Would Father John Misty covering the Backstreet Boys for a Chipotle commercial be peak hipster?
We'll never know for sure, but it turns out it almost happened!
In a recent commercial for the burrito chain, My Morning Jacket's Jim James and Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard covered 'I Want It That Way', but according to Father John Misty (aka Josh Tillman), he was offered the gig first.
Said Tillman during a Newport Folk Festival set: "I just got asked to do a Chipotle commercial not that long ago. I'll tell you this: They were going to pay me a quarter of a million dollars to sing 'I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys".
"Yup. That’s my life", he quipped.
Tillman seemed disgusted by the idea of selling out, however, telling the crowd, "I was like, cool, so then I could just buy, like, two Cadillacs and crash them together. I don’t want your fucking burrito money".
Father John Misty has been outspokenly cynical about the role of entertainment in contemporary society.
At WXPN's XPoNential Music Festival last Friday, Tillman performed just two songs: an improvised ten-minute piece and a cover of Leonard Cohen's 'Bird on a Wire'.
He spent most of the set ranting that "stupidity just runs the fucking world", complaining that entertainment numbed and sated the masses, and requesting the crowd "just take a moment to be really fucking profoundly sad".
He later seemed to suggest via Instagram that he was angry about the recent Republican National Convention and "the demonic clown pageant coronation of our next potential idiot king".

Point of the Chipote story was a discussion on whether folk music is good for anything anymore other than just the selling of things

— FARMER JAH MISERY (@fatherjohnmisty) July 26, 2016