«Well, you can't like everyone. For example, I think I don't like it for a lot of people, who, however, when he sees me, is experimented with compliments. “Oh Matt, your texts, your way of writing, you don't know how much they mean for me”, but below it is clear that they hate me. And no, I'm not paranoid at all (laughs). So it is fine, imagine: indeed, I am grateful to you for honesty ».
Thus Matt Beringer replies to the preliminary admission of those who write that he has never been a National fan. Not the most winning of the CAPATATIO BENEVANNTIAE, in fact. I do not know how much mitigated from having expressed instead an appreciation (sincere, not only to bring home the interview) for the new solo album of their singer. Get Sunk it arrives five years after the previous one Prison Serpentinea prestige in which Matt – and in part to us too – happened to us: pandemias, blocking of the writer, depression (won, apparently), two records in the same year (2023) with the National, tour, collaborations, a transfer with the family from California to Connecticut, the world that goes into the illness. In short, of material to be inspired by there was, especially for one who has the habit of “filling notebooks on notebooks, putting them in a drawer, reopening them and not understanding more because I had pinned those notes, only to find a line that turns on the spark for a song”.
It's nice, Berninger. Communicative, affable, scrupulous in explaining and telling each other. Despite the perennial look by fifty -year -old university professor of creative writing, of the liberal ones who make the rods with the students and go with them to the indie rock concerts, when he speaks he immediately appears as the denial of the prejudice that I have grown for years on him, linked to the perception of a group that I have always imagined as the favorite band of the New Yorker And of those hipsters whose memory was fortunately buried somewhere in the 10s. Nonsense. If the Nationals have the faithful sequel they have is because they have evidently been able to touch certain ropes of contemporary emotion, or at least that of an audience that combines the tail of the generation X and the millennial that in the insecurities and existential and sentimental twistings of Berninger have found in part a mirror, in part a vocabulary to decipher their own and their own, of insecurities and twisted.
Get Sunkwritten for two thirds together with the producer Sean O'Brien, then does not differ so much from the style of the band that Matt is the frontman for a quarter of a century. Weaving, beat, guitars, layers, reverberations: all very similar. Of particular, there is the intertwining of Matt's voice with the female one of Meg Duffy, and a more accentuated roundness of the melodies, for example in the ballads of excellent workmanship such as Silver Jeep. In some songs, the baritone immersed in suggestions wave recalls another Matt, that is, the best known Johnson as the the, in others (Frozen Oranges) The reference seems more Jeff Tweedy. But the game of references is useful up to a certain point with one who has always made a very personal question of songwriting. Get Sunk Not only is it no exception, from this point of view, but it is in a certain sense is the apotheosis of this approach.
Tell me some of the creative process that led to this new album of yours. A path that is not very simple, to what is read in the press release.
Yes, it was beautiful tortuous. In essence, these are two blocks of songs, put together over five years. Four I wrote them shortly after the release of Prison Serpentine. I was ready to go on tour to support the album, then Covid and goodbye arrived. In order not to stay with my hands in my hand, I gathered some people in the cellar of my home in Los Angeles and we recorded those pieces, which should have been part of another album to which I had given the provisional title of Get Sunk. Then since things never go as you planned, a terrible period started that blocked the project. I entered the depression, for almost a year I was unable to write a word. After that the carousel with the National, with the new records and tours – which, which, however, saved me – and only after some time did I start writing other songs with Sean O'Brien, was left. That are the other six on the disc. The title should have been It's Saturdaybut then I pulled the songs of 2020 out of the drawer, I listened to them with a different perspective after all that time, and I understood that together with the new ones they worked. There was a certain thematic coherence. AND Get Sunk In the end it was the right title. The album opens and closes with two of the songs I wrote during Lockdown.
One of these, Times of Difficultyis the one that contains the phrase that is the title of the album. At a certain point Canti “In Times of Heartache Get Drunk, in Times of Tears Get Sunk”. Can you explain the meaning? Does it mean that you have to touch the bottom to find the energy to go up?
I wrote that song before “sinking”, even if I was already at a good point in that sense. I don't know, maybe it was a warning to myself. Or an exhortation to do it. The fact is that when we are in shit and we do not know which side to start pulling out of it, overwhelmed by what happens to us, the best thing is to slow everything down, let yourself go. And try to look from outside. Like when you are in high waters and you feel you are going down. Departing only the situation worsens. Calm down, on the other hand. Slow Down. Breathe. Leaving the current does not necessarily mean drowning, perhaps it can take you where the water is lower.
