Jeff Topham

The Nerve Magazine - September 2007

What gives this mess some grace unless it's kicks, man - unless it’s fiction, unless it’s sweat or it’s songs? (The Stage Names, “Unless It's Kicks”)

Here’s the story, see. I wanted to take a train to Austin, Texas and meet Okkervil River lead singer Will Sheff at an alligator farm, but my editor said it wasn't in the budget. Instead I had to do the interview on my smoke break on the lunchroom payphone. I put on some Wilco and a fancy cowboy shirt, cracked a longneck Budweiser and made the call.

It's a road-kill roasting 35 degrees in Austin, on the day of the nationwide release of the new Okkervil album The Stage Names. I imagine Sheff hiding out in a beat-up roadside bar outside Austin city limits lining up tequila shots. The payphone in the corner by the jukebox rings. Will Sheff sounds understandably distracted.

JT: Yeah, man. So like, what happens on the day of a release?

WS: Well, if you’re Jack White, you probably just sit around listening to old 78s and smoking a pipe. But if you’re like us, you’re trying to update the mailing list to let people know that the album’s out -- I’m currently editing the punctuation on the new version of the blog.

Huh? Shit. That's not gonna work. Will Sheff will understand if I add some whiskey and hookers and a gunfight here.

Sheff knows that good storytelling is all about setting a scene - and then making life sound interesting. It’s what he does best. It’s why Okkervil’s critically acclaimed 2005 release Black Sheep Boy made top 10 lists across the country. And it's what his new record The Stage Names is all about: nine perfect sonic scenes exploring the meaning, and manufacturing, of life. Sheff understands the power (and deceptive nature) of the story.

“People bring up somebody’s story as if it represents something that’s true - but a story is not really a real thing to begin with. It’s a bunch of words put together about someone. It’s just somebody’s life thrown into relief with all the turning points emphasized. And the turning points are often artificial anyway. It’s all really very interesting.”

Sheff’s wordplay is a big reason he’s a current darling of music scribes. It's why the adjective hyper-literate* is often found beside Okkervil River. (*see also the Decemberists, The Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes). His poetics and literary devices offer room for endless interpretation - providing us a purpose for our mostly useless English degrees. We secretly hope guys like Sheff will read our reviews and make songs from them.

i.e. Stylus Magazine says: “There's still a little darkness, a little significance, but maybe it just matters less now. Maybe after all that ramshackle and flinging of hurt, the fight comes down to the playfulness between rounds, the pause in the argument or the swimsuit girl with the card that says ‘3’.”

But words without music are just poems - and poems don’t pack clubs or sell records. Clever lyrics aren’t the only reason why these guys are touring Europe, opening for Lou Reed, and playing the Conan O’Brian show. As Tony Danza once famously remarked, “It’s always about the music.” And Sheff and his talented band have got the music working for them too. This current version of Okkervil River rocks.

i.e. The Nerve Magazine says: With The Stage Names, Okkervil River bends sharply from 2005’s Black Sheep Boy. Will Sheff has seemingly emerged from the dark but enchanted woods of heartbreak and self-discovery, and bought a ticket to a sad carnival of life in a hard-working town. On the surface it might sound like a happy awakening, but the inevitable weight of life soon soaks through. The message seems to be be inventive with your life where and while you can. The soulful groove on tracks like “A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene” and “You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man” will make you feel like you’re in a Texan version of The Commitments...

Seriously, that shit’s hard to write. Let's just say The Stage Names is poppier and groovier than Black Sheep Boy, while retaining some of that existential angst the hipsters love. And while the gear change might throw some people off, the rev-up will definitely earn Okkervil River some new riders. Sheff relishes the shift.

“Repeating myself is not something I’m particularly into doing. I want to continue to try new things every time. I felt because Black Sheep Boy had received more attention than anything we had ever done, it seemed even more interesting to try to kick away all the things that made people like that record, and see if we could still succeed without them.”

So far it seems to be working. And the critics have responded with the hyper-literate, master’s degree-worthy reviews you would expect.

i.e. PopMatters says: "Okkervil River’s albums lend themselves so well to interpretation as a narrative continuum. ...impart(ing) to the listener the sense that they are privy to a vital revelation, though the immediate meaning of the words may remain a mystery. It’s one of the year’s essential albums."

But the catch is that the guys at the bar don't ask me about Sheff’s narrative continuum. They want to know what kind of music it is. (And what's up with the name?) They're the questions that make the artist groan. Well, Okkervil River was pulled from a story by Russian writer Tatanya Tolstaya. (Of course it was.) And I'll let Sheff himself eye-roll over the comparisons.

“People will say ‘Oh, they’re like The Decemberists” or “Oh, they’re like Arcade Fire’. I just think that’s lazy. That annoys me more than the weird, really out-there comparisons. I read this negative review of when we opened for Lou Reed; they said we sounded like ‘a bad band playing at a prom.’ Those kinds of comparisons always make me smile. I was like, ‘that sounds so nice! I wish there was a band playing at my prom...’ But I’m not that spoiled that I’m going to let it bother me that much. All I ask is that you don’t say that I howl...”

If he does sometimes howl, it’s because the guy’s singing his heart out, and the heart doesn’t always hit the right notes. Love it or hate it, Sheff's voice carries the excitement and pain that comes with buying a ticket to life’s carnival. Sometimes it's hard to deal with the facts amidst the fiction. Howls are the sign of a good storyteller.

"I live in this world. I’m not a hermit. And there’s something very beautiful about having so much faith in entertainment and being so hypnotized by it. But basically, it’s not real, it’s not true and here’s something treacherous about that. I wanted to get that across on this record. But I don’t want to point any fingers or make moral lectures, because I’m no different than anyone else. It’s a slippery slope -- and I’ve fallen just as far down into it as anyone.”

THE END