Second Term

Omaha-bred political punk outfit Desaparecidos burnt brightly but briefly during their initial tenure in the early 2000s, releasing just one acclaimed long-player Read Music/Speak Spanish in 2002 before calling it quits later that year, with frontman Conor Oberst returning to the fold of his then main project, Bright Eyes.

Their music was rough-edged and visceral and their lyrics mainly socio-political treatises on the state of the nation, tackling everything from urban sprawl and materialism to the evils of corporatisation and America's gung-ho approach to foreign policy – no injustice seemed too small, no cow too sacred.

After their split all five members moved onto other projects and it seemed that Desaparecidos (perhaps presciently translated as “disappeared ones” in Spanish) would be consigned to the footnotes of musical history, until in 2010 Oberst asked the band to reform for the Concert For Equality festival in their native Nebraska. What was meant to be a one-off performance ran so smoothly that it's prompted a more permanent return to the fray, the band releasing some typically confronting seven-inch singles as they reintroduce themselves to the world at large.

“Originally it was the keyboard player Ian [McElroy], the drummer Matt [Baum] and I, and we formed the band – I don't know if we had very much direction at that [early stage],” recalls guitarist and co-songwriter Denver Dalley. “Conor and Ian are cousins and we all grew up together, and Conor caught wind that we were making noise in the band room and he wanted to be involved. I think we were planning on being a full-time band when schedules allowed, but then everything got kinda hectic and we were all involved in other projects and the timing didn't feel right, until now. In a lot of ways a lot of the time I was disappointed because I wanted to just keep playing, but I think it's turned out now the best way that it could – we're better musicians and better players now, and I think we sound live better than we ever have. I think it worked out the way that it was supposed to.”

The band's original timing was problematic in some ways; in post-9/11 USA a lot of people weren't too keen to hear criticism of their homeland, even – perhaps especially – from among their own ranks.

“It was funny, we were recording the album and actually in the studio when 9/11 happened and were going back and forth between tracking in the studio and watching the news in the rec room and trying to take it all in,” Dalley remembers. “I think in the wake of all that everyone was really tiptoeing around and walking on eggshells, and really afraid to say anything that could be taken as anti-American. It was an interesting time, and then we came out with this album in 2002 and I think for a lot of people it was a relief, almost saying, 'It's okay, you can voice your opinion and you can love the country and still call it out for its shortcomings'. I think everything about that album seemed like the right time and the right place, even the writing and recording and everything.”

Dalley believes that Desaparecidos would have been a political concern irrespective of the era it was birthed in, due to the members' inherent tastes and convictions.

“We have a pretty wide array of bands that have inspired each one of us,” he offers, “but we have a lot in common – we all love Fugazi and Weezer and Cursive, there's a ton of bands that we all definitely like – but we've all said from the beginning that the coolest thing, the dream that we've always had with music, is the idea that you can have a song that people enjoy the music and then listen to the lyrics and it either sparks a conversation or makes them go research something or go look something up online. Even just to start a conversation is the biggest thing, so that it's not just singing, 'Baby, oh baby' or something like that. We've always wanted to ruffle feathers and get people to think – that's the ultimate dream.”

And although Read Music/Speak Spanish's songs – and the subsequent singles since their return – are clearly tackling US-based issues, the themes are universal enough to achieve more widespread resonance.

“Definitely,” Dalley agrees. “I remember after Read Music/Speak Spanish I was on tour with another band over in France and England and people would come up to me and talk to me about that album, and they'd say, 'I know you guys wrote it from the perspective of Americans, but it's just like that over here too – it's the same urban sprawl'. They could relate so closely to the themes, and I think that's because we're singing about the bigger issues but just from the perspective of our own backyard.”