A Band of Friends

Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus return as boygenius with their first fulllength studio album the record

- By David Chiu

The members of boygenius Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus-seem less like a supergroup and more like best friends who happen to be gifted musicians. Sitting together for an interview with Newsweek, there is a lot of joking and laughing between the three Their chemistry is evident on their just-released the record (Interscope Records), boygenius' first full-length studio album since their 2018 self-titled debut EP.

After touring together in 2018, the band members went back to their own busy solo careers: Bridgers released her 2020 album Punisher and in 2021, Baker put out her album Little Oblivions and Dacus released hers, Home Video.

"I think saying goodbye to each other felt like 'until next time' to me," Bridgers says. "Did you guys feel that? Did you really feel like it was the last time ever?"

Dacus says, "Like most big things in my life, I try to hold pretty lightly. And I was like, 'This is already too good to be true, and so I should just be grateful for what this was and not get my hopes up too much,' for sure."

A demo of a Bridgers' song, the beautiful "Emily I'm Sorry" got the ball rolling again in 2020 and a Google Drive was set up for the musicians to trade song ideas. "My record had just come out," Bridgers says, "and also COVID was happening. I had started writing a song and I was like, 'Oh, this is pretty clearly a boygenius song.' And I sent it to the boys. We had a lot of extra time on our hands to communicate, and then we all started adding to the Google Drive."