1997 Commander Venus I-Music interview

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**Commander Venus**

It's 3:00 p.m., and Conor Oberst's high school in Omaha, Nebraska, is letting out for the afternoon. You can vaguely remember those long spring days before summer vacation that made it next to impossible to concentrate on anything, let alone some algebra or science class. It must be especially difficult for Conor. You see, his band, Commander Venus, has a record deal and is touring the states all summer. They just returned from a weekend stint with the Wrens and have tasted what's to come. It's a long way from 1994, when at the ripe age of 14, Conor started Commander Venus.

Conor -- now 17 and in 11th grade-- and his slightly older bandmates, Ben Armstrong (drums), Robb Nansel (guitar) and Todd Baechle (bass), are releasing their second album, The Uneventful Vacation, a collection of high-pitched odes to growing up young, sad and disinterested. Their music's been described as Pixies-meet-Superchunk-meet-Pavement. One can hear Sunny Day Real Estate, Seam and Archers of Loaf in there as well. But it's best categorized as hard indie rock with a lot of passion and intelligence.

"I've been involved in music for awhile," says Conor of his early years. "When I was eight, I discovered the Cure. Then, when I was nine, I was into early REM. I started writing songs around that time, mostly acoustic at first, kind of folk music."

The key to Commander Venus lies in the powerful vision of Conor's lyrics, which belie his age and sound as though they were penned by a road-weary rock veteran not a junior in high school. Listening to "We'll Always Have Paris" or "The Role of the Hero in Antiquity" will leave you deeply touched and mildly curious about the source of his insight. "We'll Always Have Paris' is a standard love song," says Conor. "It's an expression I always heard and liked. I think it's from Casablanca." Somehow Conor knows now what we wish we knew then.

The emotions within The Uneventful Vacation span from apathy and heartbreak to bittersweet memories and full-bore rage. Commander Venus explores the period in all our lives when the future looked ever-brighter just as a looming reality threatened to crash the party. The Uneventful Vacation, recorded at Water Music in Hoboken, N.J. (recording home of Shudder to Think and Chavez albums) and produced by Ed Douglas, explores genuine emotions that everyone can relate to.

As you might expect, the band is also steeped in the do-it-yourself ethic and runs a label called Saddle Creek Records, which has garnered an armful of releases. Most notable so far are albums from Lullaby for the Working Class and the Commander's first long-player, 1995's Do You Feel At Home? So influential is their label that like-minded groups in the Omaha region are actually called "Saddle Creek bands." Saddle Creek will also release the vinyl version of The Uneventful Vacation.

Pretty remarkable for a group so young. Yet the band views their accomplishments rather humbly: "We're just generally interested in creating music for ourselves and our friends," says Conor. "But we hope the honesty of the music comes across for others, too."

## Sources

* https://web.archive.org/web/20020529050826/http://www.thestoryinthesoil.com/ (media)