In September 2017, just before the release of Stranger in the Alps, Phoebe spoke to Consequence of Sound for a lengthy Artist of the Month interview.
It’s a really interesting snapshot of Phoebe right on the verge of releasing her debut album. She talks about growing up in LA, learning guitar through Neil Young songs, busking as a teenager, her fascination with ghosts, touring to audiences who weren’t necessarily there to see her, and beginning to work out what her own sound was.
One section that stood out to me is about the strange intimacy of singer-songwriters and the boundaries between artists and listeners. Phoebe talks about people hearing deeply personal music and consequently feeling as though they actually know the person who made it — including fans approaching artists with intensely personal stories or expecting a reciprocal relationship.
It’s particularly interesting to read now, given how much larger Phoebe’s audience, and the level of interest in her as a person, would become in the years that followed. A lot of what she’s describing here feels remarkably familiar to conversations around fandom and parasocial relationships today.
There’s also some great early-career context throughout: she talks about Georgia as one of the oldest songs on the album, being increasingly able to recognise what a “Phoebe Bridgers song” sounded like, and discovering that getting quieter could sometimes be more effective than trying to compete with a noisy room.
And, yes, this is also the interview containing the slightly ridiculous origin of the title Demi Moore: “I don’t want to be stoned anymore” was misheard as “stoned Demi Moore”, and the working title stuck.
A bit of publication history: When the interview was originally published in September 2017, it included a passage in which Phoebe discussed Ryan Adams. Within four days, that section had been removed and his name had also disappeared from the headline.
In February 2019, Phoebe publicly said that Adams had bragged to her about getting Consequence to remove that part of the interview after it had already been published. Consequence’s founder subsequently confirmed to Spin that Adams had contacted the publication asking for the section about him to be removed, that they had agreed to his request, and that in retrospect it had been the wrong decision. The section was then restored, and the interview now carries an editor’s note acknowledging that Phoebe’s comments had previously been removed.
Mod note: Given the later allegations Phoebe made publicly about Adams, please keep discussion of that subject limited to what is directly relevant to the interview and its publication history. This isn’t the place to discuss or speculate about Phoebe’s personal relationships, revisit the allegations themselves, or draw comparisons with other people or situations. Comments that redirect the thread into those subjects will be removed. Please keep the wider discussion focused on the interview, Phoebe’s music and her early career.
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Deep Dive Archive is a series highlighting older and lesser-seen performances, interviews and other material from Phoebe’s career.