“WHEN I WALK INTO A ROOM, I DO NOT LIGHT IT UP… FUCK”… IN A WORLD THAT DEMANDS INSTANT GRATIFICATION, AND A MUSIC BUSINESS THAT CATAPULTS LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR POP TO HIGH-LEVEL STARDOM THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF HOLLOW TV COMPETITION, THE NATIONAL HAS DONE THINGS THE OLD-FASHIONED, SOULFUL, WAY… FOURTEEN YEARS ON FROM A MODEST SELF-TITLED DEBUT, THE AMERICAN BAND HAS FOUGHT A WAY UP TO BECOME ONE OF THE BIGGEST ON THE PLANET.

Matt Berninger seems, at least from the outside, a somewhat unlikely rock ‘n’ roll star. An unassuming frontman, he can appear to be far from at home on a stage. Yet he delivers songs of beauty and angst with such gravitas that all doubt pales to insignificance once his distinctive vocals ring out.
Though it was third album ALLIGATOR which, in 2005, introduced the band to wider audiences – thanks to singles ABEL and LIT UP (both still staples of the live set) – it wasn’t until two years ago with the exceptional HIGH VIOLET that The National gained commercial success and earned real critical acclaim. The album felt like a turning point, and marked a noticeable change of direction – gone were indie anthems and out-and-out rock songs, replaced by soundscapes as grand as any band had managed for years. A world tour followed but, after a mammoth 22 months, rather than take a well-earned break The National headed into the studio.

The resulting album – TROUBLE WILL FIND ME, released in May this year – was the biggest hit to date. Peaking at number three in both the UK and US charts, it was a collection of love songs which stood up to repeated listening despite a raw and frequently painful tone. Though opener I SHOULD LIVE IN SALT could have figured on HIGH VIOLET, new material SEA OF LOVE, GRACELESS and PINK RABBITS (the most heartwrenching song released to date) showcased a group breaking its own new ground, and at the height of its powers.
An eclectic back catalogue means that live shows are exciting and unpredictable. There are songs to make an audience ecstatic, Berninger shrieking the final verses and throwing himself into the crowd with abandon. There are tracks so taut or delicate that it would seem an insult to breathe while they were being performed. There are all moods between.
Tonight the band begins the all-too-short UK and Ireland leg of its extensive world tour. In this interview Matt Berninger talks about the outside expectations which success can bring, what the band might do next when the current globetrot winds down, and whether he actually can light up a room or not. The next six nights provide Belfast, Dublin, Manchester and London with ample opportunities to reach their own conclusions. Chances are…

IF YOU WERE TO SELL THE NATIONAL TO A NEWCOMER WHO’D NOT SEEN THE BAND LIVE, WHAT WOULD YOU SAY MAKES YOUR SHOWS SO SPECIAL?
It’s an opportunity to see a grown man lose his shit under some beautiful lights. Our shows are fun and chaotic and often filled with a certain amount of destruction – and its usually my body or the bottle of whatever wine that I’m drinking. I think our live show is different to our records. Its just more rocky and more messy – in a good way, I think.

WOULD YOU SAY THERE’S ONE SONG THAT ENCAPSULATES IT?
Not really. There’s not really one. We have songs where I’m a gorilla going through a temper tantrum and there are other songs that are very, very quiet and delicate – so its kind of a roller coaster ride being at our shows. It’s hard to say or pick one that captures everything. We’ve been doing a live version of the song ABOUT TODAY that starts out really delicate and then at the end it’s kind of a screaming squall of things, but its hard to say that there’s one that really captures it. And I think that’s really the whole point.

IF SOMEONE HAD ONLY LISTENED TO HIGH VIOLET THEY MIGHT EXPECT YOUR GIGS TO BE QUITE SOMBRE… 
… It’s a funny thing, I don’t feel good on stage. And being up there, by any stretch of the imagination, is not my comfort zone. Maybe that’s why I drink so much wine, just to escape how awkward and humiliating it can be to be standing on stage, having lights on you while you sing love songs… 

… BUT I’VE SEEN FOOTAGE OF YOU CLIMBING UP TO BALCONIES, OR OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROWD…
It’s kind of ridiculous, but I’ve definitely learned to love it… And I’ve learned to be very careful going out into the crowd – in the United Kingdom in general – because there’s a lot more grabbing going on, for whatever reason – and I think it’s mostly dudes… So when I do go out there I try to avoid the pockets in the crowd with the drunk dudes as they’re looking for souvenirs. They’re trying to take my belt off. It can get distracting…

… DO YOU THINK OF YOURSELF AS ‘A ROCK STAR’ ..?
Sure, I guess so. I’ve been in a rock band for a long time now, we fly all over the world and put on shows. So I guess that’s what I am, in some regard. I’m not sure what version of a rock star I am. I’m somewhere between Axl Rose and Leonard Cohen. It’s hard to say…

IT’S OVER TWO YEARS SINCE YOU LAST ‘PROPERLY’ TOURED THE UK…
Yeah. Of course, we’re really excited to be back. The thing with audiences in the UK, and in particular Ireland, is that they will sing their heads off and are connected in a different way. Some places we go are quiet – and that’s also nice – but they’re very reverential and you can hear a pin drop the whole show until a song is over. But in Ireland, particularly, you can’t hear any pins drop. People are screaming the whole time.

