By 
Josh Tillman—aka Father John Misty—has either added an exceptional tailor to his touring entourage or mastered the art of beating the shit out of a suit. Either way, it's fitting, as the man and his music can take what he dishes out without getting torn to shreds in the process.
Tillman favors a uniform of slim-cut trousers, a button-down shirt, and an open jacket for his performances, with inky wool and cotton welcoming every speck of dirt, dust, and grime to his lanky frame. He collects plenty of filth when he drops to his knees, rolls around on his back, or scales the nearest light rig—as he tried to do at Governors Ball in 2015, the dust chalking up his calf and shoulders in the process. Blazers aren't cut to accommodate the sudden flailing fits he's prone to, let alone the sweep that brings the microphone stand from the floor to his shoulders, or the spasms that erupt when his band fills out the measure of a robust instrumental break. Yet he can seize and writhe and splay his limbs without hulking out mid-flourish or warbling out of tune.
This Tillman—the artist at work—is the Father John Misty people like, a quality overshadowed in the weeks leading up to the drop of Pure Comedy, his third full-length album and his most successful and divisive work yet. Pure Comedy ushered in a series of career highs for Tillman since its April 7 release, thanks to its debut at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Alternative, Americana, and Top Rock Albums charts. He was the toast of late night TV, from Saturday Night Live to The Late Show and The Tonight Show, and both a mainstream-endorsed collaborator of choice and a muse thanks to his writing credits on two of 2016's most championed albums, Beyoncé's Lemonade and Lady Gaga's Joanne. Lana Del Rey's latest output, "Coachella Woodstock on My Mind," was inspired by a set of his at the desert festival last year.
But the musings of this Tillman are also, frankly, tougher to swallow than the LSD he's microdosing, and some consider it a chore to reconcile Pure Comedy's mouthy cynic of a narrator with the one delivering a flawless performance onstage, a man whose talent absolutely outweighs the jokes he tweets and the occasional bouts of bitter banter that make headlines when people demand that he shut up and sing. He was posed to go from being your favorite pop star's favorite rock star to a fully fledged pop-rock luminary in his own right, even if this triumph came on the back of an acerbic album that takes them—and humanity at large, himself included—to task. (This tendency to bite the hand that appears to feed him isn't new: He's unfiltered on the topic of the pop machine, and dubbed Bey and Co. industry "prisoners" in a chat with Pitchfork; his feelings for the corporatization of major music festivals were similar back in 2013, when he let Esquire tag along with him for an hour or two at Bonnaroo.)
The New York Times dubbed Pure Comedy "an ideal album for the era of outrage" for the merciless eye it turns toward its 74-minute spool of political, social, and cultural commentary, but its status as such took shape long before its April 7 release.
His first two albums—2012's eclectic, folk-rock favoring debut, Fear Fun, and 2015's I Love You, Honeybear, an eleven-song love letter to his marriage—made for less challenging listens, in that they didn't delight in directly confronting the listener and weren't so disturbingly weighted in the clusterfuck of our current national crisis. Fear Fun played with the figurative language of folk tales ("Only Son of the Ladiesman," for example) and fatalism ("Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings," the dark and gorgeous music video for which features a bloodied Aubrey Plaza chomping on flower arrangements at a funeral). Honeybear was autobiographical in scope, a volume culled from notes written by his wife, Emma, fond memories from the day they met, their honeymoon (as recounted in "Chateau Lobby #4 (In C For Two Virgins)"), and other snapshots from their romantic history. (These literally decorate the inner jacket of the album, and Tillman told me in 2015 that "all of my favorite lines of my songs are things that she's said.")
By focusing on sprawling storytelling and vignettes rooted in a life that's wholly his, Tillman was inviting strangers into his life on Fear Fun and Honeybear from a safe distance instead of forcing them to examine the most frightening forces shaping theirs, which is exactly his M.O. on Pure Comedy. On the latest album, he demands those listening to think long and hard about what they were hearing in today's cultural cacophony, one in which perverse celebrity worship ("Total Entertainment Forever") is paramount to the fate of this "bright blue marble orbited by trash" as we know it ("Things It Would Have Been Helpful to Know Before the Revolution"). He didn't offer a view into the void so much as cover his eyes and cannonball into it—and implored us to follow suit.
He did so in predictable fashion—eloquently, with absolutely exquisite arrangements that hit the ear as compact symphonies in some spots. But that didn't dull Pure Comedy's bite, a fact exacerbated by every single conversation he's had about the album to date. This, at times, even makes Tillman uneasy, as the bulk of Pure Comedy—which was written long before people went to the polls in November—got way too real in the wake of Trump's election.
"If your whole life you've been like, 'People are insane, entertainment is deeply suspect, and politicians are goons,' and then an event happens that confirms all of those things literally overnight—it's like some boy who cried wolf, but then the wolf actually shows up," he told Pitchfork. In a later conversation with Vulture, he again referred to this "collective traumatic event," and acknowledged how the context of Pure Comedy changed in ways he couldn't control: "I understand if people need a political album right now, so they look at my album and say, 'This is a political album. This is an anti-Trump album.' Of course a part of me is disappointed, because that isn't what I set out to do."
He also gets that they may need a messenger to shoot, and Tillman is an easy target in spite of the catharsis his live show provides—and that feeling conflicted, uncomfortable, or even pissed off by the album doesn't degrade its impact. The Father John Misty that people like succeeds in uniting those who love to hate him and hate to love him under the roof of the same venue: His shows present the blunt force prophecies of Pure Comedy without inspiring cries of Not All Listeners from those who feel intellectually slighted or talked down to. His set list reflects that, as half the show pulls from Pure Comedy with favorites from Fear Fun and Honeybear making up the latter half of the set. He reminds us that art doesn't have to please you in order to do its job, and "Total Entertainment Forever" is a triumphant spectacle and argument for exactly this.
Rolling Stone went so far as to draw comparisons to Bob Dylan with their positive critique of Pure Comedy, and the parallels are strong: The celebration of Dylan's genius and his lack of fucks given for hurt feelings in the face of political turmoil wasn't compromised by his unflinching commitment to being a bit of an asshole. But that was a different time, and Tillman is hyper-aware of being "another white guy in 2017 who takes himself so goddamn seriously," as he does with "Leaving L.A." (The tune is noticeably absent from his current set list.) So long as he continues to hurl himself into the oblivion of the present and the dusty lip of his stage, Father John Misty will continue to balance out every eye-roll by giving the people exactly what they want—and frequently what they need. Thankfully, he's dressed for the occasion.
