Why Bright Eyes are back in 2020, and why they'll always be relevant
Bright Eyes' tenth album Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was marks the end of nearly a decade of almost complete inactivity from the trio.
It's a significant return. The band were prolific through the 2000s, and their string of critically acclaimed records, as well as a colossally passionate fanbase, helped shoot them to indie rock/emo stardom.
So what spurred the band to get back on the horse after so long? Like the beginning of many great stories: a party.
"Well, it happened kind of spontaneously," the band's founder and frontman Conor Oberst tells Double J's Zan Rowe.
"Nate [Walcott – keys and horns] was out at a holiday party in Los Angeles, I was there too, and everyone was getting really festive. This would have been the Christmas of 2017.
"It just kind of came out of my mouth: 'Maybe we should make another record?'. Then we got excited about it. We called Michael [Mike Mogis – guitar, banjo, mandolin] and talked to him and he seemed excited about it.
"We had to call each other again a few days later and be like, 'Were we all serious about that?' and everyone was."
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Bright Eyes was never over, just dormant, so that door was always ajar. And the band weren't about to wait for some divine sign that the timing was right: they just went with their instincts.
"It felt right to everyone to make another [record]," Oberst says. "Because we never broke up, we were always friends and always doing music together. So, the stars just aligned, I guess."
The band got to writing and sharing new ideas. Mogis and Walcott would take care of more complex musical sketches, while Oberst would figure out which pieces would fit with his lyrics and melodies.
"It's our respective strengths and powers that we all kind of contribute," Mike Mogis tells Zan. "And then just the kind of chemistry between the three of us, that's something that felt natural and familiar when we were doing this."
In the years since Bright Eyes' last record, the core trio have amassed an impressive list of achievements.
Oberst's four solo records, his long-awaited second album with punk rockers Desaparecidos and new outfit Better Oblivion Community Center, a surprise collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers, have ensured his songwriting remains sharp.
Mogis has remained a revered producer and session player, helping acts like First Aid Kit, Joseph and Oberst himself reach great heights on their records.
While Walcott has just come off a stint on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, where he served as their keyboard player. With Mogis, he also composed the soundtrack for 2014 film The Fault In Our Stars.
"Over the stretch of time since we made our last record, I feel like things that I personally have learned working with other artists can be applied in this new Bright Eyes record," Mogis continues.
"The musicality aspect that Nate or myself or Conor can bring into this record this record because we all kind of learn, it's just our nature to absorb stuff and then apply it. At least the good stuff."
Coming back to Bright Eyes was a lot like coming home. A creative space where there are no judgments and each member feels empowered to contribute their all.
"We've all been very blessed to collaborate, to have all these great musical experiences and different musical partners," Oberst says. "Over the years, we've all done a lot of different things.
"But I think that's the most defining thing about a Bright Eyes record, or when we get together, all that fear of rejection or somebody being like, 'You're a fool', all that's been gone for so long.
"We can really say anything or suggest anything: not that we always do it, we disagree, but there's no fear of judgment, or trying to keep up some kind of front because you're working with some kind of producer you don't really know.
"Things I've like done in other situations. With us, we don't ever have to do that."
The band couldn't make this new record as a mere trio, though. They needed a rhythm section. You'd imagine the band could call on any number of suitable session players from their undoubtedly crammed Rolodexes.
But why look any further than the best?
"On paper, it doesn't quite make sense," Mogis concedes.
"Jon Theodore, the drummer for Queens of the Stone Age and The Mars Volta, and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers isn't the most logical Bright Eyes rhythm section.
"But it seems like the appropriate kind of risk for us. Rather than doing the obvious thing – we've already done that. So, we always kind of push ourselves a little bit."
"We always like to be a little weird and a little contrarian, you know," Oberst adds.
Bright Eyes – Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once WasFlea plays bass on seven of the album's tracks, but his trademark slap bass is notably missing from the bulk of his songs. The epic 'One and Done' one clear exception.
"I actually had to ask him [to play slap bass], which is pretty funny," Oberst recalls.
