The Bad Penny (beta)

“I can’t call myself a musician yet.”

So says lo-fi rock musician Tom Oeffling, who just put out his eighth album – Neighbors (22TWENTY) – roughly two weeks ago and stands as one of the most humble and smartest musicians with whom The Bad Penny has had the good fortune of connecting.

The Chicago artist’s new album is based on the indisputably greatest book ever to come out of Ireland – and, in the opinion of yours truly, contemporary times – James Joyce’s Ulysses. In this interview, we probe Oeffling’s brilliant mind about the impact the tome had on him, how he structured his new album around it – and the friggin’ challenge of getting through the most difficult book ever written.

Buy Neighbors and Oeffling’s other records, and learn more about the artist, on his website. Check out more interviews about books that The Bad Penny conducted with musicians here.

Try your hand at this writer’s Ulysses crossword puzzle here.

This entry was posted on 11/15/2026 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Exclusives, Features, Interviews, Videos, What You Readin' For? with tags James Joyce, Tommy Oeffling, Ulysses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.