\n<\/p>\n
\n\tConor Oberst<\/a> has had quite the year. Last September, he and his longtime bandmates, Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott, released their 11th studio album as Bright Eyes<\/a>, Five Dice, All Threes<\/em><\/a>. That marked their first full-length in four years, following 2020\u2019s comeback album<\/a> Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was<\/em><\/a>. But a couple of days before the album came out, the band was forced to cancel<\/a> three release-week shows after Oberst suffered a severe vocal injury following several warm-up shows.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI feel like it\u2019s been, like, 10 years,\u201d Oberst tells Rolling Stone<\/em> from his home in Omaha, Nebraska. He still can\u2019t wrap his head around the fact that it\u2019s been a year since that happened. \u201cI was blown away when I got these texts a few days ago\u00a0\u2014 \u2018Happy year anniversary of the record.\u2019 I was like, \u2018What?\u2019 That seems crazy. That was forever ago.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s understandable that the release of Five Dice, All Threes<\/em> seems so distant. Since then, Bright Eyes were able to hit the road again for an expansive tour, which turned out to be\u00a0a successful run filled with hearty sing-alongs<\/a> and Oberst\u2019s signature onstage rants<\/a> in support of fundamental human rights for trans people and immigrants. In November, Bright Eyes will hit cities like Singapore, Jakarta, and Hong Kong for the first time on the Asia leg of their 2025 tour.<\/p>\n \n\tNow, Bright Eyes are leaning into the momentous time we\u2019re all living through with the release of a new EP called Kids Table<\/em>. Rolling Stone <\/em>caught up with Oberst to talk about everything that happened this year \u2014 from putting the new project together to the bold political activism apparent on their latest tour.<\/p>\n \n\tDid the band go into Five Dice, All Threes<\/em> with the intention to make an EP afterwards, or did you just have too many B-sides from those sessions?
<\/strong>Bright Eyes used to do this thing\u2026 Before Lifted<\/a><\/em>, we put out an EP called Story in the Soil<\/em> and before Cassadaga<\/a><\/em> we put out the Four Winds<\/em> EP.\u00a0 We had our own label at the time, and so we were making up rules as we went along. We always record more songs than we end up putting on the record and, back then, we would put one song from the record on the EP, and then I think both of those EPs have five B-sides of extra songs. This is basically that, but in reverse. It is a reverse engineering of our old habits.<\/p>\n