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The Guardian
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst: ‘There was a time I wished I'd never made music'
In the mid-90s, Omaha made a pretty decent tour stop for up-and-coming bands. Nebraska sits near-plum in the US's middle, and in its most populous city, once famed for its fur trade, stockyards and railroads, there had grown a thriving subculture that centred largely on a book and record store named the Antiquarium and a small venue named the Cog Factory. Conor Oberst spent much of his early teens puttering between these locations, filling his young brain with music and literature. By 12, he had begun writing his own songs, and by 13 he had recorded his first album, releasing it on his older brother's label and selling it in the record store. Sometimes he would take to the stage at the Cog Factory, a small, pale boy with an acoustic guitar and a lot of words. He had already begun recording as Bright Eyes by the time the Texas band Spoon came through town. Oberst and his friends were huge fans, and turned up to the venue early to see the band arrive. 'We loved Spoon,' he says. 'But we didn't know what anyone in the bands looked like, never seen their pictures. These vans pull up outside the club and you're like: 'I wonder which one's the singer?' There was a lot more mystery and fun to it then.'It would be another five years or so by the time Bright Eyes found success – by now a band rather than a solo project, they were widely feted for their fourth album, 2002's Lifted Or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, followed by their twin 2005 records I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. By that time, the world was a very different place. Music and media were growing increasingly digitised, and the US was grappling with the presidency of George W Bush and the controversies of the Iraq war. Oberst, whose songs were heartfelt and literate and politically engaged, carrying titles such as When the President Talks to God, became the poster boy of a new generation. His face was everywhere. When Bright Eyes' tour bus pulled up at the venue, everyone knew he was the singer. 'What happened to me wasn't at all overnight because I had been touring since I was 15 years old, and at this point I'm 25,' he says. 'But still, I think when that big push of fame or public persona, identity thing happened to me, it definitely affected me. I definitely felt the insanity of it.' In many ways, the last 20 years of Oberst's career have been an attempt to shake off that intensity and find the mystery and the fun of music again. 'It is a hard thing to hold on to, that innocence, and what you loved about music sometimes,' he says. Nevertheless, he has tried to grip tightly to that feeling; to remember what music is to him beyond a career. He learned the hard way, he says, that there is not much music in the music business. 'But what I will say is music is consistently something that gives my life meaning, and is a source of solace and happiness – not just making it, but listening to it, and seeing people I love doing it,' he says. 'Besides family and friends and loved ones, I would say it's the most consistent thing in my life. There's nothing else. I'm not religious, I'm not really a member of too many clubs or anything, it's kind of just music that's gotten me through it.' The past few years have not always been easy for Oberst – there has been a divorce, the sudden loss of one of his brothers and, in late 2013, an allegation of sexual assault by a female fan. By the following summer, the allegations had been dropped, and the accuser had apologised both to Oberst and to 'actual sexual assault victims'. It is not a time the singer is keen to revisit. He speaks steadily, carefully, and gently declines to go on the record about the specificities of what happened. But one gathers that it led to the period he refers to now as 'a time when I wished I never had made music, and wished no one had ever heard it. And that's about the saddest feeling in the world when that's your whole life, just wanting to not exist.' What he will also say is that music played an integral part in helping him back out into the world again. 'I go into music as a place to understand what's going on. That's a place that I know I can go that's just for myself,' he says. 'But it's all in your mind, so it's up to you to take care of it and tend the garden. And sometimes if you're not feeling well physically or otherwise, or the world's got you down, you stop weeding the garden and the next thing you know your mind's just overrun and snarled. The forest takes over the grounds, and it's pretty dark.' Across the screen, Oberst looks small and bleary and slightly disoriented in his hoodie. 'But you know, things tend to come back around and get better, and worse, and better again,' he says. 'So it's just trying to stay alive through those parts that seem insurmountable. And next thing you know I'm out here with some of my oldest, best friends in the world and everyone's having fun,' he says, with a nod to the room behind him, a grey backstage space at the MegaCorp Pavilion in Newport, Kentucky, where Bright Eyes are on tour with fellow Omaha natives, Cursive. 'This particular leg of this tour is probably the most old-school touring situation I've had for decades. It has been a relief of sorts to be travelling on tour buses again, hanging out till 4am, just fucking smoking weed in parking lots. Playing music. It's great. It's like nothing changed.' Last autumn, Bright Eyes released their 11th album, Five Dice, All Threes. It is their most limber record in some while, capturing a kind of musical camaraderie between Oberst and his longstanding bandmates Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. For Oberst, the record 'definitely captures that sort of youthful punk rock spirit that maybe I'd forgotten about'. He credits this rekindling in part to his friend Alex Levine, who helped in the writing of the songs at a point where the singer had 'definitely lost interest in kind of everything'. 