Rolling with Okkervil River

(Credit: Steve Gullick)

When it came time to promote Okkervil River’s new album, "The Stand Ins," mastermind Will Sheff had a unique idea—introduce the Texas folk-rockers’ songs to the world through some of the band's closest friends. A YouTube experiment was born, with everyone from Carl Newman of New Pornographers to label-mate Bon Iver delivering lo-fi interpretations of Okkervil’s latest and greatest. 

We caught up with Sheff just before sound-check for the first show of the band's fall tour, and talked books, Vietnamese food and the significance of his choices for the "Stand Ins" YouTube project.

What does night one of a tour feel like now that you've been doing this for a decade?
I think day one of a tour is always similar in that you are basically spending a lot of time making sure that your gear actually works, that you brought everything, that you know where to put stuff. You're kind of starting to get your routine together.

We hear you're really into good food and cooking. Do you do a big home-cooked meal the night before you leave for a tour?
Well, in this case I was in Austin, and I don't really have a place there—I usually stay with friends. So I wasn't doing very much cooking. There's this Vietnamese place in Austin called Tam Deli that I've been going to for years, and that was my last meal—a Vietnamese sandwich. There was a piece on Okkervil River recently in the Austin paper, and while the restaurant staff knew me from having gone there, they didn't realize I was in the band. They said, "We want a framed autographed picture of you on the wall!" [Laughs] I felt like it is a symbol of one's success when the ladies at the Vietnamese restaurant want to put a picture of you on the wall.

Was there anyone you asked to do a cover for the "Stand Ins" YouTube project who turned you down?
I asked my friend Joel Thibodeau of the band Death Vessel, and he couldn't do it because he's just really busy. We were pretty surprised at how much people agreed to do it, and I was also very surprised and very pleased that people didn't seem disappointed that we didn't try to get high-watt, star-power guests for every single song. There was a lot more personal significance behind the songs we chose, [rather] than trying to get this or that person. Carl [Newman] is on there because he's a good friend and we met through touring, so "Lost Coastlines" is something very suitable for Carl and I to be singing.

If you had been going after bigger names, who would have been your dream artist?
It really wasn't about the names, so it's hard for me to answer that because I didn't really think about it. I thought more in terms of, like, wouldn't it be great if my girlfriend sang a song about my ex-girlfriend!

You're a pretty heavy reader, especially when you're on tour. What happens to the books when you're done reading them?
They get thrown in my car or lost or I give them to people. If I had more of a stable home, I would love to keep track of the books, because I really treasure them and love the object of a book. But my life is in a little bit of a disorder, because of all the touring, so as a result some of my possessions occasionally get lost.

Your albums tend to be pretty thematically cohesive. Do you think that your fans are really invested in digesting the albums as a whole, as opposed to just downloading a track or two?
I think our fans are extremely savvy about that, and they put a lot of care and a lot of love into digging this stuff up. And it's because of that—because they're so smart, and they're so with it and they're so hip to what we're trying to do—that we do it. Because we know they'll get a kick out of it.