How did Commander Venus evolve into the synth-heavy sound of the Faint?
They happened at the same. Norman Bailer was the name of the band that became the Faint. It had three out of the five of us. It started at the end of 1994. Conor (Oberst) was in Norman Bailer when we started and then we formed Commander Venus, which included Tim Kasher, Matt Bowen, Rob Nansel and Conor. There were other members, too. I guess I joined it when it was ending in 1997. So it was a short-lived project for you? I’m not sure when exactly the Faint formed unless it was in December, 1994, but that was still Norman Bailer. At one point, Norman Bailer just changed its name to the Faint. That’s more how it happened. By the time we were finally ready to release a whole album, we decided to change it. We never really liked the name Norman Bailer, it was just sort of assigned to us by somebody else. I don’t think we even discussed that. Would you consider “Blank-Wave Arcade” your breakthrough album? I would. To be honest, it’s the first album where we really had something we felt was