Hot Press meets The National

9.30pm on Thursday December 2, 2010. That’s the precise moment when Ireland’s infatuation with The National turned into a full-blown “take me, I’m yours!” love affair.

Five hours on the tarmac at London Heathrow and their flight’s subsequent diversion from Dublin to Shannon meant that Cincinnati’s finest had arrived at the Olympia for the first of three sell-out shows 30 minutes after the scheduled kick-off.
The word among the crowd, who’d battled through Arctic-like condition themselves to make it to Dame St., was that having not had the chance to soundcheck the quintet would pull the gig.
They were given that option by the promoters, but not being ones to let either the weather or the bastards grind them down, The National went onstage to a heroes’ welcome and played possibly the finest set I’ve ever seen in the hallowed hall.
Signing off with a mass singalong version of High Violet’s ‘Vanderlye Crybaby Geeks’ performed sans PA, it was a band preparing to make the Arcade Fire-style transition from cult favourites to full-blown arena-fillers.
And so it’s proven in the interim. The National’s Cork Live at the Marquee gig next month sold out so speedily that the chaps are returning in November for shows in the Belfast Odyssey and Dublin’s O2. Pre-orders suggest that their Trouble Will Find Me album will top the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and the documentary account of their last circumnavigation of the globe, Mistaken For Strangers, had fans and movie buffs alike hollerin’ their approval last month when it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
In Berlin for a day of promo, Aaron Dessner can offer no definitive reason as to why after 14 years his band are about to become an overnight sensation.
“We’re always surprised by our success,” he insists. “We’re confident but not in the sense of thinking we’re the best band or rock stars or anything. We’ve accepted that people like the band, but I don’t think any of us knows precisely why.
“We’ve been put into these situations gradually,” the affable guitarist continues. “We opened for REM and watched them do it and we’ve seen our friends like Arcade Fire headline festivals. You learn how even subtle music or more personal songs can translate in that way. So we’ve gotten better and better, I think, in every situation. We’ve managed to communicate on that level. But every time you do it, it’s like jumping into cold water. You’re like, ‘Is it going to work?’”
Like Glen Hansard, The National got a masterclass in impending superstardom along the way from Bruce Springsteen.
“We drank whiskey with him for a few hours, and got to hear a lot of the old E Street Band war stories, which was just awesome,” Aaron beams. “One of the bits of advice he gave us is that you’ve got to learn to play to the back-row. He also said, ‘You create a wave and then have to ride it. When I wrote Born To Run I had a million fans and when I wrote Born In The USA I had 10 million’. We joked that we had ten thousand including all our friends and family! What was most inspiring about Bruce Springsteen and Michael Stipe is how down to earth they both are. I didn’t sense any arrogance or condescension.”
Did the REM boys have any Brooooocian words of wisdom for them?
“The main thing we learned from Michael in particular, is not to be afraid of writing an infectious song,” he proffers. “You don’t always have to subvert them into being something artier. ‘Don’t be afraid to write a pop song’ is I think how he put it when we stayed up all night drinking with him and Mike Mills at Oxegen. It’s a lesson he learned I guess when REM came out with ‘Losing My Religion’ and ‘Shiny Happy People’ and suddenly became one of the biggest bands on the planet. Some of the simpler songs on High Violet like ‘Sorrow’ and ‘Anyone’s Ghost’ were our response to that.”
There are also plenty of sublime pop moments on Trouble Will Find Me, which if truth be told Aaron did the lion’s share of the work on.
“I’m sort of the chief-tinkerer in the band,” he acknowledges. “I’m constantly messing with sound and have built a recording studio in my garage in Brooklyn. I produced a record last year by Sharon Van Etten called Tramp, which is the first thing I engineered from beginning to end. I realised I could do it!
“When we stopped touring High Violet a year-and-a-half ago I’d already written a lot of music that Matt had been listening to. I could see him on planes with a notepad [writing lyrics]. We had 27 song ideas and started recording in August.”
It all sounds very simple and organic.
“Matt likes to think that,” Aaron smiles, but of course it’s never that easy. This music is actually more complicated than anything we’ve ever done. There are these extra beats, weird time signatures and minor/major harmony shifts and stuff he used to raise his eyebrows at. This time he just embraced it because in his mind we weren’t over-thinking it. But actually we were thinking more than ever!”
Was Mr. B too knackered after all that touring to notice?
“Maybe, yeah!” he chuckles. “Matt’s a great listener and writer and fan of music, but he’s not like, ‘Oh, this song’s in 7/4. I need to think about the beat coming in here’. He tries to feel his way through it, and in doing so comes up with an unusual non-musician response as opposed to what a very trained person
would do.”
So is there a difference in the end product?
“I think there was more of an acceptance of the process, that this will work fine if we all embrace it,” Aaron reflects. “Both Boxer and High Violet were lyrically hard for Matt to finish. There are certain songs that were finished for him like the ending of ‘Slow Show’ and ‘Gospel’ and ‘Guest Room’. With this one the ideas were flowing. It was more like the beginning of the band when he used to write tons of things and not think about it so much… So, yeah, this one was more free-flowing and stream of consciousness. It’s not quite as fussy as some of our previous albums. Hopefully!”

