Father John Misty is a special talent. He has spent a lot of time honing his skills and has earned his stripes to become the star he is today. A journey that began over a decade ago has now reached a point where Father John Misty is his own man.

Who is Father John Misty?

To get a better understanding of Joshua Michael Tillman or Father John Misty, it is important to understand his roots and where he came from. Born into a devout Evangelical Christian family in a town called Rockville, Maryland, and being the oldest of four children, he describes his childhood as follows:

"It was the most suburban, bleached-flour kind of scenario you can imagine ? aside from the Messianic-Judaism, Pentecostal, speaking-in-tongues, getting-slain-in-the-spirit, having-demons-cast-out-of-you stuff. For my parents, heaven and hell were real. It's bizarre to contemplate eternal damnation as an eight-year-old."

He describes his childhood as ?culturally oppressive,? with his parents refusing to allow him to listen to secular music of any sort. This was hard for Tillman, because in his own words, he was a born skeptic. He never let go of his passion however and began harboring dreams of becoming a performer. He learned to play the drums at a very young age, and by the age of 12, he could play the guitar.

It wasn?t until he turned seventeen that he was allowed to purchase Bob Dylan?s ?A Slow Train Coming? by convincing his parents that Dylan was classified as a Christian artist. That record had a profound effect on Tillman who, soon after decided to drop out of the Christian college he was enrolled in to move upstate with a friend of his who was building a recording studio.

Journey Into Music

At the age of 21, Tillman moved to Seattle and became much more serious about his music career. He took a job in a bakery which enabled him to have enough time to spend nights in the recording studio, so that he could begin his solo work. His first break came when one of the demos he had recorded was picked up by Damien Jurado, a singer-songwriter from the Pacific Northwest. Within a year, Tillman was opening for Jurado on tour. This increased his exposure greatly and also allowed him to start handing out demos of his songs to a wider audience.

With the progression of time, Tillman started gaining the attention of the right people in the music industry. In 2006, he signed with the independent label Fargo Records and his first album to be properly distributed, Minor Works, was released. The record label also decided to re-release his albums I Will Return and Long May You Run, which were made up of songs from his earlier demo albums. The following year, another record label, Yer Bird Records, released a fourth and longer album by Tillman called Cancer and Delirium.

Tillman then signed with another independent record label, Western Vinyl. This saw the release of two more albums, Vacilando Territory Blues and Year In The Kingdom, in 2009. This was immediately followed the next year with the release of another album, Singing Ax.

In the period leading up to his becoming Father John Misty, Tillman was also a part of numerous indie bands.

The Birth of Father John Misty

Father John Misty was officially born in May 2012 when Tillman released the album Fear Fun. This album was a huge departure from any of his previous works and set the tone for the kind of music Father John Misty wanted to make.

In February of 2015, he subsequently released the album I Love You, Honeybear. Each of the albums he has released under this new moniker have been about him trying to demystify a number of subjects. As an artist, he has really come into his own. He is now on tour and will soon be hitting arenas all across the country. Grab your Father John Misty tickets and watch him rock the stage live.