Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst on The 1975: “It confuses me, but I like that”

"What I like about them is that they’re also weirdly genre-less"

Bright EyesConor Oberst has spoken in praise of The 1975, saying that their “genre-less” sound “confuses me, but I like that”.

Oberst was speaking to NME ahead of the release of Bright Eyes’ new album ‘Down In The Weeds, Where The World Once Was’, their first LP in almost a decade.

Asked in the interview about the influence that The 1975 have drawn from Bright Eyes, Oberst said that he met the band’s frontman Matty Healy recently “and he’s really cool”.

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“I don’t hear a lot in common between our bands, but what I like about [The 1975] is that they’re also weirdly genre-less,” Oberst said. “They have radio-pop songs, then others sound like a punk-rock band. It confuses me, but I like that.

The 1975, shot for NME (Picture: Dean Chalkley)

“They’re willing to be many different bands in one,” he added. “I think we probably have that in common.”

Asked why so many millennial musicians have been attracted to Bright Eyes’ work over the years, Oberst replied: “I really can’t speak for them and what they see in our music.”

Oberst recently guested on Healy’s ‘In Conversation’ podcast, and he spoke about how the new Bright Eyes record addresses loss.

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“Loss is a pretty big theme in the new songs,” he said. “I’ve lost friends and I’ve lost people over the years but I only had two brothers, so when you lose one of your brothers, it’s just a life-changing event where this thing that had always been a foundation of your life is gone.

“Trying to pick up the pieces and move on from that, it’s a hard thing.”

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