Bassist Scott Devendorf met Matt in 1991 whilst they were both attending the University of Cincinnati, and spent five years playing with him in pre-National lo-fi garage outfit Nancy. As such no one is better equipped to give an insight into the Berringer modus operandi.
“We know what works for us, but it’s not like, ‘Yes, this is going to be a hit’,” he observes. “We’re trying to make each of the songs sort of their own special thing. We’re old school, album people. We’re thinking of these songs as a little family of things, each with their unique characteristics.”
It’s often said that record companies don’t give bands time to develop any more, but Modest Mouse, Animal Collective, The Shins and The Decemberists are just four examples of other American acts who, like The National, have been allowed to take the slow route to success.
“I’m a fan of bands that last for a long time and go through changes, but still retain what you like about them,” Scott continues. “There are many, many bands that just make one awesome album and that’s it. It’s like lightning in a bottle or something. We’re lucky to have been doing it for so long.”
For Trouble Will Find Us the chaps shacked up in the studio again with St. Vincent, Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry.
“It sounds funny, but I think we collaborate because our songs are like these riddles that you need to unlock,” Aaron resumes, offering a finely tuned insight into the band’s creative approach. “Unlock the riddle or the mystery of how to give something another dimension or another twist harmonically or rhythmically. We have a lot of amazing musician friends who it’s always interesting to bounce ideas off. Have someone come in and just play things. Richie is a good example: his father was a choir director and British folklorist, and had this crazy weird band in the ‘60s that would just harmonise. So he automatically hears all the possibilities of vocal arrangements. It’s interesting to let someone loose on the song.”
Would they be interested in letting, say, Rick Rubin give them a complete sonic makeover?
“I don’t think so,” Scott states. “Like Aaron was saying, we’re all pretty strong-willed and opinionated. It would potentially create more friction and fighting than need be.”
The inclusion of the word ‘more’ in that sentence is intriguing, suggesting that slaps, eye-pokes and hair-pulls are all part of the creative process when The National get together in the studio!
“It’s these sort of ‘focused battles’ that happen over a certain song or an idea,” he continues. “We’ve described it as chess. One person might want a certain thing and the other one wants it the other way. You have to give and take a little bit. And the other people sort of provide their opinion in that little negotiation, I guess. It doesn’t make for the most efficient process. But our goal is not efficiency. It’s hopefully making good records.”

