Paste Magazine's Snags Conor Oberst for an Interview About His New CD!!

Paste Magazine just launched there latest issue — and it’s a keeper.
You want this issue for several reasons: It’s the first “international issue” .

There’s a CD inside featuring 19 tracks from Paste’s fave artists. (That’s worth the price of admission right there.

Hit the Paste Magazine website for several podcasts too.
Here’s a real highlight of the issue, Paste’s editor-in-chief, Josh Jackson’s interview with Conor Oberst for a kick-a$$ interview to talk about the new cd recorded in Mexico!

While the thrust of the story was on the trip, the recording of the cd, the conversation drifted (as typical of Jackson’s interviews) to religion and politics. More to the point, was to get some answers about the numerous Christian references in Oberst’s music – which is curious because Conor is an atheist.

On The World’s Major Religions:
“Not that I’m an expert on all these religions, but what I know about all the other major religions kind of all just fall a little flat in their–I guess, just in their kind of narrowmindedness. I feel like there’s something much more basic than what all these people are worried about. I find it really shocking that two groups that are, from an outsider’s perspective, almost identical–you know, Shiites and Sunnis, or Catholics and Protestants–can actually kill each other over these minor details.”
On Mortality:
“Well, I guess it’s, to me, you know, pretty much commonsense. You can only really understand good if you have bad, so the idea of heaven or anything that happens for eternity, even if it’s nice, I can’t imagine it being nice forever. Even the idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it’s kind of a nice thing to say, you know. I think it softens the blow of mortality and having to say goodbye to everything you know and everyone you love and all that kind of thing. I think it’s a nice concept, and I wish it made sense to me, but I guess it doesn’t.”
On the Quest for Answers:
“I guess I’m just conflicted. I mean, I want to find something like that. Badly. But in all the forms where it’s been offered to me, they seem fraudulent.”
On Growing Up:“My family is Catholic. I went to a Catholic school, that kind of thing, so that was my childhood for sure.”
Want to know more about Oberst? Want to get your grubby little hands on that cool new CD that’s in the magazine? Hit your fave newstand for the Paste August 2008 issue!!
Stevie Wilson
Stevie Wilson

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