Conor Oberst
Conor Oberst
Conor Mullen Oberstis an American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes. He has also played in several other bands, including Desaparecidos, Norman Bailer, Commander Venus, Park Ave., Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Arab Strap and Monsters of Folk. Oberst was named the Best Songwriter of 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth15 February 1980
CityOmaha, NE
CountryUnited States of America
One by one I drowned all the people I’d been.
People resist change; if they like something, then they want you to keep doing it over and over - but I think if you like what a particular band or artist does, then you should want to see what they're going to do next.
Each song [Desaparecidos] has a seed that it came from. We're trying to take that and broaden it out and make it resonate with people.
We [ Desaparecidos] try to be the opposite of apathetic. There are so many young people in America that are apathetic.
We [ the Desaparecidos ] are perfectly prepared for people to hate what we're saying or not like what we're saying.
In a way, to have whatever people talk about as "crossover success," I think it means you start making bad music. I mean, when I'm flipping through the channels and see the VMAs or something, I don't really see any music there.
I want to be enriched by the music I listen to. That's the reason it never really exists in the mainstream. Because that's not what most people are after.
Much of appreciating art or music is really the interpretation of the listener. To a certain extent it's projection - it's what people need or lack in themselves that they then put upon these people that they admire.
Art is essentially communication. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. That's why people make art, so other people can relate to it.
It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much.
It's hard to get people to focus on one idea.
To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.
When you're 16 or 17, I think like most people that age, the first time you experience certain things in life, whether it's heartbreak or death or love, obviously it's going to seem like a much bigger deal.
With science and reason throughout history, what people believed turned out to be false. So I like to keep an open mind to all perspectives and learn and become more fully realised as a person. I just feel we're never going to know what the full picture is.