Bright Eyes singer shows he’s not too emo to have a sense of humor

If you look up "Conor Oberst" in the Urban Dictionary, this is a typical definition: "A sexy, emotional, skinny, scrawny, pale indie boy who knows how to make you cry when you sit at home alone."

I read this flattering definition to Oberst, the singer-songwriter from Bright Eyes, and he laughs.

"Fantastic! I'll take it," he says.

But I point out to Oberst that he can't sit at home and cry while listening to his own indie-pop records. So the question is: What makes Conor Oberst cry?

"Long distance television commercials," he jokes. "A good rom-com will bring a tear to the eye."

No seriously, he says: He's had a few "weird" cries, not out of joy or sadness, but from "an overwhelming feeling."

"It just hits me sometimes. I don't know if it's anxiety or whatever -- but I guess it's pretty emo!"

Oberst and Bright Eyes are very well-known in indie circles, but they rarely get splashy mainstream press, because Oberst isn't the kind of hard-partying jackass who ends up on TMZ.

I tell him he needs to date a Kardashian to snare more tabloid attention.

"You're right," he says. "Playing music isn't that incredibly interesting to people" who read about celebrities.

"I need to release one of these sex tapes I've got stored up," he jokes. "I've gotta write my memoirs -- erotic sexcapades!"

Oberst's lighthearted spirit in this interview is sort of surprising. Who knew how fun Conor Oberst is to talk to?

He even takes my Bonnie Tyler line of questioning lightly, which goes like this:

The first time I heard of Bright Eyes, I thought, "Wow, a band named itself after Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' " because that song famously goes: "Turn around/Bright Eyes/Every now and then I fall apart."

Alas, Oberst says Bright Eyes is not named after "Total Eclipse," nor after Charleston Heston's character Bright Eyes in "Planet of the Apes," nor after a Native American woman from Nebraska.

"Yeah, yeah, we get a lot of guesses" about the origin of the band name, he says. "But really it's just a term of endearment."

Has Oberst ever covered "Total Eclipse"?

"I haven't! I think that's a great song, though," he says. "I think it could be a decent cover."

Oberst says he's excited to play at The Cosmopolitan this weekend, partly because of the opening acts, which Bright Eyes picked: War Paint and Kurt Vile.

"Kurt Vile put out one of my favorite records this year" with "Smoke Ring for My Halo," he says.

If you go to Saturday's show, you may notice Oberst's voice is a little deeper than before.

Oberst jokes he sounded like a girl on his first record, that his voice gets a little deeper every year and that "I'm afraid someday it may just disappear."

I tell him to watch out or he'll end up like Bob Dylan or Liz Phair, working hard in concert to faithfully sing songs from their younger days.

"It's pretty common for singers to change keys as they get older, to get a more comfortable register. I haven't had to do a lot of that," Oberst, 31, says.

He can still hit high notes in old songs he wrote as a kid -- "that dying animal squeal!" he says and laughs.

Always laughing, that pale indie boy Conor Oberst.

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Contact him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.