Pushkin.

Today, we're kicking off a two part series of interviews with members of the National, who just released their ninth album called First Two Pages of Frankenstein.

Today's conversation is with Aaron Desner, the Nationals guitarist and oftentimes lead composer.

Outside of the National, Aerin is also a prolific producer, having worked with a slew of artists, including most famously Taylor Swift.

During the pandemic, Dessner and Swift teamed up to write music that would eventually become Taylor's critically acclaimed indie leaning albums, Folklore and Evermore.

Desner also has a side project with Bonniever's Justin Vernon called Big Red Machine that features collaborations with artists including a Naias Mitchell and Sharon van Etten.

On today's episode, Broken Record producer Leo Rose talks to Aaron Desner about how an invitation to open an arena tour for bonnie Ver led to him writing the music that he would eventually share with Taylor Swift.

Aeron also talks about how the National almost came to a breaking point after a grueling tour schedule, and he opens up about his battle with depression as a teenager and how his twin brother Bryce carried him through.

This is broken record liner notes for the digital Age.

I'm justin Mitchman.

Here's Lea Rose with Aaron Desner.

I want to ask you about all your solo work, and you have been so prolific as a producer, as a songwriter, as a composer.

But let's start by talking about the new National album.

So tell me the story of the first two pages of Frankenstein.

Well, yeah, so the first two pages of Frankenstein is the National's ninth record.

A nice feeling to have made a record that I think is the best thing we've made, even though I know artists always say that, but in this case, I really do feel that it's somehow is a distillation of everything we've done, or somehow it reminds me of some of our earliest work and also some of the most developed and somehow mature and evolved, you know, at the same time.

So, but the story of it, I guess by the time we released Easy to Find, which is the last record, which is a collaboration with Mike Mills, this filmmaker and featured a number of female vocalists that were duetting sort of with Matt and telling the story of a woman's life from birth to death.

It was the most conceptual record we'd ever made.

We were sort of dissolving the identity of The National somehow, or playing around with it more than we had before, opening it up, having other people sing the songs, and just kind of like it was after Sleep Well Beast, which we had been a big record and we'd won a Grammy for the Alternative Music Grammy, and it had gone so well, and we'd toured so much, and then Easy to Find happen and we were still on tour, and this is like it felt like the end of twenty years of touring, and we were all sort of coming apart in a way, like as a band and individually there were some we were running on fumes and everything just sort of fell apart.

Like we kind of felt like it was unclear to me when The National would write again or see each other again.

Everyone was in different places.

My brother was in France and I was stuck here and Matt was out in la and like everyone in the world, we just kind of stayed put.

So I guess this record was really it took a long It took a couple of years for us to find our feet.

I was curious when you say that that last tour that you took for the album, the wheels were falling off and everything was sort of falling apart, with communication breaking down at that point.

How traditionally has the band dealt with conflict in times like that.

A lot has been said about the National in terms of it being this band of brothers, because there's two sets of brothers and my brother and I and then Scott and Brian Devon Dorf and then Matt who's the only one who's not a brother, but he's like he's sort of central figure as a singer and lyricist.

And historically Matt and I have butted heads because I tend to generate most of the music, and we love each other and we obviously are such good collaborators, but like, if there's a disagreement, it was often between him and I over like the push and pull of trying to make something as good as we can.

But actually it was never that bad, really, I think we just also it's like part of the identity of the band was like this dysfunctional family or something.

But over many, many years of touring.

I mean, because we sort of built this band brick by brick from it started in nineteen ninety nine.

In two thousand and one, we started touring, and we didn't really ever stop for more than a month or two all those years, you know, and starting with like in two thousand and five, Alligator came out, and then it was Boxer, and then it was High Violet, Trouble Will Find Me, Sleepobies Easy to Find, and all of those records.

I don't really think we made a bad record, you know.

I think we just kept making better records or you know, they're all they're kind of siblings, these records, And it did take a lot out of us because at the same time we were touring, and I just think at some point during Easy fin we woke up and everyone was like moving in the opposite direction from each other, but not out of any real spite.

It was a combination of maybe needing space from the band and each other, but also we just don't want to make anything that doesn't feel really inspired.

So I think at some point it was just started to feel when I see the wheels were coming off, it was just that feeling of your running on fumes and maybe the well has gone dry a little bit.

And the day that Easy to Find came out, justin Vernon, Bonnie Bear justin Vernon had called me.

We'd you know, been friends for a really long time and had gone so close and obviously collaborated on many things, including Big Red Machine, and we've been making all this Big Red Machine music that was exciting.

But he was scheduling this big European tour.

It was this arena chair that was supposed to be in the fall of twenty twenty, I think, and he called me the day Easy to Find came out, He said, would you open my tour by yourself?

He said, would you open my tour?

And I was like, well, what do you mean?

And he's like, well, I want you to open it just by yourself.

And I was like, well, I've never actually played any I've never played any music by myself in front of people, not even like an open mic, you know that.

He sort of said, but I know I've seen I've seen what you do, and I know what you do, and I think it'd be really interesting.

