by LORRAINE CARPENTER

"In the ear of every anarchist who sleeps but doesn't dream, we must sing, we must sing, we must sing," sings Conor Oberst, getting personal and political on "At the Bottom of Everything." The darkly jubilant tune opens I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, one of two Bright Eyes LPs to be released on January 25. The other is Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, "a psychedelic, drugged-out thing" that evolved over three months in the studio with Mike Mogis, the band's perma-producer and second in command.

Whether he likes it or not, Oberst is the star of Bright Eyes, being the author, voice and face of the constantly fluctuating collective, the flagship band of Omaha's Saddle Creek Records. The singer-songwriter went public in 1995 at the grand old age of 15, initially attracting the emo set with his pained, cutting lyrics and impassioned delivery. As his music matured and evolved tangentially, via scores of side projects and collaborations such as his rock band Desparecidos, Oberst's brilliant wordplay and increasingly eclectic arrangements wooed a fair chunk of the populace. It landed Bright Eyes in the pages of Rolling Stone (where the Bob Dylan comparisons just won't quit), on the sets of Letterman and Austin City Limits and, with last November's singles, "Lua" and "Take It Easy (Love Nothing)," at the top of the charts.

John Kerry should be so lucky. Among other efforts in support of last year's presidential contender, Bright Eyes joined Bruce Springsteen and company on the Vote for Change tour. The rest, as we're all so painfully aware, is history, but even Oberst has moved past post-election wallowing. The Mirror contacted him in Omaha to hash over New York, religion, red states, rhythm and blues.

Mirror: The new albums are quite distinct, and in some ways very different from previous albums. What motivated you?

Conor Oberst: On a lot of the records, you hear the words and the melodies first and the rhythm is secondary, so with Digital Ash, I wanted a sound that was driven by the rhythm and the beat. The folk record was primarily a reaction to [our last album], which had an enormous amount of instruments that filled in the whole sonic spectrum and really didn't leave much space, and space is something I like in music. Originally, I thought I'd make a record with just guitar and voice but it became more like one of those nice '70s folk records that we all like so much.

M: I understand that the material for both LPs was written primarily in New York. Did the new setting make a difference?

CO: I can write under any circumstances. It's not really about sitting alone with a guitar, 'cause a lot of times the songs exist in my head. I work by kinda singing to myself, which involves spacing out and not paying attention to things around me.

M: But New York is full of distractions.

CO: Strangely enough, there's something about the bustle of New York that calms me down. When I'm here, there's a lot of open space and quiet and peace, but I feel restless and my head makes up for that by doing cartwheels all the time, where in New York you're forced to be pretty Zen 'cause there's shit happening around you all the time. You've just gotta chill out, and that works for me.

M: Living between Omaha and New York must be quite a contrast.

CO: Oh yeah. New York freaked me out at first. I'd been there on tour since I was 16 and I generally wanted to just play the show and get out of there. But after meeting people and figuring the city out and eventually staying with friends for a month at a time, I found myself wanting to be there.

Electile dysfunction

M: So how did you feel on November 3?

CO: The first feeling was disbelief, wanting to wake up from it, wishing it wasn't true, and that turned into devastation and hopelessness and helplessness and fear and anger. I still feel a lot of that, but I've realized that it's not productive to dwell in that negative space. It's too dangerous to give up hope. Now's the time for Americans who feel the way I feel to educate ourselves more and become louder in our dissent.

M: In your case, does that mean more political content in your music?

CO: It's hard because I never considered writing about politics until I had to, until it was keeping me up at night, but I don't want it to totally consume my thoughts. I wanna write songs about whatever inspires me in life. I still believe in the ability of music to communicate ideas and open people's minds and hearts, but with politics, I prefer to focus on the way it affects individuals more than, like, "Here's my manifesto in a song."

M: Do you see yourself contributing to the 2008 campaign the way you did last year?

CO: Yes. As ideas or issues that I believe in come up, whether they're political or social in nature, I'll be open to becoming involved. For whatever it's worth, I'm able to voice my opinion in a somewhat public forum so I feel obligated to do that. Obviously, I have no problem speaking my mind.

M: How about running for office?

CO: (laughs) They'd have a pretty easy time ruining my credibility, if you know what I mean.

M: But look at Bush. If you claim to be born again, you can get away with anything.

CO: I suppose you can clean up your record if you have to, but I don't see that in my future.

The riddle of the Middle

M: After the election, there was endless analysis of the so-called red-state/blue-state divide. You seem ideally placed to weigh in on that.

CO: Well, it's not that people here are stupid. They're somewhat traditional and they're somewhat slow to change and they fall for the pseudo-nationalism/patriotism that's being thrust upon them, but they're also very practical. Once Middle America realizes that the Bush administration is only serving the smallest sliver of the population - big business, the wealthiest of Americans and the extreme Christian right - and once they realize that all the jobs that have been lost aren't coming back and three more neighbourhood kids have gone off and died for no reason, public opinion is gonna shift. My fear isn't that people aren't gonna catch on to Bush's bullshit, it's the damage that he can do in the next four years.

M: How do you feel about the right wing's exploitation of religion?

CO: Pretty much every president has evoked God in speeches, but with Bush it's way scarier 'cause he's on some kind of deranged quest to serve his Christian values, which aren't very Christian at all.

M: What's your religious background?

CO: I was brought up Catholic. I even went to a Jesuit, all-boys prep school, but my parents were always extremely liberal. As soon as I could make an argument for not going to church that went beyond "I wanna sleep in," they accepted that.

M: You haven't shied away from addressing conflicted feelings about religion in your music. Where do you stand now?

CO: These ideas of God and afterlife and sin seem very abstract, but they're part of how I grew up, so inevitably they affect the way I think. I went through a period of intense atheism, but now I find myself going back and forth between feeling like there are things at work besides biology, and feeling like it's complete nonsense. I know that if you put forth positive energy, it often returns to you. I suppose that's some form of spirituality, however vague it is. It's also hard to explain why things like love and music exist, things that seem contradictory to your bodily needs, like eating. When you fall in love, you don't wanna eat - why is that? Shouldn't you always wanna eat if you're just a little mammal?

With Coco Rosie and Tilly & the Wall
at the Spectrum on Saturday, Jan. 22, 9 p.m., $25

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