Bartees Strange Tickets

The idea for Bartees Strange’s new album Horror surfaced suddenly, at an inopportune moment, from somewhere deep within.

Strange had just released his debut album Live Forever, and was beginning to write and work on its follow-up Farm to Table, when he received a complete vision for a whole other album. It was a terrifying vision, dripping with bloody truths and gruesome vulnerability. “A record will grab me like that… I will just be living life and then – BOOM – all this music will appear to me and I know I have to record it.”, explains Strange.

But creating this album would involve opening a boarded-up door to a closet filled with everything from Strange’s life that he didn’t know how to address. At first, Strange pushed the calling aside and finished up Farm to Table, which was released to much critical acclaim, earning best-of nods from the likes of The New York Times, Rolling Stone and NPR Music.

However, it would not be long before Horror would rear its monstrous head again.

Bartees Strange was raised on fear. His family told scary stories to teach life lessons, and at an early age, Strange started watching scary movies to practice being strong. The world can be a terrifying place, and for a young, queer, black person in rural America, that terror can be visceral. Horror is an album about facing those fears and growing to become someone to be feared. Throughout the record, Strange lays down one difficult truth after another, all over a sonic pastiche of music he loved as a kid. His dad introduced him to Parliament Funkadelic, Fleetwood Mac, Teddy Pendergrass, and Neil Young. Those influences merged with Strange’s interest in hip-hop, country, indie rock, and house, culminating in a record that feels completely original.

Strange began Horror at his home studio and went hard on the production. He did a session with Yves and Lawrence Rothman who provided a rhythmic and sonic backbone for chunks of the record. Then Strange met Jack Antonoff at a music festival by chance and they became fast friends. Strange worked on some material for Antonoff’s band Bleachers, and Antonoff worked on Horror. The twosome finished the record together, working the songs raw, editing, arranging, and dressing them up in clothing bound to inspire fear.

Scary movies may have been the training ground for young Strange to practice facing fear, but for grown-up Strange, it’s crafting his genre-bending pop songs that manifest the perfect space to laugh in the face of Horror.