The National - Bloodbuzz and brothers

yourGigs has Conversation (16) with Bryce Dessner of The National ahead of their Australian tour.

yourGigs (yG): Were you surprised at all how successful High Violet has been for you and how widespread it has been?

Bryce Dessner (BD): We definitely feel totally grateful and humbled by it for sure, I don’t think any of us expected it to be as successful as we’ve become. The difference is that it has happened quite gradually, even the jump in venue size is has been so gradual, but maybe not in Australia as we’ve only been there once, but in England we’ve played everywhere from the smallest club to the biggest theatre. The way it has grown isn’t so drastic that we get our heads all turned around because of it. We are at a point now though that if we get any bigger than we are we’d have to start playing sports arenas, which would be awkward. We toured with R.E.M last year, and that was fun, but playing those huge places is a whole other thing.

yG: Last time you played Sydney it was in a Recital Hall – this time it’s a theatre – do you have to adapt your sound and set much when you do move up in venues?

BD: The thing that has changed significantly on this record is our festival billings. We are usually headlining or second on the bill and playing at night, entertaining whether it be 5,000 or 60,000 people is so different, you want the set to be tighter, and focus on certain songs that translate in that setting, and we travel with lights and sounds now and a crew that makes things flow better. All of that has developed, but it has happened in a gradual way, we’ve got peers that their success was more immediate, or more overnight, and maybe the shock of that is hare to adjust to, but we’ve had the ability to gradually do it, and even the ability to grow the show into different rooms has felt organic.

yG: Have you noticed any change to any of your personalities, or as the band operates as you have become more successful?

BD: Actually we’ve grown up a little bit, there’s such a huge difference between playing to 50 people in a small bar as then playing the Enmore Theatre to a few thousand people. It requires more preparation and just being more in the zone, it’s not as easy to get totally wasted before the show - it’s made the band a little more professional actually.

We don’t feel like rock stars, we don’t walk around feeling like a big deal; we are pretty humble about it. We are pretty normal dudes. You realise that the music industry is so fleeting and simple that right now we certainly having our moment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to last forever. We are basically trying to really enjoy it have been really lucky as a lot of the places we are playing are places you dream of playing, like the Royal Albert Hall, or Radio City, it is really something to remember.

yG: Do you think the level of interest in the band has matched the quality of the songs you think you are putting out?

BD: I think since Alligator, the quality of music has definitely - it has made a big leap on Alligator – you can argue about which record is better, but I think they are all good. We’ve been maintaining a certain level of our songs and stuff, but it seems the interest has just grown and grown since then. With High Violet being the tipping point where we were suddenly getting a lot more attention for what we are doing. There’s something to be said for having consistently made what I would call a good ‘National’ record, it may not be the best record you’ve ever heard, but for what we do, we’ve made three good ones that certainly helps people get interested.

yG: Have your feelings towards your first two albums changed over time?

BD: I think the early records – the first record has some of the best lyrics Matt ever wrote – that first record that really very few people have. The second album is a big mixture of styles, you have Nirvana inspired ragers like ‘Murder Me Rachael’ and ‘Available’ then these weird electronic songs, like ‘Sugarwife’ and ballads like ‘Lucky You’ it is really all over the place, it is really an eclectic and interesting record. Now considering what we have done is really honed in on a certain sound – certainly Alligator, Boxer and High Violet all have differences but it feels like it’s one way the a mature band is working. I think our earlier records are pretty interesting, it sounds like us searching around to what we were going to end up becoming. Some fans who are really into the band get a lot out of those records.

yG: How much does the fact you and your brother have kept growing as musicians through training and your various collaborations and experiences contributed to the development of the sound of The National?

BD: My brother and I write a lot of the music, actually my brother writes a bit more of it, but we both contribute to the basic music ideas that we do. The makeup of the band you can describe as having really diverse and passionate taste in music, my brother is really interested in song writing so mostly Bob Dylan and Neil Young is where he is coming from, Matt is really influenced by Nick Cave and Tom Waits and The Smiths, bands like that.

I’m coming from more a classical background, I’ve got a Masters Degree in music, I’m the only musician with that kind of background. So I provide more the left-field and subversive elements to music, whether it be weird harmonies or rhythms and some contemporary music type stuff you don’t normally hear in bands is what I contribute. Then Scott and Brian, Brian is really developed, he worships Stephen Morris of New Order, Scott the bassist has the biggest music collection of everyone, he loves checking out new bands, so will always have all this new music going on. It’s a weird alchemy in all of these things that creates what we are.

yG: I’ve read that your recording process is rather exacting and lots of arguments and too-ing and fro-ing that goes on - has that always been the case or just developed like that with all your interacting over the years?

BD: It’s always been the case. A lot of the arguments are because my brother and Matt are extremely opinionated and both are in a way perfectionists in they are always pushing things as far as they can push it. Brian is the same, but he is just stubborn. We have definitely a healthy amount of arguing and even fighting at times, it has become par for the course, it is not as contentious as some articles made out. There were moments on Boxer which were the hardest moments, but High Violet was not quite as bad as that.

yG: Do you thrive off the conflict at all?

BD: I think my brother and I thrive off the fun and competitive edge to things for sure, and sometimes there’s a playfulness to the conflict. But if we are working under a deadline and there’s is a lot of stress in the room it can be pretty brutal. I wouldn’t describe it as fun. I think we all know that for the most part 90% of the time that the process is a good one and necessary one, and 10% of the time we shoot ourselves in the foot, and maybe that 10% we are missing like the big radio hit we never wrote or something. But I would like to think we’ve figured out how to write good records together and it works.

yG: Is writing music for Matt’s lyrics challenging at all?

BD: We actually write the music first, we give him tons of music and he chooses demos that he likes and he writes from that. It is challenging to know, there are certain things that just work better with his voice. I always say an incredible piece of music that has a bad song, won’t survive, but an average piece of music with an amazing song, will become a hit. That is true for our band sometimes there’s been some music that we’ve made that we’ve been really, really excited about, but then Matt couldn’t find the right thing for it, so that doesn’t make the album, there’s some pieces of music that were okay and he’s written a really incredible song to it, and it makes the record, there’s a kind of weird thing like that sometimes.

yG: Does he ever go in depth with the lyrics with you, or just fits it to what he’s been given?

BD: He really works on his own. Once we hear him singing we can say, ‘oh I like that phrase’, or ‘you should think about that more’. Early on, there were a couple of times we would get really attached to it, then he would like to change it, just because he didn’t like the words or something, and that would be difficult. Sometimes he would be a bit protective of his process for that reason, he doesn’t want us to fall in love with something that he wants like to change, until he is totally convinced, sometimes we won’t even hear it. He will just keep it at home working on it. We are always pouring a lot into it but the lyrics are his domain. He does need editing sometimes, but he’ll be open to it. Actually his wife is a great writer and edits him with certain word choices or phrases.

yG: You have so many outlets for your own music; do you have any over-riding philosophy or approach you bring to it all?

BD: I am always learning from every experience, whether it be writing a song with another song writer, playing guitar on someone’s album or doing an instrumental piece, every time you do that you open yourself up to a new experience. I think the danger sometimes with being in a rock band, or a successful rock band, is that you fall in love with your own sound or the one thing you do and it can become very myopic. The danger where bands really repeat themselves now relates to that. The way I work is to be pretty open to different things and just trying things. Playing in The National is one thing I do and it is obviously the best known and the most active. But I get a lot thought music in other ways as well, sometimes it’s good to change it up and live in a different musical environment.