| Send to a friend | Print

Bright Eyes is an indie rock group led by Conor Oberst.  Oberst is a songer/songwriter born on February 15, 1980 in Omaha, Nebraska.  At the age of 10 he started playing the guitar and writing his own songs.  He had an appreciation for indie rock music.  When Oberst was 14 he became the singer and guitarist for the group Commander Venus.  He recorded two albums with this band before it dissolved, but Oberst and a few other band members started their own record label – Saddle Creek Records.

Oberst then formed the band Bright Eyes.  He and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis have been stable members of the band.  The rest of the instrumentation has had steady rotation and the band has even done a few solo performances.  The first solo experimental music album A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 was released in 1997.  This was a compilation of 20 tracks that Oberst wrote as a teenager.  While Oberst’s talent as a songwriter was without question, his songs received some criticism, not for their content, but for his delivery which was said to contain too much emotion.  It was followed by Letting Off the Happiness (1999), recorded as a complete band with Mogis, as well as other Omaha musicians.  This disc had the collaboration of artists such as Neutral Milk Hotel, Of Montreal, and Lullaby for the Working Class.  Letting Off the Happiness was praised for the emotional vocals and acoustic guitar.  

The next few years saw the release of several albums and EPs including Every Day and Every Night EP (1999), Fevers and Mirrors (2000), and Oh Holy Fools (2001).  The band made their breakthrough with the 2002 album Lifted or The Story Is In the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.  Although it was released with a small record label (Saddle Creek), it made on the Billboard 200, reached number 11 on the Top Independent Albums Chart, and sold more than 250 000 copies.  Oberst had been tagged “rock’s boy genius,” and the “indie Bob Dylan.”

In 2004, Bright Eyes was part of the MoveOn.org’s Vote for Change tour with R.E.M. and Bruce Springsteen, with whom Oberst did a few duets.  His involvement with MoveOn.org seems to have influenced his stand on political issues and his songwriting contained political allusions. That same year, several EPs were released such as Home, Vol. 4, and One Jug of Wine, Two Vessels.  Oberst moved to New York and started a new label, Team Love, with his manager.  The following year, Oberst, who for all intents and purposes is Bright Eyes, released two albums on the same day – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn.  The acoustic I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning climbed to number 10 on the Billboard, and the very different electronic LP, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn peaked in at number 15 on the Billboard.  The two albums featured the smash hits Lua and Take It Easy (Love Nothing) which were catapulted into the top two spots of Billboard’s weekly Hot 100 Singles sales chart.  

During Bright Eyes’ Awake tour, they recorded the live album Motion Sickness that was released in 2006.  The album Cassadaga came out in 2007 and was another critical and commercial triumph for the band.  It went to number 33 on the Billboard 200.  The lyrics demonstrated once again Oberst’s talent as a songwriter, but this disc showed more optimism than his previous albums that reflected frustration with political issues in the U.S.  Oberst has shown his exasperation with politics on many occasions.  In 2005, he sang a protest song “When the President Talks to God” on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.  He also criticized the Clear Channel media for making touring hard for independent acts, and in 2008 he performed at a rally for Barack Obama.  

In 2007 the band toured across the U.S. and Canada, as well as some European countries.  The same year Bright Eyes had a seven-night gig in New York alongside many prominent artists such as Lou Reed and Norah Jones.