'He was working at other studios with other people, and he'd come back and I'd still be sitting there on the porch, and he'd be like: 'Why don't we work on something?' The first few times I was like: 'Oh I'm good, man, let's just sit around, I don't care.' And then he wore me down, and next thing we know we're making demos. I think I really do have him to thank for lighting the fire.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion The fire is not only musical. Oberst today seems once again politically ignited, railing against Elon Musk, the anti-immigrant crackdown, the dismantling of academic centres and legal processes, the attack on trans rights and the funnelling of public money into private contracts, against an administration he describes as 'the greatest grift of all time'. It is a return of sorts to his earlier self: 'I feel there might have been a period in maybe my early 30s where I was like: 'I should, like, grow up. You shouldn't be angsty towards the world. You should turn into this real acceptable thing that a lot of people can get behind,'' he says. 'Because people like the idea of anger more than they like anger. They like the performative aspect. But the thing is, I really feel it. I really fucking hate these things and I always have, and it's hard because I can't not show it.' Lately, at the band's live shows, he has been encouraging his audiences to speak up. 'The world is more fucked up and keeps getting more fucked up so I don't think it's time to act measured,' he says. 'What I've been saying to the kids at the shows every night is you can't wait. By the time you realise how bad it is, it's too late, and that's just something we know from history. Don't wait till it's cool to go down to the park and protest. There's an alarm bell going off above our heads right now and we should all be screaming at the top of our fucking lungs.' He thinks back sometimes to those teenage years in Omaha, when Rage Against the Machine were pretty much the only common musical ground he could find with the high-school jocks, and wonders whether any of them were aware that they were essentially listening to the communist manifesto. 'But it slipped into suburban houses, and it did a public service 'cos it influenced all these people. It turned a bunch of them into political activists,' he says. Each night, Oberst looks out from the stage into the crowd and sees a whole new audience before him, from little kids to an eightysomething woman there with her grandson, via people his own age, and 'straight-up teenagers that could've been at a Bright Eyes show in 1999'. Somehow, amid all the darkness, he finds a hope in this crowd – perhaps even evidence of the role that music has to play in resistance. 'I think music is magical,' he says, 'I think it can cross all political lines.' Bright Eyes tour the UK and Ireland from 16 to 25 June; tour starts Nottingham.
Scoop
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
OK GO'S AND THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE – The Grammy®-Winning Band's First Album In A Decade
OK Go returns with And the Adjacent Possible, the band's ambitious fifth studio album and first full-length release since 2014's Hungry Ghosts. Even for a band known for pushing boundaries, the album is wildly eclectic—postmodern and genre-dissolving, with nods to Phil Spector, Toni Visconti, and Nile Rodgers sandwiched between the fuzzy, psychedelic opener, 'Impulse Purchase,' and the meditative, Zen-like closer, 'Don't Give Up Now.' Glued together by the distinctive mixing of the band's longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Spoon, Tame Impala, MGMT), the twelve tracks collectively paint a portrait of a band comfortable in its own chameleon skin. Listen to And the Adjacent Possible, released via Paracadute here: The band will deliver an extra special performance of 'Love,' its new single, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, April 15. Like the album's first track 'A Stone Only Rolls Downhill,' 'Love' is written from a father's perspective, but the weighty concerns of the first song give way to wonder and joy on this soaring new anthem. Advertisement - scroll to continue reading Damian Kulash says, 'You know that dream where you're somewhere familiar, maybe your childhood home, but there's a door, one that was never there before, leading to some impossible magical place? Having children did that to my understanding of love. Suddenly, a huge new ballroom opened up off of the little apartment I've inhabited so long: a whole new wing of love, grand and soaring and utterly overwhelming. It is endlessly amazing that we exist — little, conscious clusters of stardust occurring, apparently by chance, in the vast emptiness of the universe. And we get to experience love. It is unbelievable.' And since this is OK Go, of course there is a mind-melting music video. It always seems like the band can't possibly top themselves, but with today's release of the video for 'Love,' they've done it again. The single-take video features complex choreography between the band, 29 robots, and upwards of 60 mirrors to create a dazzling — and this time deeply moving — spectacle of infinite reflections and human-scale kaleidoscopes. Shot in the faded glory of a Budapest train station, the clip was concepted in partnership with creative agency SpecialGuest, co-directed by Damian Kulash, Aaron Duffy, and Miguel Espada, and produced by 1stAveMachine, with technology integration by SpecialGuestX. View the video for 'Love' here: Always looking for new ways to document their elaborate videos, OK Go's Damian Kulash, Timothy Nordwind, Andy Ross, and Dan Konopka wore Ray-Ban Meta glasses throughout the production to capture behind-the-scenes footage - watch HERE: Learn more about the Universal Robots in the video HERE: For a more in-depth behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of the video courtesy of Project Management Institute - please view HERE: 'We're always drawn to spectacle and wonder,' says Kulash, 'and the goal, this time, was to take them somewhere more heartfelt and emotional