Like many musicians performing in Japan for the first time, Phoebe Bridgers’ visit to the country in February 2019 was a memorable one.
“I remember talking to some kids outside (signing records after a show) and feeling like a total pop star,” she laughs. “That was great.” She wasn’t quite that: Bridgers was a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter on the rise after her 2017 debut album “A Stranger in the Alps” marked her out as a serious talent.
But it wasn’t the easiest time. Bridgers had just bravely contributed to a New York Times article in which singer Ryan Adams was accused by several women of manipulative behavior, verbal and emotional abuse, grooming and inappropriate sexual conduct. “He f--ked with me when I was in my early 20s,” Bridgers tells me of her former partner and producer (her 2017 song “Motion Sickness” goes into detail).