For their second sojourn down south, Texan group Okkervil River are moving forward, striking ahead. The venues have trebled in size (no surprise, given that response to their first tour was nothing short of ecstatic), while the band have increased membership by one – they’re bringing a five-piece to Australia to document a sound that frontman Will Sheff describes as being be a little bit more richly-instrumented.

“This will be just as energetic,” he says, in reference to the furious howl he emitted, and the rabid din of punk rockn country that the band approached last December, “but maybe a little more ornate.”

Prior to the band’s last tour of Australia, Will had expressed just how tired he was – his drummer had a broken hand but was having to soldier on – and how the constant grind of touring, recording, then touring some more had got him down, and he was ready for a rest after their jaunt down under. So what did he do after returning to home town of Austin? Why, went and demoed a further twenty-two tracks of course!

“That was just for fun,” he cautions, indicating that much of the material will never see light of day. He explains that the pressure to put out the next thing, and to conform to release schedules, made him forget that the whole point of performing music is to enjoy yourself, and basically have ‘fun’. “We wanted to do something for us rather than anybody else,” Will states. “That being said, we have relented and have decided to put out a couple of those tracks.”

Us lucky devils: four cuts and one live track make up a tour EP for the forthcoming Australian tour. The reasoning behind it is the unavailability of the band’s over material. “It’s nice to do a counterbalance to that effect and do something solely for our Australian fans.”

Included on the EP is the opening cut, “The President’s Dead”. A tale of what happens when POTUS is gunned down, it has already drawn comparisons to Bright Eyes’ “When the President Talks to God”. But, Will claims, it was never intended to be a political statement in the same way that Bright Eyes statement was, but instead a fictional tale as to what may happen, how it would happen, and the consequences of future actions; in essence, a hypothetical scenario that is nevertheless political. “There’s certain moments where you’re frozen in the exact moment of when something happened,” he explains, “and it changed something about the world. I thought it would be cheeky and fun to look at that whole idea of writing a song like that in the hypothetical scenario of Bush being gunned down, and it was a nice way to explore that theme and be a bit naughty.”

At the moment, Okkervil River are gearing up to start thinking about what the make up the new record is going to be. Will is not prepared to comment at this time as to how their follow-up to 2005 highlight Black Sheep Boy will be. “I always feel that if I tell too much about it in advance then I close myself off from hearing what’s actually happening,” Will says. “I have some ideas, but those will change, and I try and hold those ideas apart from the subconscious thinking so that I’m more open to whatever happens.

He says that the band’s fourth release won’t have as much of a story and a concept to it, but instead focus on exhibiting a ‘feeling’, and a cohesive structure.

Being from Austin, the band are a regular at the artistic city’s South By Southwest festival. This year, Will got insatiably drunk, to the point where he could barely function. It caused some consternation in the music press, but was then explained by Will in arch-indie mag Magnet. “New Year’s Eve of last year I was at a party in Austin, and it was very crowded and I walked up on these people who were in the middle of a fight and one pulled a knife on the other,” Will says, beginning at the beginning. “The guy slashed and cut the back of the other guy’s neck open, and if he hadn’t turned his head he probably would have been seriously injured. In this moment of drunk impetuousness I decided I wanted to take his knife away and I tried to wrench it out of his hand, but in the process I stabbed somebody else in the leg. The cops showed up and thought that I brought the knife, so I fled the scene, but it became this ‘thing’ in Austin where people passed the story around a lot and people thought that I pulled the knife on people. As it turned out, the guy who originally got attacked was serving drinks at our show at South by Southwest, and he gave me free drinks and got a little drunk and ruined the show.”

In the indie rock community, gossip seems to thrive – look at Isaac Brock from Washington’s modest mouse, who had allegations of rape against him determined by the courts as being unwarranted. Yet the story persists. Likewise, the ‘knife incident’ has haunted Will. There seems to be a constant case of Chinese whispers.

“I don’t pretend to understand how the world works. It doesn’t bother me,” he shrugs. “I would hesitate to judge anybody because I don’t know what their deal is. Celebrities do do odious things, even leaving aside the fact that I think artists in general are often very pathetic people, you have incidents like Garry Glitter, and R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Phil Spector – murderers and rapists and child molesters – but fortunately I’m so little of a celebrity that I can go out and be really stoned and drunk and act like an idiot and it doesn’t show up on Pitchfork or anything like that.”

Okkervil River’s Overboard and Down (Tour EP) is out now. Dates:
September 6th - The Zoo, Brisbane
September 7th - Newtown RSL, Sydney
September 8th - East Brunswick Club, Melbourne
September 9th - Fowlers Live, Adelaide
September 10th - Rosemount Hotel, Perth