than we have before. This song is so personal for me, and the infinite reflections bouncing between two mirrors are a perfect metaphor for the kind of overwhelming, reality-shifting love that I'm singing about. Two simple things come together, and new dimensions burst from them into existence. Magic unfurls endlessly. It's the impossible, right there before you. That's the kind of wonder that can bring me to tears.' Combined views of OK Go's previous video, the stunning moving mosaic for 'A Stone Only Rolls Downhill' that features 64 videos playing across 64 phones, has already surpassed five million. Directed by Kulash and Chris Buongiorno (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew), it required more than a thousand takes, and over two hours and twenty minutes of single-take clips which are condensed into the final frame. Filmmaking magazine Shots marveled, 'Whenever a new OK Go video drops, the creative community's mixture of anticipation and professional jealousy is palpable." The album packaging also demonstrates boundless creativity and meticulous attention to detail. The first vinyl pressing, limited to 3,000, is a two-LP set on 180-gram, 45RPM discs in a foil-stamped gatefold with full-color inner sleeves. A 3-dimensional sculpture pops up when listeners open it. The packaging was designed by Yuri Suzuki and Claudio Ripol from Team Suzuki with 3D sliceform design and popup structure by Wombi Rose, Hà Trnh Quc Bo, and Emilio LaTorre for Lovepop. To listen to And the Adjacent Possible is to be taken on an emotional rollercoaster… in the best way possible. While the music is largely upbeat, the lyrics can be dark. OK Go's sardonic wit drives 'Impulse Purchase,' a playfully direct address to the algorithms that will choose its audience: 'Now, as a practical matter it's pointless/to address you directly here/Any probabilistic adjustments/will dissolve in the sea/of the everything-everyone-everywhere-ever-has-done that you swallowed before.' Even the brightly titled 'A Good, Good Day at Last' features lines like, 'Anger, she's more loyal/than her fickle sister Hope.' Yet rays of hope ('Love,' 'Don't Give Up Now') also abound. Track Listing – And the Adjacent Possible Impulse Purchase A Stone Only Rolls Downhill Love A Good, Good Day at Last Fantasy Vs. Fantasy This Is How It Ends Take Me with You Better Than This Golden Devils Once More with Feeling Going Home Don't Give Up Now
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
GOP Rep's Farms Raided By ICE After She Says She Became 'Target' Of Far Right
An Idaho Republican is speaking out after a local party official boasted online about reporting her family's farming business to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Idaho state Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen told KTVB in an article published on Monday that she is 'one of the few that have stood up to the far right extremism' and because of that, she has become a target. Mickelsen is listed online as the CFO for her family's potato farming business. She maintained in an op-ed for the Idaho Statesmen that the business complies with all 'applicable federal and state laws' regarding employment and immigration. However, she said she became 'the target of intimidation tactics designed to silence ' her when Ryan Spoon, Ada County GOP vice chairman, announced Jan. 21 on X that he was reporting her businesses to ICE. 'Attention, Mr. Homan, could you please send some illegal immigration raids to the businesses owned by Idaho State Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen?' Spoon wrote on X, referring to President Donald Trump's 'border czar' Tom Homan. 'She has been bragging about how many illegals her businesses employ. Here is a list of the businesses to raid,' he continued, linking to an 'about' page on Mickelsen's political website. In a follow-up post, he wrote that he was 'filling out' ICE tip forms for 'all of Rep. Mickelsen's businesses.' ICE showed up at Mickelsen Farms three days later, Mickelsen told Investigate West. One immigrant worker employed there was detained by ICE as of Jan. 27, according to the news outlet. Mickelsen said that the man was detained because of a criminal record, and she did not know his immigration status. The lawmaker did not respond to a request for comment from HuffPost. Spoon told HuffPost that he really did report Mickelsen's family business to ICE. 'I reported her to ICE, because she bragged about hiring illegals,' he said in an email. He also told Investigate West that Mickelsen's 'own testimony drew attention to herself.' That testimony, he told HuffPost, was when Mickelsen spoke out against a bill that would let local law enforcement detain and possibly deport undocumented immigrants. (Mickelsen ultimately voted for the bill, which has yet to pass the state Senate.) Spoon pointed to video of Mickelsen's testimony posted by political group Stop Idaho RINOs. RINO is an acronym used to mean 'Republican in name only.' 'I think everybody needs to be aware that when we keep going down this road of attacking illegal immigrants, you're mainly attacking Hispanics in this case,' she said in the clip. She continued, 'If you guys think you haven't been touched by an illegal immigrant's hands in some way, through either your traveling or your food, you're kidding yourselves.' Spoon also told HuffPost that his actions 'had nothing to do' with political rivalry. 'She lives on the opposite side of the state from me. There is no position for which she would be my 'rival.'' Mickelsen said Spoon targeting her business represents a broader issue. 'These attacks aren't just about me,' Mickelsen wrote in her op-ed. 'They represent a dangerous shift in our political discourse. When elected officials can be bullied into silence because of false statements and threats to their livelihoods and safety, we all lose.' Millions Of Voters Risk Disenfranchisement Under Republican Proposal 'Huge Screwup': Republicans Give Group Chat Breach A Thumbs Down Emoji Former Utah Rep. Mia Love, The First Black Republican Woman Elected To The U.S. House, Has Died
