Will Sheff, front man for indie mainstays Okkervil River, does not usually find himself at pre-Grammy parties thrown by Mayor Bloomberg. Which means that, when Vulture caught up with Sheff at Gracie Mansion a few weeks back, he was endearingly bashful: “I got nominated for writing liner notes,” Sheff explained. “A music award about writing liner notes is kind of like winning an Oscar for cooking. It doesn’t feel very legitimate to me. So then I thought, well what the hell, I’ll get a free whatever out of it.” When was the last time you were on the Upper East Side, we asked? “I don’t know. Never? I’m going to places I didn’t even know exist. I was like, trying to tell the driver of the car where to go, and he had no idea what I was talking about. I was like, ‘You know, the mayor’s mansion.’ And he was, like, blank-faced.” Anyway — what’s going on in indie rock? “Indie rock gets kind of boring. I don’t listen to a lot of it. Mostly what I end up being interested in is the big hip-hop stuff. I’m friends with Justin from Bon Iver, and I was very happy, and also very, very jealous, when he did all that stuff on the Kanye record. I would love to work with any of those guys because I think that they’re doing the most creative stuff. The indie-rock stuff just feels like a retread to me.” For more candid celebrity quotes, click through our Party Lines slideshow.
