Conor Oberst

Conor Oberst is an American singer-songwriter whose two-decade career — primarily as the Bright Eyes frontman — has made him one of the most-iconic American indie-folk songwriters of the 21st century. He was born Conor Mullen Oberst on February 15, 1980, in Omaha, Nebraska. He started writing songs at age 13 and recording his own material on a four-track recorder at age 14, releasing his first solo cassette tape Water in 1993 at age 13.

He formed Bright Eyes (with Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott) in 1995 in Omaha and released the Saddle Creek Records label's 1998 debut album A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995–1997 at age 18. His breakthrough came with the 2002 Bright Eyes album Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground — which reached #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and elevated his American indie-folk visibility.

The 2005 simultaneous release of two Bright Eyes albums — the I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (the acoustic-folk album that produced the singles "First Day of My Life" and "Lua") and the Digital Ash in a Digital Urn (the electronic-leaning companion album) — both debuted in the Billboard 200 top 20 simultaneously, an American indie-folk commercial breakthrough that has been continuously cited as one of the most-iconic 2000s American singer-songwriter releases.

Beyond Bright Eyes, Oberst has worked across multiple side projects — Desaparecidos (the indie-rock band), Monsters of Folk (the 2009 supergroup with Jim James, M. Ward, and Mike Mogis), the Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (2008–2010), the Better Oblivion Community Center (2018, with Phoebe Bridgers), and continuous solo work. He has continued to record and tour with Bright Eyes through the 2020 reunion and the 2022–2024 international touring.

His name Conor is from the Old Irish Conchobhar meaning "hound-lover" — referring to the legendary king of Ulster. Conor has been continuously among the most-popular American boys' names for decades.