If collaboration is important to The National, Aaron has taken further steps in that direction, with a special Irish twist to his adventures. The sonic wizard escaped from the studio before Christmas in order to curate one of the nights at Other Voices in Dingle, a show he’d previously graced with the rest of the group shortly after that 2010 Olympia run of gigs.
“It was one of the only times that the band has gone somewhere to do a television performance and then everyone wants to change their flight and stay,” he recalls of that first encounter with the Other Voices ethos. “Even the famously reclusive curmudgeonly singer Matt who usually doesn’t like to hang out (laughs). It was at the end of a long tour and we just felt there was something very music-friendly about it and, I dunno, the band kind of woke up… I just said, ‘We’ll do whatever, we’ll come back, we’d love to be involved’.”
He was true to that promise.
“In the last few years, I’ve worked with three artists who I invited to come and play,” he says. “One is a rock band from LA called Local Natives. They’re four phenomenal guys who’ve known each other for a long time and sing these amazing harmonies. They also play very, very complex rhythms. It’s kind of like ‘wow!’ – a lot of information but it’s really special. And then there’s a duo from Australia called Luluc. Their music is also harmony-driven and almost puts you in some sort of weird enlightened trance. I just finished working with them and they transfix when they play.
“And then there’s an amazing band from Paris by way of Bristol called This Is The Kit, who are sort of folk-inflected rock,” he continues. “Cool music that’s hard to put your finger on. It’s a female singer, Kate Stables who I’ve known for a very long time, an old family friend – and we just happened to fall into working together a few years ago. It was very magical.”
If Desner ever gets tired of making music, a career in public relations awaits! Re-winding to the first part of his answer – just how much of a reclusive curmudgeon is Matt Berninger?
“Matt’s songs contain a lot of potentially miserable material, but there’s also a lot of humour,” he insists. “A lot of times he tries to have fun. It might be a weird way of having fun…”
“It’s a way of having fun with the idea of darkness or being miserable,” Scott interjects. “If you take it on the surface – like listen once – it can be really, ‘Whoa!’”
Presumably he isn’t always singing from first-hand experience?
“No, it would be horrifying!” he smiles. “It’s just a way of telling stories, like all songs are. I think this record is a little different; we’re all older now, we have kids and families and loved ones we feel responsible for. For Matt these songs are kind of about that. People being around after you’ve gone and that kind of thing.”
I’ve always felt there’s the same element of self-parody with Matt Berninger as there is Leonard Cohen.
“We saw Leonard Cohen once,” Scott recalls. “Matt was scared and ran away. It was pretty funny!”
Where do the rest of The National score on the chuckleometer?
“We’re not miserable guys,” he pleads. “We laugh a lot! In Tom’s movie you see a little bit of how we interact and joke around and have fun.”
The film, titled Mistaken For Strangers was shot by Matt’s older, heavy metal-loving and serially under-achieving brother Tom Beringer.
“It’s definitely not a rock documentary,” Aaron says. “It’s more of a personal story of Tom trying to do something and failing. And then trying again and failing!”
“His idea of a rock band is Iron Maiden and we’re not Iron Maiden,” Scott laughs again. “We’re a little more sedate than he expected. Maybe it wasn’t what he signed up for!”
As an unrepentant Deadhead, I have to conclude by asking the lads about the marathon gig The National played last year with Bob Weir.
“It was kind of mind-blowing ‘cause we grew up – Bryan and Scott especially – listening to that music,” Aaron enthuses. “Just to be around the real person and hear things that you recognise from the live recordings of the Grateful Dead: they invented the rock tour essentially. You felt like you were connecting into this really important musical legacy. It’s weird ‘cause I don’t think the Grateful Dead mean as much to Europeans as they do to Americans.”
“Yeah, it’s such a part of American sub-culture,” Scott ends. “Bob’s 64 now but totally up for doing 10-hour rehearsal days. Here’s a guy who’s done this his whole life and could retire very comfortably, but he’s still taking his guitar and going out to play a show at his friend’s bar. It was inspiring!”

Trouble Will Find Me is out here on May 17.