A Record Label is Born - Transcript

[Robb Nansel, Owner, Saddle Creek] "I don't think Saddle Creek could exist in New York or LA because it's too competitive. Whereas in Omaha the community here is very supportive of everything. It was always like a very like group effort.

"I think some people that have the idea of a record label in their head. They would think it was very much like a business proposal idea, where 'Oh, I'm gonna start this business, and then I'm gonna find this talent, and then I'm gonna sign these bands, and try to like put money into it and spend a bunch of money trying to make it work'...and we never did any of that.

"It all started in '93. Conor (Oberst) was 13 years old. He was playing acoustic music just kind of in his bedroom and what not, and we heard him playing these songs and Ted (Stevens) was like, 'We should record these.' And so Ted kind of put him in front of a four track and made him record these songs. And then his older brother wanted to release 'em, so he started what was Lumberjack records at the time, and released Conor Oberst 'Water' which was the first cassette-only release of the label. We kind of started doing that for the other friends, because nobody had any money really. Everybody just kind of threw in whatever they had and put it all in a pot to release these records.

"It was in '96 when me and Mike (Mogis), who's basically produced every record that we've put out, we kind of decided that there was enough good music that we should try to bring exposure to it ourselves rather than trying to get it put on other labels or other things. And we needed to change the name and we kind of went with Saddle Creek as just seemed logical at the time as the road that brought us to our rehearsal space.

"As the bands started to tour the country time and time again, eventually just with enough persistance, people started to take notice."

[Dereck Higgins, Omaha Musician/Songwriter] "I think part of what's going on now is you have some enterprising folks like the Saddle Creek folks who have been really diligently sticking to it you know, puttin' the records out, helping the bands promote the records, get on the road. They've just done it, and found an audience thankfully, and just continued to supply what they're asking for. I think these guys are talented. I think it helps that, you know youth is important. The market is for youth. We got some young folks -- they're good looking and they're talented, and I think that's a factor."

[Nansel] "I think that people are kind of intrigued that something could come out of Omaha. I don't think 'Time' would have wrote a story about Saddle Creek if we were based out of New York. You know we've known each other since grade school most of us, you know. It's very casual and trusting. Everybody knows exactly what everybody else wants pretty much. You know it was very just like -- we're all playing music.

"Tim (Kasher) as a songwriter is definitely the most influential. He was always playing in bands. We have dozens of tapes of old acoustic recordings. And it was just recently with The Good Life records that we tried to let the people hear some of that."

[Tim Kasher, Lead Singer/Guitarist, "The Good Life"/"Cursive":] "What I do in ‘The Good Life’ is what I started doing when I was 14 years old or so, having an acoustic guitar I started writing songs that are at least similar in form to what I'm doing today with ’The Good Life.’"

[Higgins] "‘The Good Life’ -- I think those guys have huge balls. Their music is very personal. They don't shy away from being quiet and contrasting it. I think it's a nice unusual blend of instruments they use at times which makes it unique. And son of a gun if they haven't got an audience for it and I think that's so cool."

[Kasher] "Because of the motto, the state motto, we thought that it was a great way to kind of unify not just our songs but just the pride that we have I suppose."

[Higgins] "But I'm just really impressed with their guts to just play the music the way that they're hearing it."

[Kasher] "I'm really big on how well you get along more than how good you play. Initially, I picked Roger (Lewis), our drummer, just because he's a really close friend, he's a great guy, and his style I thought would be great for ‘The Good Life’ because it's more of a straight forward rock 'n' roll. And we got Jiha (Lee) because she actually was a very talented musician and we thought we should start building a roster of people who have a real skill at writing parts. And Ryan (Fox) was the last person we picked up, and he just finished it off because he played saxophone, bass, guitar, piano. We didn't really try him out so much as we just hung out with him and realized he was a nice guy."

[Tom Irvin, Saddle Creek fan] "The Lincoln and Omaha scenes have always been terrific musically, but the focus, the nation's focus hasn't been on the Lincoln and Omaha scene and now it is, and that's just a terrific thing."