Saddle Creek Records

Which is what happened last August when Bright Eyes released Lifted or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground. Not only has the album sold more than 35,000 copies in just three months, but it also was No.161 on the Billboard Top 200 in its first week of release.

"It felt really weird. We looked at the chart, and it was all major label records that had huge, huge budgets behind them. We didn't spend a million dollars to make sure everyone had it," Nansel said.

Bright Eyes and The Faint are just two of a handful of bands on the mid-sized Omaha label Saddle Creek Records. The roster also includes Cursive, who just finished up playing on the Plea for Peace Take Action Tour, and Azure Ray, who played alongside Moby this summer on the Area 2 tour.

The newest addition to the label is Rilo Kiley, a Los Angeles-based band whose sound is a mixture of pop and 50s-style guitar ballads. With their recent Saddle Creek debut, The Execution of All Things, they are one of the only bands on the label that don't call Omaha home.

"We all get what we need from Saddle Creek," says head singer Jenny Lewis. "Everyone's been so warm and welcoming that it feels just exactly like it should. There's never any awkwardness."

Maybe one reason for this is the business aspect of the label. Band contracts hardly ever exist, and get this: profits are split up evenly between Saddle Creek and the bands.

"For the majority of things we don't have a contract," says Nansel. "It would kind of be like having a contract with your brother or sister. It's inappropriate because we've all known each other for so many years and it would seem odd to do that. And profits are just like divvied up. Different independent labels operate under a similar type of philosophy, like Touch and Go. I know some of [the labels] have got burned in the past. None of that stuff is interesting to us, like doing paperwork and taking advantage of anything."

Saddle Creek started in 1993 as Lumberjack Records. Justin Oberst created the label as an outlet for the music his brother Connor and his friends were making.

Ted Stevens, former lead singer of one of Saddle Creek's early bands, Lullaby for the Working Class, and current member of Mayday and Cursive, was there from the very beginning recording Oberst's first project.

"I did all the recording on my four-track and Justin put up the $500 for the tape," said Stevens. "It was pretty loosely run for those first releases, which were mainly cassettes of Connor's first projects, my first projects and The Faint's first projects. But listening back to those immature times, you know we were really happy with everything. We weren't the least embarrassed about our voices or our writing."

Nansel, who was attending the University of Nebraska at the time along with friend Mike Mogis (the producing mastermind behind every Saddle Creek release), saw the potential the music had for exposure. The two decided to put more focus on the label's everyday operation. The new look started with a name change, in honor of the road everyone took to get to band practice. The next action was securing a distribution deal. Then with a constant touring schedule, they started to build a strong fan base.

"Connor, Ted, Todd [Bachele of The Faint] and Tim [Kasher of Cursive and the Good Life] have been playing shows for years, and have never given up. After a certain amount of time people are forced to no longer ignore certain things and have to decide whether it's something they like or not. Any band that persists and gets around from city to city eventually gets noticed," said Nansel.

And people have noticed the bands, especially Bright Eyes. The band is similar to Nine Inch Nails in the fashion that the only static member is Connor Oberst.

The twenty-two-year-old balladeer with the trembling vocals and rambling lyrics has been written up in nearly every major magazine, including Time. Rolling Stone even goes as far as calling him "the indie rock Bob Dylan."

So far, Oberst has resisted the lures of the record deals offered up by major label executives. He did, however, recently ink a publishing deal with Sony, worth a reported $50,000, that allows them to use Bright Eyes songs in commercials and soundtracks.

"Of all that we share and do for each other, that is Connor's choice. He owns the songs he writes," Stevens said.

The drafting of the contract is way outside the norm of major label publishing contracts. Sony is not allowed to use any of Oberst's songs without his approval.

"Sony is trying to cover their bases because they know the kid's hot and they're hoping to keep him at bay with a little money and keep him writing," Stevens continued. "He was able to demand such rights and in the end not take out a whole lot of money but a huge chunk from a small town Nebraskan perspective. He bought a house and shares it with all his friends. It's a fucking zoo over there. I have a lot of respect for what he does. I can't say I wouldn't sign a contract like that, too, if Sony was after me."

The press has taken full advantage of Saddle Creek's success by branding them the new Sub Pop and Omaha the new Seattle. But Stevens says the comparisons don't match. He says Omaha has always had a great music scene - it's just that no one seemed to care before.

"The Omaha music scene existed well before Saddle Creek. Tons of small labels and bands were putting out records. All the Mousetraps, Mercy Rules, Front of Trusts and Sideshows inspired us. They all had their labels and they still do. We pretty much molded our early days off these guys and to a degree, still model our business ethics off those days. We're just pushing more records than we ever thought we would." -- Tim Carpenter