Standing In for Okkervil

If you thought bands live for the road, for visiting different cities every night and playing to new fans day in and day out, think again. Will Sheff, lead singer of Austin-based indie rock band Okkervil River, would rather be doing anything else.

“I’m not excited,” he says on the phone from Brooklyn. “I’m not looking forward to not sleeping in my own bed for two months straight. But I have no choice, it’s my only source of income.”

That might sound like jaded rock star-speak, but it’s not — Sheff explains that he still loves playing shows and meeting new people. In fact, he’s never enjoyed playing shows as much as he does now. “I used to hate playing; it made me nervous,” he says. “But at a certain point, when I stopped caring what people thought of us, I started to love it.”

It’s a good thing that he can deal with the frustrating parts of touring, and that he’s keen on playing live now, because after people hear the band’s new album Okkervil River will be in high demand. The group’s seventh disc is filled with rollicking folk pop tunes and incredibly infectious melodies. And, if it sounds similar to their 2007 release The Stage Names, that’s because it’s actually the second half of what was almost a double album.

When the group recorded The Stage Names, they ended up finishing way more songs than they needed. With the lyrics similarly themed it would have made sense for them to put out the two records at the same time. “I started to think about whether we wanted to do a double album, but after a while we decided to wait,” Sheff reveals. “Really, I’m not that into double albums. I don’t listen to them in one sitting; I may end up playing my favourite songs of those albums. So, in the end, we wanted to make an album people would listen to all at once.”

Still, if someone wanted to hear the discs back to back they can. If you do listen to both, you’ll quickly find out that while the albums’ themes are connected, there are some glaring differences. “On parts of The Stage Names there’s this whole attitude of the romantic life on tour that is very macho,” says Sheff. “We were waiting until The Stand Ins to have a female point of view that undercuts a lot of that attitude.”