The National’s third album, Alligator, was one of the sleeper hits of 2005. While the band, from Ohio and based in New York, has been treading the boards for six years, it seems The National’s time has finally arrived.
Mixing Tindersticks-style brooding with the energy of Interpol, Alligator saw the group hitting new creative highs, where the melancholia of ‘Baby We’ll Be Fine’ sat comfortably alongside the raw anger of ‘Abel’. The reaction to the LP was overwhelmingly positive, particularly on this side of the Atlantic.
“The people who reviewed our earlier records were generally very glowing about them, but with Alligator it just happened on a much larger scale,” admits singer Matt Berninger. “We do read reviews occasionally and it’s fun to read when somebody really gets into and is excited about the record. But the fact that there are more people hearing about us now is the most exciting thing.”
It could be argued that until Alligator took their music to a wider audience, The National seemed to revel in their underdog status.
Berninger disagrees: “I don’t think we ever reveled in it. It was sort of a badge or something. But the truth is, if we could have been immediately well-known and popular, we would have chosen that route. That said, it’s really satisfying that through hard times when nobody really heard about us, we continued to make records that we love. We’ve never really been affected by the amount of attention we received. So now that we’re getting it, it’s like a bonus.”
They certainly have always plowed their own furrow, which Berninger maintains (only half-jokingly) owed a lot to laziness.
“I think it would have been harder to try to sound like somebody else,” he laughs. “That would have been too much work.”
Guitarist Aaron Dessner intervenes: “When we started playing in Matt’s bedroom, we loved the chemistry then and we still love the chemistry now. We were definitely outside a lot of the things that were happening in New York [at the time] but we’ve now found our audience and they’re really getting what we do, so that’s exciting. For instance, this year was the first time that we’ve sold out shows outside New York or Paris.”
So 2005 saw The National going from strength to strength. But this reviewer gets the impression that things are only beginning for the quintet as they enter 2006. They’ve already pencilled in studio time in March and the plan is to have a new album on the shelves this autumn. It probably won’t be a shiny, happy pop record, though.
Indeed, some critics have argued that The National are perhaps too sombre for their own good. The singer disagrees: “There are sad, melodramatic, dark moments in a lot of the songs. Maybe we do have a higher percentage of that sort of stuff than your average pop band. But I definitely think the songs are balanced with humour and absurd optimism.”
Songs such as ‘Abel’ are on the edge of a pretty dark place, says Berninger. Yet they never plunge over the side.
“I think there’s a pretty healthy balance of emotional range. To be honest, it’s a bummer that we get this miserabilist sticker. But I guess it’s understandable.
“When you’re writing lyrics to songs, maybe you’re sitting around drinking, thinking about things, and often the things that are obsessing you are ones you’re having a little bit of trouble with. So I’ll focus on those. But I’m not a dark, sad guy really.”
I wondered if he ever has ex-girlfriends on the phone, complaining that certain songs are about them.
“Yeah,” he grins, “but most of the time they’re flattered. Most of the songs that deal with relationships, even though they get into the nitty-gritty embarrassing stuff, are usually positive and embracing. So I’ve never had anybody really upset.”