Bartees Strange is a genuinely unique artist. This kind of hyperbole is common in music industry promotion but in Strange’s case, it’s actually true. His career to date has been an exercise in ripping-up the rule book, his adopted surname utterly, poignantly appropriate.
Born in England to an opera singer mother and a military father, Bartees Strange grew up largely in Oklahoma. He was the oldest child of a Black family living in a white, working-class community. As a teenager, he became aware that he was feared but also fearful, quietly coming to terms with his queerness. A lifelong music obsessive, he played in a succession of hardcore bands in Brooklyn and Washington D.C. by night, while by day working as a campaign strategist in the Obama administration.
He was 30 – positively geriatric by music industry standards – when he released his first EP and started to attract attention. Even then, he dared to take risks, choosing a collection of covers of The National tracks (his favourite band) rather than his own music. Devoting himself to music full-time, he went on to release two solo albums: the well-received “Live Forever” (2020) and critically acclaimed “Farm to Table” (2022).
Musically, and particularly as a Black, queer male artist, Strange resists any genre boxes. Both his previous albums range over indie rock, hip-hop, jazz and everything in between. His style has been described as “Black Americana”, but that seems inadequate when taking in his work. Perhaps the closest definition of his sound is “big”: big, emotional declarations and messages, arresting vocals, powerful choruses and instrumentation, live performance that packs a punch. It has won him many admirers: his praises sung by the likes of Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, support slots with his heroes The National and Japanese Breakfast. He is an artist’s artist.
On third album “Horror”, co-produced by Jack Antonoff, Bartees Strange builds on all that’s made him beloved, whilst getting closer to the difficult elements of his past and identity he previously shied away from. The “horror” of the title refers to both his own fears and experiencing himself as a person to be feared. Drawing on disparate influences from music he loved as a child – Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Parliament Funkadelic and many more – it’s a startling and powerful piece of work.
Bartees and I talk over Zoom on a sunny winter’s day. He is at home in his beloved Baltimore, a place with particular significance on “Horror”. He is warm, engaging, eager to talk about how proud he is of “Horror” and sticking to his convictions to make what he feels is his best album. However, our conversation also takes in darker aspects, including the current political situation in the US and why he needed to make this album at this point in his life.
“Horror” is a hugely significant project for you, that you’ve worked on for a long time. How do you feel now it’s about to be released?
I feel good! I’ve worked on this record longer than I’ve worked on anything else and I really care about it. I love it. I’m really excited for people to hear it.
It’s the best kind of album, where you listen once and even though you can’t really remember the melodies yet, you remember they were great, and you can’t wait to go back in again!
I started this record the same time I started “Farm to Table”, and I wasn’t sure where the songs were going to go. I was just kind of writing, and I saw a natural break. I wrote “Heavy Heart” (from “Farm to Table”) and “Sober” (a lead single from “Horror”) in the same day and I thought: these kind of feel the same but it’s a very different direction. And then came “Too Much” (the third single from “Horror”) and “Hit It, Quit It” and I was like: Ok, “Farm to Table” is one thing, but then there’s this other thing that’s scarier and uglier and more raw, and I’m not really ready to touch that yet. I want to do this other stuff first. So I made “Farm to Table” and I came back to “Horror” as soon as I’d put it out.
The title is really arresting. I didn’t want to go straight in by asking how much that deals with questions of being Black and being queer. But speaking as another queer person, it feels like such an obvious thing to talk about. Straight people don’t have to talk about being straight all the time, white artists don’t get asked about being white! How do you feel about these kinds of questions dominating in interviews?
I don’t mind. I feel like I’m always talking about it within my music. My race and my orientation are the backdrop to everything I make. But it isn’t the most interesting thing about everything I make! I’m always down to talk about it but I appreciate you being thoughtful around that! That’s very nice! No one ever is! So thank you – I appreciate that! (laughs)
In the promotional material released so far for the record, you talk about being young, queer and Black in rural America and the fear that was connected with that. Also horror stories and the idea of telling yourself horror stories to toughen yourself up for an inhospitable world.
