Okkervil River brings fresh folk to Carnegie

Okkervil River, with The New Pornographers Tomorrow 8 p.m. Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead 510 East 10th St., Munhall 412-201-2169

There’s something about Will Sheff, the front man and songwriter of folk-indie band Okkervil River, that just screams “this is the real deal.”

Maybe it’s that he grew up in a town of only 500 people, and the music he created was less inspired by the latest trends than it was by his own imagination. Maybe it’s that he insists he doesn’t write about himself, because writing about other things is just more interesting. Or maybe it’s that he’s happiest when he’s so busy he’s got no time to think.

Whatever it is, Sheff is creating some of the most original, earnest and downright arresting music to stir up the indie pot in a long time. Just check out the band’s latest opus, The Stage Names, to prove it to yourself.

“There was nothing in the town we grew up in [Meriden, N.H.] Nothing. No late-night restaurants or coffee shops,” Sheff said in an interview with The Pitt News. “There was just a Dunkin’ Donuts a half hour away. So we ended up spending a lot of time playing music in each other’s garages or the band room in high school or four-tracking in bedrooms.”

Without even a record store, Sheff had to discover music in the most traditional, and possibly rewarding way. From hand-me-downs.

“We’d have somebody’s old hippie dad show us old rock records, but we were very sheltered. We didn’t know much about music other than what our parents played,” said Sheff. “When I finally moved out, one big revelation that I had was when I learned that artists who I thought were really secret and unknown were actually famous. But I’m so thankful that I discovered it the way I did. When music is handed down to you like that, it’s something very precious and personal.”

After leaving each other for college, the high school friends reconvened in Austin, Texas, in 1998 and by the next year had independently released their first record, called Stars Too Small To Use. The album got them some taste-maker recognition, and soon Okkervil River was playing the indie star-creating South By Southwest festival in 2000, where it caught the ear of enough future fans and critics to quickly become an oft-mentioned folky phenomenon.

Signed to indie bastion Jagjaguwar, the band released two discs before breaking into the underground forefront with 2005’s Black Sheep Boy. But it was last year’s The Stage Names that garnered high praise from just about everyone worth listening to – and deservedly so. The album perfects its blend of dramatic, folk-rock inspired, lush music with Sheff’s expressive voice and story-telling lyrics. But unlike much of the rock music we hear today, Sheff’s favorite topics are anything but himself.

“I don’t know what a true self is, really, but that’s not what I write about. And I don’t think I’d want anyone to reveal their true self to me other than my loved ones. I think that’s kind of a smoke screen. I don’t know exactly how into this idea I am that revealing yourself is an indicator of value in music,” Sheff said.

“What I’m looking for is a simple matter of creating something that is interesting and has a certain drama and mystery that touches people.”

No wonder The Stage Names sounds so fresh. The record comes off with the same raw honesty of a more theatrical Dylan on tunes like the rousing “Our Life Is Not a Movie, Or Maybe,” which finds Sheff warbling lines like, “It’s just a bad movie, so there’s no crying,” and, “It’s just a life story, so there’s no climax,” over heavy, meditative percussion and piano before the fuse sparks and Sheff is “Hoo-hoo”ing like a wild man.

With such engaging compositions, Sheff said, comes tons of extra text. In fact, some songs lose the majority of their lyrics on the cutting room floor or, as it were, the production studio.

“A lot of the writing process for me is just determining what to throw away,” he said.

Now one of the premier up-and-coming indie bands on the scene today, Sheff’s got a lot to be excited about. It’s when he’s got some free time that he’s most unhappy.

“When I’m finished with work, that’s when I get depressed. I love that high of always working on something,” he said. “When I’m working on music, everything else just falls away. I feel like a little kid playing with Legos, I’m off in my own world making something.”

And listening to the wildly creative, incredibly catchy and always engaging Okkervil River, you might just feel the same way.