Among other things, the song vaguely reminds me, from a melodic point of view, Straight to you by Nick Cave …
Ah, I hadn't thought about it sincerely. It may be, yes. I am one who often leaves a free field to his conscious influences or, as I believe in this case, unconscious.
The difficult times are also those we are experiencing collectively. As an artist, do you feel the responsibility to do something, whether to take a position or simply to relieve the anxieties of the listener?
I think about it all the time, maybe more now than when I was young. I wonder: do you want to use your songs as a platform to say what you think about how the world goes? The answer, and forgive me for the banality but it is so, is that sometimes it can be right and other times not. I read, I follow what happens, they are things that cannot be ignored. As everyone feels anger and frustration, feelings that can also be of inspiration. But they must be channeled, carefully processed. Scream slogan is useless, if not to give you a momentary relief valve. In several of my songs there are already a lot of darkness and a lot of malaise, I wonder if it is appropriate to add it again. Then I tell myself that after all even when you talk about love and invite to be honest, transparent, courageous, after all you are sending a political message.
One of the songs of Get Sunk who struck me more, from the point of view of the text, is Breaking Into acting. Maybe I played badly phrases like “since childhood you know how to cry on command, everyone says it's a gift, you can use it when it is comfortable”, but I suspect the topic that the compliance syndrome is. Other than that, did you really think about giving yourself to acting?
Yes, the theme is that. Fiction, putting on a mask and then finding yourself with the doubt: is it really that character they speak of? Nothing original as an idea, it is clear. In life we all recite in the subject, at any time. It is almost always a protective shield. At this moment I am reciting the part of the “rock star” (makes the gesture of quotes, NDA) interviewed, you that of the journalist, we both know that there is a script to respect. When we turn out zoom we will enter another role, and so on. The important thing is not to judge who does it, because in fact none of us are immune to us. As for the actor … well yes, I thought about it for about ten minutes. Always during Lockdown, a little to do something a little to see if there was the possibility of pulling on money, not being able to play, I sent videos with my auditions to the production of a movie. I am not as much as an actor, but I tried. Strangely, the part then went to Adam Driver (laughs, nda).
A journalist colleague of mine, a great admirer of the National, wrote that as a band you have always fought anxiety with the most effective weapon: anxiety. It seems to me a spot on, what do you think?
Very right as consideration. In fact, that's the engine that sends us forward. There is also a form of positive anxiety, to explain themselves and at the same time to understand others. Which is what art should do. I can think of something I saw on Instagram a few days ago. Instagram can be a black hole but every now and then you find lighting. In short, I found an old video of Carl Sagan in which he tells the evolution of life on Earth, and says this phrase that struck me: “Humanity is carbon molecules that explain carbon molecules to other carbon molecules”. Basic human beings are a fist of atoms that interact with other atoms. We evolved to create art or sport, which basically are attempted to explain life to us, as well as ways to not kill each other. Collective works, such as the Bible. We constantly invent metaphors to explain to ourselves and others because we are here, because we are alone, and so on.
After all these years, when you write you feel more the need to meet the expectations of those who have always followed you or every now and then do you think what a different audience could attract, perhaps younger?
I think about it, but not much. When I finished recording a song I wonder what impact can have on those who listen, but in the end it is not so decisive. The only person I try to please myself is myself. It has always been like this. I have never written anything that was not addressed first to me.
I turn the question a little. Is there any songs that you repent you have written today?
No, absolutely. Then, clear, there are some that today are more problematic and difficult to sing. The first that comes to mind is Available. In the text I express a gross and cruel feeling I felt at that moment. Or who tried the Matt Beringer with the mask of the writer-of-the-to-two-National. It is an extremely bad piece, but it is also a great song. Singing it today can be complicated, because I'm no longer so angry, so frustrated. But maybe I wasn't even when I wrote it, and the point is just that. Songs are the safe place where you want you can stage the worst version of you. And so no, they don't complain about any of those I wrote.
The last question has to ask with your life before music. I always intrigued me that you had embarked on an advertising career. Were you a copywriter or an art director? Was that professional experience in advertising as a musician?
I was a graphic designer, I took care of the visual part of the countryside. Although sometimes I wrote claims for Mastercard type customers. I had put my first band with people I had met at the school of graphics, that part of my life counted a lot. For the design of the covers of the discs I have always let others do and I have never put my nose, but in fact in writing the lyrics and in giving shape to the songs that visual approach typical of the advertising was useful to me. A bit as if I had to produce a layout for a presentation to the customer (laughs).
