Los Angeles, CA · indie folk · chamber pop

Father John Misty

2 upcoming festivals

Josh Tillman's lounge-lizard prophet act — gorgeous orchestration, acid wit, and a crooner's delivery that sells every barbed line.

Father John Misty is Josh Tillman, a singer and songwriter who grew up in Maryland and released a series of quiet solo albums as J. Tillman while also drumming for Fleet Foxes. He adopted the Father John Misty name for Fear Fun in 2012, shifting into a looser, more comic and more self-implicating mode of writing.

Records including I Love You, Honeybear, Pure Comedy and Chloë and the Next 20th Century pair lush arrangements — strings, piano, 1970s soft-rock textures — with lyrics that move between romance, satire and long-form cultural complaint. He sings in a full-throated croon, and his live shows lean on that contrast between elegant backing and pointed, often uncomfortable material.

indie folkchamber pop