Conor Oberst stays true to self

Conor Oberst has always been closely associated with teen angst. He started writing and performing music before he was old enough to drive, and his songs relied heavily on detailed, heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics that read like (and probably were, at one point) dispatches from a high schooler’s notebook. If you were a young social outcast in the late ’90s or early ’00s, you likely found a musical ally in Oberst, especially in his popular solo vehicle Bright Eyes.

Oberst is 34 and married now, and although his warbling vocal style is still unmistakable, his newest batch of songs sounds – somehow – more grown up, more fleshed out.

“I started writing songs when I was 13 years old, and people are like, ‘What does a 13-year-old write songs about?’ ” Oberst said. “And I can honestly say, ‘Kind of the same things as a 34-year-old.’ You’re living your life, and as a writer you pick up these little observations and things stick in your mind and go into your subconscious. The miracle of creativity is that they blend together in this way that I still don’t understand.”

Oberst’s newest album, “Upside-Down Mountain,” marks his first studio release since Bright Eyes’ last record in 2011, which is an absurdly long wait for an artist known for his prolific output. There was a time when it seemed as though Oberst was putting out new material or announcing a new side project every other week; in 2005, he released two vastly different Bright Eyes albums – “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” and “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn” – on the same day.

“I purposely took my time writing this one,” Oberst said of the new album. “I think I spent over three years working on the songs. When I was in my teens and 20s, I was kind of a workaholic and would live and breathe music. And that was great, but growing older I have more priorities in life than just making music all the time. … It’s a good thing for my work, because it’s a little more thought out these days.”

He’s best known as an indie folk musician, but Oberst has always played around with genre: Bright Eyes often flirted with country and synth pop, and Desaparecidos, a side group he formed in 2001, is screamy emo punk. Likewise, the songs on “Upside-Down Mountain” don’t crowd themselves under the same stylistic umbrella: “Hundreds of Ways” breezes by on a honky-tonk shuffle, “Kick” is punctuated by a punchy electric guitar lick, and the tender singer-songwriter ballad “You Are Your Mother’s Child” immediately recalls “First Day of My Life,” perhaps Bright Eyes’ signature tune.

That’s not to say Oberst can slip into any role, because his voice – both in terms of the way he sings and the way he crafts lyrics – is instantly attributable. A recent Pitchfork review noted this: “There’s just no mistaking him for anyone else at this point, and it’s unclear how he feels about that.” Oberst considers that specific observation and more or less agrees with it.

“I’ve appreciated artists like David Bowie, who’s a true chameleon that can try these different styles and disappear into the music,” he said. “And that’s a skill all on its own, and I kind of do that. But I’m a bad chameleon. It’s like, ‘It’s that guy again!’ But I don’t really mind that because there’s something to be said for having your own voice. … There’s something weird when, you know, you hear someone who was in the Mickey Mouse Club or whatever, and then four years later they’re this bad boy biker guy. That kind of rubs me the wrong way when I’m thinking about artists and people.”

The musical arrangements on “Upside-Down Mountain” are more carefully constructed, often layered with more instruments and vocal harmonies than in much of Oberst’s past work. But the goal, he says, is to write a song that’s compelling when everything but the guitar and vocals are stripped away. That’s likely why Bright Eyes songs are still covered at coffeehouse open mics.

“At their essence, they’re folk songs with chords and lyrics and a melody, and they can be dressed up in a million different ways,” he said. “It’s like standing naked in front of a giant walk-in closet – what do you want this song to look like? Hopefully the songs are good enough that no matter what we do to them in the studio, they’re still recognizable.”