"I always was into singer-songwriters like Bright Eyes. When I was in high school I wanted to do a project that was like that. Weatherbox is the name of a song by Mission of Burma so I just had a theoretical acoustic project while I was in high school that didn't actually exist."

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All those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, in many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio, we build the songs that way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.

— Conor Oberst