In early 2023, Bartees Strange found himself at a Grammys afterparty in the Chateau Marmont with Taylor Swift. He’d been working with Jack Antonoff, whom he’d met the previous year at All Things Go festival in Washington, D.C. “It was pretty random,” the rising singer-songwriter tells NME with a laugh via Zoom. “I was in line to get some food and I heard someone go, ‘Bartees! Bartees Strange!’”
He turned around to see he was being addressed by none other than Antonoff, A-list producer and friend to the stars, who declared himself a fan of Strange’s previous two albums, ‘Live Forever’ (2020) and ‘Farm To Table’ (2022). Antonoff even knew about the early hardcore bands Strange had performed with as a younger artist. “I was like, ‘Woah, woah, woah… Are you making fun of me right now?’”
To the contrary, they bonded over hardcore bands (Swift’s favourite producer is a Glassjaw fan, it turns out) and Antonoff soon invited Strange over to his house in New York. Far from being starstruck, Bartees asked his new pal for advice on the record he’d almost finished. “He loved it. He was like, ‘You could put this out as it is. Or we could just do one more layer. Let’s go back in on four or five [tracks] and see if we can just make it hit harder.”
That album, ‘Horror’ – released on Valentine’s Day, no less – is a kaleidoscopic, genre-spanning collection that speaks to Strange’s love of indie, hip-hop, punk and everything in between. We’re talking about a guy who has cited both 50 Cent’s ‘Get Rich Or Die Tryin’’ and Bloc Party’s ‘Silent Alarm’ as key influences. It’s little wonder that Strange found a kindred spirit in the similarly eclectic Jack Antonoff, who invited him to appear on his band Bleachers’ self-titled 2024 album.
When Antonoff picked up Producer of the Year, Non-Classical at the 2023 Grammy Awards (his second of three consecutive wins), Bartees naturally came along to the afterparty at Los Angeles’ most legendary hangout. The 36-year-old comes over a little bashful when we first grill him on the do: “Dude, it was crazy. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to say everyone [who was there]. I don’t know how that even works! I just know I was like, ‘I’m a pig in shit right now. This is a blast! I can’t believe I’m seeing this!’”
Weirdly, Strange’s screen freezes the second we ask if Swift was in attendance. Either he’s having us on so that he doesn’t have to answer the question, or Taylor’s power really does know no bounds. In the end, he admits that the pop superstar was indeed at the shindig: “She’s super-nice. The life of the party!”
In just a few years, then, Strange has risen from the New York underground to partying with the most famous woman in the world. It makes him feel like he’s taking a trip on The Magic School Bus, out visiting outlandish destinations: “I get to travel through this wild world… And then I go home and I’m like, ‘Wow! Crazy!’”
Bartees Cox Jr. was born in Ipswich, East Anglia, before moving abroad when he was “probably eight, nine – somewhere in there”. This is because his father was in the military, which meant Bartees and his siblings had a rather transient childhood, though the Coxes did eventually settle in Mustang, Oklahoma. His mother was a successful opera singer, performing in Europe and America, before she pursued a career in education to give singing lessons at the University of Oklahoma.
Her musicality clearly rubbed off on Bartees, who first courted indie success with ‘Say Goodbye To Pretty Boy’, a covers EP of songs by the National. It was released by Brassland, the indie label co-founded by the band’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner. There was a bit of careerism in the choice of material, he admits: “I didn’t not think about it. I was strategic and ambitious, and also really wanted to make that thing. I thought it would be cool. You know, it worked.”
Buoyed by the band’s warm reception to the record, he followed up with ‘Live Forever’, on which he combined anthemic indie guitar, downbeat electro and more. 4AD, home to the likes of Big Thief and Future Islands, as well as The National, came a-knocking for ‘Farm to Table’, which NME dubbed as one of the best albums of 2022. Tastemakers’ acclaim might have supersized his career, but also created pressure that he hadn’t fully anticipated.
“There’s all these people I’ve gotta take care of. I need to take care of myself, but there’s no time for that. There never seems to be enough time… and I’m gonna throw up,” says Strange. This sense of responsibility coincided with a hearty existential crisis – hence the album’s title. “As I got deeper in the music, it became this story about myself, getting older and realising that at certain points in your life you to have to face these fears you may have – whether they’re about yourself or your situation or whatever – in order to grow beyond those things and the best version of who you are.”
Opener ‘Too Much’, with its nostalgically fuzzy, ‘90s-style guitar, sees Strange give himself a good talking to as he celebrates his multiplicity: “It’s like you’re too rough to hold / Sometimes you’re heaven to touch”. The clubby ‘Lovers’ captures both the joy and blind panic of a new relationship, while the soft, acoustic-led ‘Sober’ sums up the temptation to drink away the raw reality of life. Bartees’ killer blow, though, is ‘Baltimore’, a keening country ode to his adopted hometown, which begins with the devastating line: “When I think about places I could live / I wonder if one’s good enough to raise a few Black kids.”
Before pursuing a career in music, Strange was a press secretary for the Obama administration. He’s been horrified by Trump’s return to power and the current political situation in the US: “Eight years ago, I might have been like, ‘OK, everyone, just hunker down and build and organise.’ But this is a little different. Trump not only is vindictive but is, admittedly, quite evil.”
Some suggested Trump was first elected, in part, due to a racist backlash against Obama, the first Black President in the White House. Might that explain Donald’s second Presidency, too? Strange’s response is immediate: “Hell yeah. And it’s just like how it’s always been: backlashes against Black success or a win for minorities, in America, are always extreme.”
“They don’t just hang you: they cut off your feet and they eat you,” he continues. “That’s what’s happening now. They don’t just wanna beat you; they wanna eradicate you. And that’s how it is for trans people, immigrants, women and Black people here. They don’t fight fair. By any means necessary, they’re gonna get their way. It’s a crazy time.”
It’s even more astonishing, then, that against this backdrop Bartees has not only faced his own fears, but found himself knocking at the door of the mainstream with his boldest statement yet. Strange days indeed.
Bartees Strange’s new album ‘Horror’ is out now via 4AD.