#6 Okkervil River

A tall, thin guy and some intense songs, on top of gravel and surrounded by flowers, with birds and trucks in the background. Okkervil River is heartbreaking everywhere.

We were at a construction site on the banks of the Seine, under a highway and surrounded by fences and gravel. Vincent Moon liked the gravel, that big pile of it. He wanted Will Sheff, the singer of Okkervil River, to sit on it. But Will was dressed in black, very somber, very tall, standing very upright. And he didn’t want to get his pants dirty before the concert. So he stood on the white hill of rubble, tall and majestic; he was a lord over unstable ground.

Will Sheff, well-dressed in nice pants, a button-down, and square glasses, is a flexible guy. We discovered this in this deserted park surrounded by buildings, where birds cried their twilight joy. Someone suggested that he stand in the middle of the flowers. And then he told us about Marc Bolan. Oh yes, sing on the grass, like Marc Bolan, I love Marc Bolan. Then we listened, and we played it Marc Bolan-style: we made the flowers dance.

La Blogothèque had interviewed Okkervil River (in English) before their last album, and we already liked them. That was before Black Sheep Boy—well, which we also REALLY loved.

Translated by Caitlin Caven