Julien Baker and Mackenzie Scott are giggling about their new venture: country music. Baker, of course, is the indie star who makes up one-third of the supergroup boygenius, with Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Scott is better known as the singer-songwriter Torres. (They’re calling their collaboration, simply, Julien Baker & Torres.) The latter was listing off her favourite classic artists when Baker chimed in, admitting she enjoys “some of that new s***, though.” Especially, the “really ignorant” song “Hard to Forget” by Sam Hunt. “The first time I heard it, I was like, ‘This is an offence to nature!’” Baker laughed. “But the more I heard it on the radio, I was like, ‘I love this song.’” (I listened to the truly heinous 2020 hit after our interview, and it’s so catchy that it corrupted me.)
But there’s also genuinely good new country music, says Scott, pointing to The Highwomen, a female supergroup who released a lesbian ballad about a man hitting on your girlfriend – “If she ever leaves me, it won’t be for you,” sings Brandi Carlile, surrounded by close harmony. “I’m glad someone wrote that song – we were all thinking it,” Scott says, shaking her head. Baker agrees, then does her best deep-voiced impression of the man: “All the lesbians who’ve ever been out with their girlfriends have had some dude say, ‘Hey’.”