RECENT SET-LISTS HAVE BORROWED HEAVILY FROM BOXER, HIGH VIOLET AND, OF COURSE, THE NEW RECORD. IS THAT A DECISION THAT WAS MADE TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE POPULARITY OF THOSE RECORDS, OR ARE THEY JUST THE SONGS THAT YOU FEEL MOST COMFORTABLE PERFORMING?
It’s weird. A lot of it has to do just with the songs that we perform best, and can work better in a live setting. But then there’s other songs too… On this tour, every show, we try to throw in a song that we haven’t played for a while, so it changes every night. But the core of the set is made up of songs that will pretty much be in there. It’s not like we don’t play any of our old songs, it’s just that you would have to come to about ten shows to hear a big selection of old material, from all across our catalogue. We always put on what we believe will be our best game, for every show, and there are some fans that follow us that want to hear CARDINAL SONG or AMERICAN MARY or songs from our first record… and by no means do we not like those songs, but I just think that we’ve become a better band over the years. We’re most excited by what we’re doing now… and that’s all there is to it really.

YOU PLANNED TO TAKE A BREAK AFTER TOURING HIGH VIOLET, BUT ACTUALLY CAME BACK WITH A NEW RECORD AND ANOTHER HUGE WORLD TOUR… TIME TO TAKE THAT BREAK AFTER THIS?
Maybe. We are all planning that, but that’s also what happened last time. We planned to take a long break and before we knew it all this music started coming. I think we just learned that things happen as they happen. Sometimes they happen fast, and sometimes they happen slow – and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to overly plan things. Everything can change so quickly, and circumstances become different quickly, so who knows? I bet we’ll say that at the end of this tour that it’s now time for a break. But I just don’t know if it will stick or not.

IT’S PROBABLY FAIR TO SAY THAT THE BAND IS BIGGER NOW THAN IT’S EVER BEEN BEFORE…
We’re very conscious of just how lucky we are… How very fleeting the nature of the business is, and how quickly our success and popularity can go away. It can be gone in a second and so we take nothing for granted. Internally, we don’t let each other slide. We automatically set ourselves pretty high standards – as in, we’d say “we’d better not fucking phone this in otherwise we don’t deserve to be here”…

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THE ADDED EXPECTATION SUCCESS BRINGS..? IS IT SOMETHING YOU CONSIDER, AS A BAND?
I’m not sure about that. I think that feeling of new and added expectation hit us most after ALLIGATOR – which was the first of our albums that a lot of people really heard. So following that up was kind of the only time that we consciously stressed out about levels of expectation. Since then, on every record, we’ve realised that if we spend our time wondering about what expectations are it doesn’t really help us be creative, write songs or put on good shows. Thinking of expectations is too abstract. If you try to predict what people want or think you have a sense of what people want from you, you’re probably not totally right anyway. It just doesn’t help us to be a better band.

YOU RECENTLY COVERED LEARNING BY PERFUME GENIUS. DO YOU HAVE PLANS FOR MORE SONGS – OR MORE BANDS ..?
Honestly, we’re not a band that covers songs very often. I’m not sure why. Mostly I think its me. I almost don’t want to ruin songs that I love by severing them, but we have done a few covers in the past. Though it’s not the kind of band that we are – and its probably because its not something that we’re actually any good at. But that Perfume Genius song is a very simple little song, and it’s so weird and much darker than anything we’ve ever written. I dunno, it just seemed like a fun thing to do and we did it, and well. But it’s definitely an anomaly, for sure.

THE DOCUMENTARY FILM WHICH FOLLOWED THE NATIONAL – MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS – WAS A GREAT PIECE OF WORK…
We all love that movie so much. We’re excited about it, and I feel proud of my brother for putting it together. Everyone will be able to see it very, very soon.

CHRISTMAS STOCKING-FILLER DVD PERHAPS?
It won’t be out on DVD by Christmas. It will certainly make it early next year some time. It’ll also be showing in theatres, though perhaps not in the big multiplexes – but it will certainly be available to everyone, everywhere, early next year.

THE BAND’S SOUND HAS EVOLVED SOMEWHAT FROM BOXER TO HIGH VIOLET AND THEN ON TO TROUBLE WILL FIND ME…
You have to always look into new rooms and under new rocks, just to stay excited. That’s definitely part of it, but if you ask any one of us which way we want the band to go, it would probably be in five different directions. I think that’s kind of one of the central elements in the DNA of this band, that we’re all pushing things in different directions, and it’s the weird middle ground in which the songs and the records end up that makes them interesting. So anytime we’ve had a preconceived idea of what to do next, it never ended up being that. It always became almost the opposite – or at least something very different.

SO YOU HAVE NO IDEA, AT THIS STAGE, WHERE THE NATIONAL MIGHT GO NEXT?
Honestly? No. We’ve learned that it’s actually the songs that come out and start to form and come together out of the ether that are the things we chase – never ‘a new direction’. We certainly know that we have to evolve and change… or even devolve… And that’s what makes this band what it is…

  {  Interview: DW  }