I think a lot of people can relate to this, even if you’re not queer or Black. My parents are Black people from rural Southern America. They grew up at a time of a lot of chaos and racial tension, and their parents grew up in a time of even more chaos and racial tension. So when my parents had me and my brother and sister and they were teaching us life lessons on how to survive, everything came from this backdrop of fear. The founding principle was: no matter how successful you are or how much you gain, it can all be taken away from you because of who you are. You feel like you never really have control over your life. When I was a kid, that was the scariest thing in the world.
I lived in an all-white, rural town that had a history of racial violence and I experienced racial violence. I lived near people who were in the Ku Klux Klan, people who had family members who were dangerous people, and you never knew who was watching or what could happen. You had all these rules from your parents that were like – never go on this side of town, never date this family, never talk to these people. And I was the oldest, so I was looking after my brother and sister. In a way I was “parentified”. I was like a small adult who was trying to navigate the world and have fun and take care of my siblings, and I was finding out that maybe I wasn’t straight, which was something I didn’t know how to talk about when I was a kid in rural America, figuring out all these other things.
“Horror” is kind of about how, when that is the backdrop, you start to grow up and you’re faced with all these challenges of being an older person, like intimacy, finding out where you want to live, friendships, how you’re going to make money, retirement! Now, these are the horrors and the big things that are defining my life and things that I can trace back to when I was a kid, where the fear of those things began.
I’m 35 years old now. I’ve had a lot of therapy and a lot of time to process things, and I still make mistakes, and I try to fix them. I try to move through the world in a way that’s thoughtful. But I’m still scared. This record is me kind of laying out these things that scare me, in hopes of showing other people that we’re all kind of scared of these things – these big questions in life that we’re all facing. I guess this is me trying to connect with people on that level. These horrors are things that we’re all facing and we can overcome, but it’s real. These are the real horrors.
You recorded this album, and since then there’s been the US election and all the fall-out from that. I hesitate to ask my American friends how they’re feeling, because I know it’s really painful for them. The track “Baltimore”, where you’re thinking your way around America and wondering, where can I safely bring up a Black child: I found that really affecting, especially now.
That’s one of my favourite songs. And that’s why I live in Baltimore. That’s why I live here. You know, America’s a shit-show and it always has been. And I feel like when you’re Black, when bad things happen here, you kind of look at each other like, “Well, we know. We know the truth.” And we’re watching our white colleagues, and our white friends see the truth, finally. And that’s always an interesting conversation. And now I feel like we’re about to have another four-year period, where so many people of color in America are like, “yeah, this place is a mess”. And we’ll be telling that story again with the hopes of creating something that’s a little better for everybody, but we’ll have to survive this next four years, which is going to be a trip.
You’ve always been a very diverse artist. I genuinely think there isn’t another artist out there, who is even halfway like you! I find it really interesting, how even within your songs, they will start in one place in terms of genre and end up entirely in another. “Too Much” is a real example of that. How would you categorise your own music?
I dunno! It’s just music! I’m an artist – I just make what I like and – for better or worse – I try not to tie myself to any one thing. I like everything and I’m influenced by so many things. It all just kind of comes out that way.
I really hear that! I felt I could hear Prince, even Outkast in a couple of tracks!
You’re probably talking about “Doomsday Buttercup”!
Yes! The electronic tracks too – they’re actually my favourites! “Doomsday Buttercup” and “Lovers” as well. I think is fantastic! I can imagine that absolutely going off on a station like BBC Radio 1!
It was so hard picking singles. It was impossible! I was like: “I dunno. These are my favourites”. You’re right – every song is different. “Lovers” is a knocker. That song is great. I love it! I hope BBC does do something with it when it comes out. We’ll see!
I hope they do! I have to ask you about Jack Antonoff. Did he work with you on the whole album?
