You'll Never Leave

5 February 2014 | 9:55 am | Hannah Story

"The family dynamic is a big part of the chemistry of our band."

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It's their delicate storytelling and the distinctive baritone of lead singer Matt Berninger that has won The National hoards of fans the world over. They've been selling out shows since the take-off of 2005's Alligator and then 2007's Boxer, and in support of sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, are about to play a run of shows across Australia in some of our biggest venues. Down the line from his backyard in Southern California while the rest of the band freeze their arses off in New York, Berninger admits he is excited about hitting Australia.

“We're nervous, but it's nervous in an excited way. We've played a lot of big shows but to go out and just tour in these big beautiful places is really… we're motivated, we're ambitious about it and feeling excited about it. It'll be really fun. My brother's [Tim Berninger] movie [Mistaken For Strangers] is coming out too at the same time in Australia. So I'll be going from movie screenings to rock shows every day, and it's going to be a really busy but a really awesome time.”

In conjunction with the band's live shows, the acclaimed Mistaken For Strangers will be toured across the country with Tim coming along for the ride. The set-up means there'll be three sets of brothers heading on tour. 

“The family dynamic is a big part of the chemistry of our band. So when my brother came along and made this film, very much the chemistry of The National became a big part of the movie, too. Anybody with a sibling, actually I don't even know if you actually have to have a sibling, anybody who has a family, which is everybody in some way, one way or another, knows how weird it can be to be in a tight collaborative living situation, and all the stresses and anxieties that go with that. That's kind of what our music's about a lot of the time, whether it's a marriage or about a family, and very much what the movie's about.”

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When writing about these stresses and anxieties, Berninger tries to just let it all fall out, but argues that the songs aren't a kind of portraiture and that he is not necessarily the morose person he may come across as in his songs. Instead, writing songs involves expressing a little bit of his 'true' self, as well as an idealised version of himself.

“I think we're always trying to be something in life, and be a version of a human being that we wish we were, and maybe I'm doing that with the records a little bit, but ultimately I think it's just me being me, even if that's a delusional version of myself. It's somewhere on the wire between both those things: totally just me [and] totally something I wish I was.

“I also do think that people know that they're listening to music and they're listening to rock songs from performers and writers, and they know that some of it's telling stories. The truth is I don't think of it that much when I'm writing the songs, I'm not thinking of trying to express a portrait of myself, I'm usually just writing songs about ideas and thoughts… It's not autobiographical stuff, but it is personal.”

Their music is also increasingly intertextual, a fact Berninger acknowledges.

“There's a couple of references in this record to other records; there's Beatles references and Nirvana references and Violent Femmes references and there's even Elliott Smith references. I think it's not so much specifically I was listening to those things while writing but those things are parts of my history of music and of many, many, many others – those are the ones that just popped into this record. Violent Femmes were probably the first band, them and The Smiths were the first band that kind of woke me up to how music can be both hilarious and moving, twisted and honest, and all these weird things that I didn't think rock'n' roll was.”

Sadly, for National fans the world over, the band are not currently planning a new album. Instead, Berninger says that he and his bandmates are always coming up with ideas for songs.

“We are not sitting down and writing songs for a follow-up right now, but the way we work is the next thing actually starts being written pretty much right when the last one ends. So I think everybody is writing and collecting ideas. When all that stuff will come together and start to become a record is hard to say.

“I'm always working on stuff. Ninety per cent of it will probably end up nowhere and some of it will end up being a new record, some of it will end up something else. We learned not to try and think about, 'Oh, let's start the next thing now, let's start working on the next record or do this thing'. We've learned that for us we make better stuff when we're not worried about when it's going to happen or when it's going to come out. I guess right now we're just focusing on doing great shows and figuring out how to tour the world and be away from our families and to do that in a healthy way [so] that we don't ruin our lives. Those are the plates we're spinning right now.”