God's Favorite Customer (2018) - as Father John Misty.
  
  Josh Tillman has received various awards and nominations throughout his career including the Grammy Award for Best Recording Package, in 2018, and UK Music Video Award for Best Rock/Indie Video - International, in 2017.
  
  

Works

More photos

• music

  • I Will Return 2004
  • Long May You Run, J. Tillman 2006
  • Minor Works 2006
  • Cancer And Delirium 2007
  • Vacilando Territory Blues 2009
  • Year In The Kingdom 2009
  • Singing Ax 2010
  • Fear Fun 2012
  • I Love You, Honeybear 2015
  • Pure Comedy 2017
  • God's Favorite Customer 2018
  • Helplessness Blues 2011
  • Be a Bright Blue 2002
  • Four Months of Darkness 2003

Religion

Tillman is an atheist, he is openly criticizing religion in many of his songs. But he still feels of the Christian culture, even if he's not exactly in it.

"For all intents and purposes, I am a Christian, in that you cannot really get it out of your system," he says. "It becomes your worldview... I had this realization that even if you become a fanatical anti-Christian, you're still living in the orbit of these principles. It's still a part of you."

Politics

Father John Misty's album "Pure Comedy," in its sardonic despair, was widely considered, on release, to be a commentary on the age of Trump, but it was written and recorded before Trump was elected, and its bemusement and scorn aren’t limited to any particular person or party. Tillman belongs to the school of thought that believes Trump is a symptom, the leader Americans deserve. The world is the way it is because this is the way we want it to be. Anyway, he readily acknowledges that the observations about our vanity, greed, and violence, the folly and absurdity of existence, and the fraudulence and hypocrisy of the media, politics, entertainment, and religion aren't exactly new.

In July 2017, a day after Trump accepted the Republican nomination, Tillman, coming off an all-nighter, took the stage at a festival in Camden, New Jersey, and launched into a harangue about the politico-entertainment complex. "Do we think our hilarious tyrant is going to be met with a hilarious revolution led by hilarious revolutionaries and the whole thing is gonna be, like, entertaining as fuck the whole time?" he asked from the stage. "I always thought that it was going to look way more sophisticated than this when evil happened." Someone called out, "Play a song!," but he kept going, a lot of it a paraphrase of the lyrics in "Pure Comedy," which was still months from being released. Eventually, he played "Leaving LA," which people mistook for ad-libbing, and a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on the Wire." Then he pulled a Yeezy and quit the stage, leaving his paycheck behind.

Views

"I grew up being told by psychotic adults that I was filled with sin, that my experiences didn't matter, and that I would die before I reached adulthood because we were living in the end times," said Tillman once. "I made a decision as a child that I would never let anyone tell me that I was invalid or inauthentic, or that my experiences were." This belief allows Tillman to be neurotically self-aware enough to know everything that's even vaguely problematic about his lyrics - but to not let it stop him from releasing the songs anyway.

"When I listen to music, I don't think about correct, prescriptive, how-to-live shit," he says, taking a shot at political correctness in the music world. "I think that life is messy and that human beings are insane. In some way, music demystifies the parts of us that we're most afraid of. When I was growing up, I was taught that a sexual thought equaled sexual deed, and the thing that really disturbs me about the current liberal environment is how eager liberals seem to impress upon you how infrequently they ever have an incorrect thought."

Quotations: "I think that life is messy and that human beings are insane."

"When I started with music, all I was looking for was to ensure I never had to live the life I grew up with. I wanted a foolproof exemption from pain and boredom. I wanted a life of constant amusement and leisure."

"Music is chaos. When I write songs, I'm opening the door to madness."

"People used to see things that disgusted them and say, 'I never want to see that again.' Now we've reached the point where we see things that are disturbing and revolting to us, but we want to see more and more of it."

"I'm not bamboozled by the fact that people are disgusted by me. I'm not my biggest fan either."

Personality

"People have been saying to me since I was a kid, 'I can't tell if you’re being serious or not.' Like how Eskimos have 12 words for 'snow,' I feel like I have 12 words for 'funny' in my mind," said Tillman once.

In his interview with The Boston Globe, Tillman said that fame made him "hyper-aware instead of self-aware," meaning it made it more difficult for him to learn about himself because he was being too self-critical. Misty also said he hopes to run a stationery store in 10 years and be completely away from the music business.

Physical Characteristics: Joshua Tillman is a 9ft-tall, charismatic man with a fierce intelligence, model good looks and the beard of a biblical character.

Tillman has been battling depression since he was a teenager.

Interests

• Reading

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Friederich Nietzsche, Albert Camus

• Writers

  Kurt Vonnegut , Richard Brautigan, Victor Hugo, Herman Hesse, Vladimir Nabokov

• Music & Bands

  Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, Erykah Badu, Björk, Lana Del Rey

Connections

Tillman is married to photographer Emma Elizabeth Tillman (nee Garr). They met in Los Angeles at the Laurel Canyon Country Store and were married in Big Sur. Emma has done photography for Father John Misty albums.

Father:

I.C. Tillman

Mother:

Barbara Tillman

Brother:

Zachary Tillman

Wife:

Emma Elizabeth Tillman

colleague:

Lady Gaga

Tillman worked with Lady Gaga on three songs from her album Joanne (2016): "Diamond Heart," "Sinner's Prayer," "Come to Mama."

Sister:

Kelci

Sister:

Amanda

colleague:

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter

Josh Tillman co-wrote Beyoncé's "Hold Up."

colleague:

Aubrey Plaza

In 2012, Parks and Rec actress Aubrey Plaza was the focal point in Tillman's video for "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings," the first music video under his new name Father John Misty.

colleague:

Macaulay Culkin

In April 2017, Tillman released a music video for "Total Entertainment Forever" off of his album "Pure Comedy," with Macaulay Culkin as the lead.

colleague:

Lana Del Rey

Misty starred in Lana Del Rey's music video, "Freak." He described working with Lana as a dream and said he would definitely like to collaborate with the artist again. Lana has long expressed her adoration for Father John Misty and his music, stating in a 2013 interview for Radio.com, ”I don't listen to that much new music but I actually really love Father John Misty, who kind of reminded me of my roots."

References

• Father John Misty's Official Website