Okkervil River

Founded in 1998 and named after Tatiana Tolstaya (Tolstoy's granddaughter), Okkervil River is first a trio, led by the songwriter Will Sheff, a true group soul and accompanied by Zach Thomas on bass and Seth Warren on drums. The band's first album, Stars Too Small to Use , was released confidentially in the summer of 1999.
A few months later, a meeting with Jonathan Meiburg allowed the group to integrate piano, organ and accordion into its midst. The band, although still Sheff's child, later evolved under the impulse of its two thinking heads until the departure of Meiburg in 2008.
Shearwater was created in 2001 by Sheff and Meiburg. A twin project of Okkervil River, Shearwater is first and foremost the container of Meiburg songs and some Sheff songs that are not part of his main band. Gradually, Meiburg appropriates the group that becomes an entity in its own right.
In 2002, after a studio year, Jagjaguwar presented Don't Fall in Love with Everyone You See and Okkervil River spent 2003 on the road, integrating a new keyboarder on board. The band claimed its style borrowed from both folk and indie rock and 2004 marked the band's explosion when Black Sheep Boy and his subsequent EP, Black Sheep Boy Appendix , came out the following year. The band then signed with Virgin / EMI Europe to broadcast the album on the Old Continent in 2006. It's no surprise, therefore, that in 2007, the fourth texan album, The Stage Names sold 10,000 copies in the United States the first week. After thinking of it as a double album, the band is forced to split its release into two, The Stand Ins completing The Stage Names in 2008 with the same public success (and criticism), keeping the folk spirit of the debut by adding some new country element.
Testimony of its painful design, the album opens on a moving "Loast Coastlines", the last collaboration to date between Will Sheff and Jonathan Meiburg before the duo split.