As consumers of art, one of our fondest delusions is that our artists are driven by a mad and insatiable compulsion to create, an inexplicable necessity to constantly expose themselves to our own prying eyes and ears. Of course, equivalent to our desire to believe this myth is our jilted and cynical resignation that most of the time, it simply isn’t the case, lest R. Kelly might spend his time making R&B recordings of questionable taste as opposed to video recordings of, er, unquestionable taste. So when a baby-faced indie-rock heartthrob from Omaha, Nebraska looks us in the face and tells us, “The few times in my life that I’ve had writer’s block have been the most horrible times—I need to write songs in order to feel normal and function, to exist in a way that’s normal,” we can perhaps be excused if we smile awkwardly and drop our eyes in mistrust.
But if we hear him out, we’ll be better for it. Conor Oberst hails from a musical family—his brother Matt is a member of the North Carolina-based Sorry About Dresden, and his father was a part-time musician (his mother, incidentally, is an elementary school principal). Conor has been writing and recording his own music since he was a prepubescent, started his own record label (the now-formidable
One of the brightest talents in a generation of performers burdened by the cachet of “Emo” (rock’s latest empty prefix, for those tired of keeping track), Conor Oberst’s knack for songwriting is staggering, as evidenced by his prolific output. However, as was the case with Dylan, Westerberg, Cobain, and the rest of Bright Eyes’ forebearers in the angsty cult of Young Men Too Smart For Their Own Good, the truth of the matter lies in the performance, where Oberst’s trembling voice tears and frays its way through his own gorgeous melodies. The music bursts with a simple and heartfelt legitimacy, and hurls indie rock’s growing by-the-scenesters-for-the-scenesters aesthetic towards the trash heap where it belongs. “In my mind, at the end of the day it’s just music, it’s just writing songs and playing them for people,” says Oberst, in regards to empty categorizations and affiliations. “The whole circus that’s attached to it is a necessary evil. I’ve learned as I go to navigate those things and to not let them bum me out too much. I’ve felt frustration with that in the past, but now I just let the music speak for itself.”
“The thing I’m most proud of in terms of what I’ve been able to accomplish is the group of friends I’ve had, and what we’ve been able to do. With songwriting I’m a little self-conscious of it all, and I’m not going to go out and say ‘my songs are sweet’ or anything. But in regards to my friends, I can honestly say I’m proud as shit that we’ve basically been able to do what we’ve done apart from any bullshit, on our own terms.”
While Bright Eyes began as a stripped-down showcase for a young man’s songwriting precocity, the project has grown larger and more ambitious as Oberst has grown into his considerable muses. 2000’s acclaimed Fevers And Mirrors found Bright Eyes moving towards a fuller, more elaborate sound, a reach he claims has culminated with Lifted…. “It‘s very much a pre-meditated move to make the most enormous sound we possibly can, in terms of layers of instruments and stuff. We’d sort of been moving in that direction—each album had been more and more orchestrated. I guess we just decided that it would just be one more step up, as big as we could get. From here on out, I think the next record will be much more minimal, just because after this there’s really nowhere else to go.”
Originally published in Paper, September 2002
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