Interview: Conor Oberst, singer/songwriter

For Conor Oberst's tenth release as Bright Eyes - rumoured to be his last - he's chosen to delve into the world of science fiction - a psych-rock record with lyrics about time travel, and monologues referring to reptilian overlords and the cosmos. So where best to untangle it all?

• The core of Bright Eyes are, left to right, Nate Walcott, Mike Mogis and Conor Oberst

Has his PR booked a prime slot in the Tardis for our encounter maybe? Or will we find ourselves propping up a scuzzy bar in another dimension? No. Teleporters seemingly on the pricey side I'm granted an audience with the Nebraskan troubadour on the telephone instead.

Oberst has built a hugely loyal following for his Bright Eyes project, and since the success of I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning in 2005 and follow-up Cassadaga there has been widespread interest in his solo work with both the Mystic Valley Band and supergroup Monsters Of Folk.

His new album, The People's Key, sees him working alongside permanent Bright Eyes members Mike Mogis and Nathaniel Walcott, after a break of three years.

"We've made so much music together that it felt very comfortable," he says. "It was nice, we recorded the album in our own studio here in town and spent nine months working on songs. I guess this time we were trying to make something a little more concise."

I'll reserve judgement on how successful he was in that respect, as to my ears The People's Key is concise only in its brevity. It comprises ten tracks, featuring music that is gritty and sprawling and packed full of references to scientific theory and literature by Kurt Vonnegut and Margaret Atwood.

It's no surprise to hear Oberst describe working with Mogis and Walcott as "much more of a cerebral process with lots of discussion and thinking" than the visceral, straight-to-tape feel of the Mystic Valley Band output.

As a result of his recent collaborations with different musicians, Oberst found himself wanting to push Bright Eyes to new places on his return.

"It took us a while to figure it out," he says. "Well, we knew what we didn't want to sound like; we wanted to step away from the folk and the rootsy Americana and just colour with a different palette. It took several months of experimenting before we found our sound."

This is an extract from the opening monologue of The People's Key: "There were chariots of fire that came into the sky, these beams got out of them, and they walked like a man but they had reptilian features, they had snake-like eyes, a tail and scales, right? And they were here and they made slaves out of the people and where they landed in is what the Bible called the Garden Of Eden, they were trying to in-breed with the people here…" To some it will no doubt read and sound like the ramblings of a crackpot (one Denny Brewer from a band called Refried Ice Cream). Not to Oberst, though.

"Well, it's not just him," he says. "A lot of people talk about the reptilian overlord race and how there are certain people in the world that are less than human. They're more cold and more calculating and they feed off everyone else's misery, which obviously sounds a little wild when you think of them as actually being reptiles or aliens, but I do think there are people in this world who are like that." So even if you find these beliefs hard to swallow literally, you can see it as a metaphor? "Exactly."

And lizard rulers are just one part of the theory contained within the record. "There is a humanist outlook throughout," Oberst goes on to explain, "or just the idea of one-ness, that we're all basically the same and that a lot of the things that divide us are illusions created to drive people apart and control us. Your country, your race, your religion, your socioeconomic stature, all of these things they're lies, they're lies," he emphasises. "I guess I'm trying to say that they're not really what it's about. It's more about what we have in common than our differences because those are, I think, very temporary."

His work has been notoriously difficult to unpick in the past but it's taken to new levels of cryptic pop on this latest offering. "Early on a lot of my songs were more confessional and narrative-led, nowadays though I'm into more opaque, coded lyrics that mean a lot to me but maybe on first glance take a little more imagination for the listener. That's not to say all of my records will be like this in the future, but for now it's what I'm into."

Despite sounding rather "out there", these elements to The People's Key are just another way for Oberst to achieve what he's been trying to get at with his music for years - "what I like about it is that you can actually get to a more real emotional truth if you have the freedom to bend reality a bit in your writing. It wasn't thought out ahead of time but as the record was coming together this new style just kind of emerged. I also wonder a lot about the future and how we're all going to deal with entering this very hypertechnological phase of humanity.

"I think a lot of our human-ness will be kind of quaint after a while and you'll have to go to a museum to see people talking to each other."

A little closer to home is: "What's in store for Bright Eyes?" Is this really the final full stop on his work with Mogis and Walcott?

"We're going to see what happens. Never say never," he chuckles. "It's true, there's not a whole lot of plans for Bright Eyes beyond this tour but we'll inevitably make music together in some capacity in the future."

Less complex than the future of humanity for sure, but this is one subject the singer is determined to stay tight-lipped on. Another shapeshift may well be on the cards.

• The People's Key is released on 14 February. Bright Eyes play Oran Mor, Glasgow, on Tuesday