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American indie rock band Bright Eyes are excited to be finally making it to New Zealand next month.
Formed in the mid-1990s, the band received critical darling status with their early albums, including Fevers and Mirrors, Lifted and I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning.
Founded by singer-songwriter and guitarist Conor Oberst, the band has made a huge impact and appears in countless films and television shows.
Their songs have been covered by dozens of artists, including Lorde, The Killers, Mac Miller, and Phoebe Bridgers,
After their album The People's Key was released in 2011, the band fell almost silent for nine years, but they made an auspicious return in 2020, with Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was.
Back in 2020, they had a world tour booked, but it had to be cancelled due to the pandemic, so November 2023 is the new date for the New Zealand tour.
It has been about eight years since the band last played in New Zealand in 2015, and even longer since their 2005 concert with R.E.M in New Plymouth.
Oberst said they were excited to finally get back to Aotearoa.
The band consists of Oberst, multi-instrumentalist and producer Mike Mogis, composer and trumpet and piano player Nate Walcott, and a rotating line-up of collaborators.
This year, as many as 15 performers have lined up across the stage in their shows.
But the show in Auckland next month will feature a smaller crew of five or six musicians.
Their latest album was recorded at a bar Oberst owns in Omaha, Nebraska, called Pageturners Lounge, where ragtime music is played on Thursday nights.
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The album features the voices of Oberst's mother, Nancy, and his ex-wife and best friend, Corina Figueroa Escamilla.
"I made my mom and my ex-wife drink psychedelic mushroom tea and record into a recorder for three hours... so that's what you're hearing - a combination of the bar, with the performance, and my mom and my ex wife high on mushrooms talking about life.
"That's how high concept we get with our shit around here," Oberst laughed.
It was his mother's first time taking magic mushrooms.
"She starts laughing... I always love to hear her laugh.
"One of my biggest memories of being a really little child was of laying my ear on mom's stomach and hearing her laugh.
"That's like my favourite sound in the world is hearing my mom laugh through her stomach when I was a little kid."
Oberst describes his mother as a cool old hippy chick, who enjoyed the strange experience of contributing to his record.
"She's used to me being a total weirdo and coming up with weird ideas from my whole life, since I was a kid, like talking her into stuff."
Now 43, Oberst was 15 years old when Bright Eyes recorded songs for their first record back in 1995.
"A lot of those old recordings are really hard for me to listen to in my elder age now, my senior... my sunset era of myself," he laughed.
"I feel like 143."
The band recorded "reimagined" versions of many of its old songs for their new record label in 2016.
They tend to keep odd hours when recording.
Oberst and Mogis live in neighbouring houses in a compound in Omaha, so Oberst can go through a fence behind his house to a recording studio and a guesthouse, where visiting musicians stay.
"We can make any music whenever we want to make it, which is great," he said.
Bright Eyes will play their old hits and new songs at their show on 7 November at the Powerstation in Auckland.
"We don't get down there that often, so hopefully we can make it worthwhile for us and you and everybody in between," Oberst said.
