Okkervil River Are No LongerBlack Sheep

Tue 22nd Nov, 2005 in Features

A single listen to Okkervil River’s latest album, Black Sheep Boy, and you will find yourself delving the depths of human emotion. The Austin, Texas band’s charismatic mainman Will Sheff explores the good and bad of our ways; all with the literary prowess of someone who doesn’t just love his art, but lives his art. Yet for all this profound bookishness it is refreshing to learn that Sheff is particularly modest and has not renounced the basic modes of expression.

“It’s fucked up man!” exclaimed a talkative Sheff in a surprisingly inarticulate moment. “When you think about how I recorded these songs in a shed in Texas and the fact that someone is hearing them, getting something out of them all the way across the world in Australia is just such a surreal thing.”

That opening statement may not share the elegance of some of Okkervil River’s striking lyrics but it displays the approachable, everyday aspect of the band’s songs. These are emotions, raw and unsolicited. They could belong to you, me or your grandmother. Or – and Sheff stresses the “or” – Okkervil  River. “A song is only meaningful in as much as it adds value to other people. I don’t think I own the song any more than someone else does,” Sheff explained. “It’s this paradoxical thing where I think I am investing so much of my own feeling and passion into the work that it is going to be meaningful to people who share the same feelings and passions as me. I can only hope that those people are out there.”

Sheff’s hope is far from unfounded. Black Sheep Boy, the group’s fourth record, has been labelled a breakthrough of sorts. The holy marriage of folk-rock inspirations, unbridled passion and dark, insightful lyrics has garnered universal critical acclaim, particularly from the online community. Sheff is well aware of the importance of this word-of-mouth to the band’s success. “I think this is one of the main reasons Okkervil River fans think they have a special attachment with the band. It feels like its ‘theirs’ and not just ‘ours’, and that’s always been a specific goal of mine,” Sheff iterated.

The wonders of weblogs and Internet review sites (insert plug for FasterLouder) are obviously not lost on Sheff, however he does feel as though cyberspace somewhat detracts from the idea of a record as an artwork. “When information is so free it can become deluded, twisted around and watered down. Art can become meaningless. I think we are drifting away from the world of art objects, when you could own something and it was really beautiful and meaningful to you and felt singular in a way,” Sheff argued.

For Sheff if an album is to stand alone you should not be able to separate the artwork from the songs, just as you cannot separate the melody from the lyrics. As such Sheff works on artwork for all Okkervil River releases. “I’m very detail oriented and the fun for me is making sure every aspect of the record feels special. One of things I really wanted with Black Sheep Boy was for the artwork to refer directly to the songs, directly to the lyrics so that it was all one piece.”

“The last hedge against having the stuff being totally stolen by people off the Internet is making it feel like the music is indivisible from the artwork.”

Black Sheep Boy is an intricate piece of art. Opening with the title track – a cover of fallen ‘60s folk hero Tim Hardin’s original – the album is a classic exploration of an outsider, a black sheep. For Sheff it is emotional without necessarily being cathartic, emotional without being emo.

“I don’t really agree with people who seem to think of music as therapy. A lot of the sort of emo songwriting stuff about how ‘my girlfriend dumped and now I have to write a song about it’ is for me very childish,” Sheff laughed. “I don’t want it to be focussed on me.”

But now everyone wants to know a little about Will Sheff and Okkervil River is no longer a black sheep. To consolidate the band’s success, Okkervil River have recently released the Black Sheep Boy EP. The recording revisits many of the same themes as its parent album, as Sheff notes, for the last time. “It is a visit back to the Black Sheep universe. I thought that if I was going to do that, it had to be separate but it also had to go back into that same mud and wallow around in it, get that stink all over it to the point where we couldn’t go back anymore.”

As if to emphasise the death of Black Sheep Boy and end of life as a small-town band Okkervil River are to embark on their first ever Australian tour in December. The sojourn culminates with an appearance at the Meredith Music Festival (see here for article). Despite nearly non-stop touring – with the likes of Joanna Newsom and the Decemberists, no less – Sheff promised a top show. “When we’re on tour it’s just an emotional group of people. We get up and we play shows and I find that I bring to bear a lot of my experiences from that day to the shows of that evening because I try to come up with a way of making it new every time.”

“I wanna make people feel like this band only exists in the sense of a show; one moment, one night. And in a lot of ways this night belongs to everyone.”

While the live show is a collective experience, even Sheff needs a little time to himself – if only to write new material. “It’s really interesting because the tour is supposed to promote the record while it’s also a direct obstacle to creativity in a lot of ways,” Sheff sighed.

“I’ve been working on new material here and there but it’s hard to get access to your guitar because it’s locked in the back of a trailer unless you’re playing a show!”

Swim in the streams of creativity when Okkervil River tour Australia in December with special guests Deloris and Subaudible Hum:

01/12 Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
02/12 The Hopetoun, Sydney
03/12 Oxford Hotel, Wollongong
04/12 The Troubadour, Brisbane
06/12 The Old Bar, Fitzroy
(acoustic show with Sime Nugent & Aviator Lane)
07/12 Karova Lounge, Ballarat
08/12 Jade Monkey, Adelaide
09/12 Meredith Music Festival