"We'd already recorded a bunch of songs and he was playing this beautiful, melodic, almost classical and just amazing bass playing.
"There's this one part of 'One and Done' where I could just hear it.
"I had to go in there and I was like, 'Flea, listen buddy. I know it's gonna sound stupid, but could you just slap on this one part in the instrumental section?'
"He just smiled at me and played like [makes slap bass noises], like the Seinfeld thing. Then he's like 'No, I got you. I know what you mean'. He did it and it just sounds like a cool 70s funk album."
Once you've heard this story you can't unhear Flea's slap bass, but don't expect it to be analogous to a big Chili Peppers funk-rock freak out.
"It didn't feel overtly like the cartoon version of slap bass," Nate Walcott says.
"There are players who approached that sort of stuff – Flea is one of them, Pino Palladino is another one – with an incredible sense of musicality. It's tasteful and it's a joy to hear that.
"That's one of my favourite instrumental sections on the record: the slap bass, the strings, there's a lot going on there."
A decade ago, fans mightn't have predicted Flea would appear on a Bright Eyes record. But they won't be let down by the playing, songwriting and general atmosphere of Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was.
Besides, the band have never been afraid to evolve.
"We wanted to use some of the ideas of our old records, to make it make it sound nostalgic and make it sound like a Bright Eyes record," Oberst says.
"But, at the same time, what is a Bright Eyes record?
"Working with Flea and John Theodore, it's like… we've never had slap bass on a Bright Eyes record. We've never had bagpipes on a Bright Eyes record. We've never had a gospel choir on a Bright Eyes record.
"There's all those things. It stays in the same kind of universe of the band. But you make as many bold choices as you can make to make things different and interesting. I think that's how we've always approached making records."
The lived experience of the past ten years – and its significant highs and lows – has all fed into Oberst's lyrics on the new Bright Eyes record.
One particularly difficult tragedy came with the passing of Oberst's brother Matthew, frontman of the band Sorry About Dresden, in 2016.
"His spirit and the experience of, his life and losing him and all the stuff in my family, I think it flows throughout the record," Oberst says.
"It's certainly not entirely about him in any way. There's a lot of songs about other things.
"There were several big life changes for me, and for all of us. Getting divorced, Nate had a kid, I lost Matty, but we also lost lots of friends along the way."
Not to mention the big picture stuff.
"Then just how crazy and psychotic living in Trump's America is," Oberst says.
"Nothing's that explicit, to me, that's the magic and the mystery of songwriting. Those things all blend together in my subconscious and they come out in ways that sometimes I don't understand at first."
Oberst's songs have teetered between optimism and devastation for decades, though he says the listener's interpretation of a song is more vital than his intentions.
He admits though that the lyrics that begin and end the record were not placed there by accident.
"I wanted the first line of the album to be the first line of 'Dance and Sing', which is 'Got to keep on going like it ain't the end'," he begins.
"Then I wanted the last line of the record to be the last line of 'Comet Song' which is, 'You're approaching, even as you disappear'.
"That was very intentional. I wanted the book ends of those two ideas.
"The rest in the middle – I shouldn't say it's random, because we spent a lot of time deciding which songs go into which songs – but the first line on the record and the last line on record were important to me."
Those listener interpretations of Oberst's lyrics have taken on a new potency amid the devastation of 2020. With the world in its current state, perhaps Bright Eyes are more relevant than ever.
"The truth is, we've always, for better or worse, had an inclination towards apocalyptic, dystopian themes," Oberst says. "Obsessed with death and all that.
"So really, there's really nothing new there. We're just in the right place at the right time. We finally hit the zeitgeist, it just took a global pandemic to like make it happen. This is our moment!"
When there's social and political tumult, there will be an appetite for art. Perhaps this means Bright Eyes will remain relevant forever.
"With the perpetual state of disrepair our society and world is in, it's a good racket to be in," Walcott says. "Because it really doesn't stop. It's been going on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. And it's not going to stop. We chose the right line of work, frankly."
Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was is out now
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