Conor Oberst
'My main thing was not wanting to record in a studio, to go back to the days of recording on four tracks.'
Conor Oberst is due to release his new, self-titled solo record on 4th August, recorded with cohorts The Mystic Valley Band. During a recent promotional trip to London - where he also performed an exclusive acoustic rendition of album track 'Milk Thistle' for DIY TV, viewable here, we spoke to the man himself about the album.
Did you really record the album in a month?
Yeah, I guess it was like, six weeks.
Did you self-impose that limit?
Well, we found this place to record in, in Mexico, and that was how long we rented it for, so... I guess we could probably have stayed longer, honestly, but maybe we could have done it a lot faster, we weren't working very hard. We took time to hang out, and things.
Was it important to isolate yourselves while working on the record?
I think it helped, my main thing was just not wanting to record in a studio for this one, to go back a little bit to the days of recording in houses on four tracks. That's how I started, so to have it be kinda casual, I think... I wanted it to be somewhere we could live and work. Yeah, it definitely helped to be away from our everyday.
Why the particular choice of Mexico?
It just worked out through friends that live there, they found this place, and I just knew I wanted to go some place that... I'd looked in to different houses in the States and other places to rent, but then this place came up and it fit all the criteria. It was during winter, like January and February, so it sounded nice, the sunshine.
To what extent is the album a solo effort?
The band definitely contributed a lot, and their parts add a lot to the music. I decided to call it my own name instead of Bright Eyes mostly because Mike Mogis didn't play on it, and that's sort of our band together. So, I felt like it wouldn't be right to call it Bright Eyes. I guess I could have called it a different name, but it seemed easier to use my own.
Did the band contribute to the music too?
Absolutely. My whole thing is playing with people, usually I play with friends, people I trust musically to do the right thing, so it doesn't do me a whole lot of good to tell people what to play. I mean, usually I have an idea, it's usually a good enough friend that they're doing something I don't like, I can go 'I'm not so sure about that', but the nature is collaborating with someone in a room,... This stuff, on the record, happened really easily, basically we're all just you know, in a room, jamming. It was a lot of fun. A lot of it we tried a few different ways, like a little mellower, we did multiple takes to get the right kind of vibe to the song.
You're playing over here next month, what can people expect from the shows?
Well, it's going to be the band that recorded the record with me, and we're going to be playing basically these new songs. I think these days, it just comes back to rock 'n roll for me, when I describe what kind of music I play, I think that's the best description...
...so what's the most rock 'n roll thing you've ever done?
You don't want to know. No, I don't know... I guess, um [pause] To me, it's a lifestyle. I live it every day, man.
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