I produced most of the record and then I met Jack. So he helped me. There are five or six tracks on the record that we co-produced. I met him at a festival, and we just hit it off. He asked me what I was working on and I told him, “I think I just produced this album that’s pretty good but it’s like 80% and I don’t know how to get a couple of these tracks over the hump. There’s more but I don’t know how to get it”. So he was like, “Why don’t you bring them over to the house?” So we worked together. I thought I was going to turn the record in and then I was like: “Let’s just keep working!”. So we played with it for another year.
I saw a comment on your sub-Reddit from someone that was like: “New Bartees album!” and a massive smiley emoji. And then they wrote: “Produced by Jack Antonoff” with a really sad face… Jack is a divisive figure isn’t he? There can be a perception that all the records he produces end up sounding like the artist has been “Antonoffed”. What was your experience like of working with him?
It was cool, mostly because he didn’t take over! He just let me do what I wanted. I produce a lot of records, and he likes my production, and I like a lot of stuff he does. When I didn’t like something he did, he was really chill about us not using it. There were entire productions where I was like, “No, I’m going to keep my version!” And we did! I’m not gonna say which ones. (laughs) He would be like, “Ok, I like mine better” and I would be like, “Well, I like mine better, so it’s all good!” (laughs) It’s funny – with anyone like Jack, who has so much success and talent, everyone will have an opinion. I knew when I was working with him that some people would have a preconceived idea of what this record is because of Jack. But I think when they hear that first song, they’ll realise that “Horror” is maybe a very special collaboration, and not a Jack Antonoff-produced record. It’s wild, and Jack’s never made anything remotely close to this.
Talking of other aspects that make you unique as an artist: you’re very unusual in that you had a stable, grown-up job and you gave it up to be a musician. Usually, the reverse is the case, and artists are getting pressure from their families to give it up and take the sensible, stable job! How has your previous career influenced your work?
Well, one thing I would say is – I worked in campaign planning and strategy, so I’m really good at planning and seeing when a plan is good. And I also understood money when I started in the music industry. I knew $10,000 wasn’t a lot of money, that $50,000 wasn’t a lot of money really, in the grand scheme of a life and a salary and insurance and a mortgage and car payments, and so on. So when it comes to negotiating and creating a plan for a music career, I had realistic figures and that’s helped me sustain my life to this point and hopefully for the next while, till I make the next plan!
I don’t really have a fairytale version of my vision. I know that for this to work, I need to make X amount, and it’s very strategic, I guess. Also, I don’t think anyone’s really born to do anything, whether it’s being a musician or being President. I know a lot of janitors who can sing better than anyone I’ve ever met, I know a lot of people that write press releases every day, who are better drummers than a lot of drummers I’ve played with. It’s just kind of how people spend their time and there’s all sorts of factors and stressors that make people choose more or less risky lifestyles. I feel grateful that I had a good combination of risk aversion and risk taking and plan-making to triangulate it into this thing I really like doing.
Sometimes third albums can be seen as decisive points in an artist’s career. Do you see “Horror” in that way? Did you ever feel there was an element of risk in making it?
Not really. I’m sure this is my best album. I love my other albums, but I think this one really smacks. It’s also the first album I’ve made where if people didn’t like it, I’d be like, “Well, you’re wrong! You should listen to it again!” (laughs) I really do believe it’s special.
I think it is too. You have this really interesting expression in the album promo that it was about dressing the songs in clothes that instill fear. Is that related at all to the cover art?
With the cover art, it’s probably more about erasing myself, getting out of Bartees and more into Strange. Leaving me out of it – it’s about these scary things, not about me.
The cover image is really arresting, with you in an elegant, huge black gown and then the red horror font of the title. It’s quite a juxtaposition between those two elements.
I feel like the record has a lot of juxtapositions across it. It’s like pretty things and ugly things, soft sounds and rough sounds. It’s all the way up or all the way down. That’s the dynamic of the album and that’s why I like the cover too.
So what next in the world of Bartees Strange?!
I’ll be touring the album throughout 2025, which is really exciting. And I produced a bunch of records that will all come out in 2025! I’ve been producing a lot, which is cool! I’m always working, really. I just keep busy!