What a beautiful compliment.

I mean, that's just like so incredible that he would believe in you at that level, like, yeah, that did that feel really motivating for you?

It was a challenge.

I mean, he's a really lovely person and intuitive kind of friend, and he I think he was interested in what it would do creatively for me and so and it wasn't in opposition to anything, not definitely, not in opposition to the national It was just like do it, just do it.

And I was like, Okay, I'll do it.

And so from that point I started to write a lot of music just thinking about how would I do that?

How would I stand in the Wembley Arena by myself and play for fifteen thousand people, or you know, how would I do that?

And it was a good challenge and so I started that really like started this during the Easy to Find Her.

I was making all this stuff.

So that year when we were touring for that record, in the backstages and everywhere, I was writing all this music that I took to the point of being ready kind of for me to cause I knew that it was coming.

And then the pandemic hit and I was like, oh, okay, well glad I did all that, but now what's it for?

Oh?

Were you disappointed?

I wasn't disappointed.

Actually I was relieved maybe that I didn't have to do it because it was actually terrifying.

But I think that it kind of like started an interesting growth for me.

And I say this with regard to where the National was.

I feel like there are clues in that also to eventually how I came back to work on new national music, because it was clear to me as I was making this music, you know, to open the bony virtue, that it wasn't national music, it was something else.

And actually a lot of that stuff ended up being what I shared with Taylor Swift when she approached me during the pandemic or like in April twenty twenty.

But basically I was feeling very prolific and very creative.

But it was for the first time I knew that it was for something else instead of always I was always directed into the National for all those years, and then suddenly I found myself widely collaborating outside of it, which was exciting.

And I think that the story of this record is kind of the story of us all having a lot of experiences and growing, I think, and also sort of hibernating and taking care of ourselves and their loved ones during this weird time and then eventually coming back into it and really leaning into each other in our strengths and kind of saying, I don't know, this was actually, weirdly the most harmonious process that we've ever had.

And I think it was because we had space, you know, from right, And.

It sounds like everyone was able to focus on different projects if they wanted, or just get time to sort of like you know, replenish themselves.

Yeah, for sure.

Like at some point, you know, I ended up in this wildly prolific time with Taylor collaborating remotely, and we made folklore, and then we made evermore all in the same year and at the same time.

Then I finished the Big the second Bigger Machine record, and made a ton of music with all sorts of people.

But at some point I started to have the realization that I would be making music and I'd be like, wait, this is a national song.

So how do you know when it's a national song.

It's because you can feel the engine of the band in your hands or in your heart.

You start to I'll make something because I if I pick up an instrument or sit down an instrument, it's very natural for me that I it almost immediately I start generating.

It's just the way I think it comes from when I was a kid, Like how I relate to music.

It's not like it's almost physical and visceral.

It's an emotional process where I'm I'm like tapping into a current within myself.

But the way it comes out on instruments it kind of feels locomotive or meditative or sort of.

Oftentimes it's this sort of circular patterns and behaviors.

There's certain ways of playing or feeling where I can feel how the others might bounce off of it, or like, oh, like I could hear my brother or harmonizing what I'm playing, or I could hear Brian like his No one can drum like him, and when he really locks into something, it becomes so much more.

Or the way Matt and even like sometimes you start to hear your bandmates because it is it's like this family feeling.

So that started to come back at some point in a very strong way.

So I started to have a folder of ideas that I felt were really strong, and then my brother did too, and it just started the well started to fill and eventually it was overflowing.

But this is a this is a good like well over a year, year, a year and a half after we'd said goodbye, not knowing it was goodbye.

I think it was the last show as in Lisbon, Portugal in December twenty nineteen, and it was like in this beautiful in the Kempo Pekenyo I think it was Kempo Peginio or in the Colisseum, fifteen thousand people wow, and they were all it was just this amazing show.

And I remember thinking, if this is the last National show, this would be a good way to end it.

And then it seemed like it was the end of it, you know, both because of the pandemic, but also because of just where we all were for a while.

Yeah, So it was just it was a nice feeling when the well suddenly was full.

And I remember just sharing music with Matt finally and being like, I don't know, there might be things in here, you know.

So when you're writing music for the National, when you sit down and if you're writing on guitar or you're writing on piano or whatever it is, whatever the instrument is, do you hear phantom parts from other members in the band.

Yeah, for sure, I think after so many years of working together.

We're very aware of each other.

I mean because Bryce and Brian and I have played together since we were in middle school, and Bryce and I since we're tiny, but I naturally know when there's a pocket that Brian can exploit, you know, or can kind of like we joke it's like, well is the horse is the horse?

You're gonna run sort of like you pull him out of the barn.

And because it is like that, like when he hooks into something, it's kind of a it's just a feeling.

But yeah, I hear, particularly I hear my brother, you know, both what he can do with the guitar to what I'm doing with the guitar or piano or anything whatever I'm playing, but also like his orchestration and how he might add complexity to something or develop it.

And that's it does seem.

Really part of the gift of the band is that we don't seem to get stuck or stale.

Somehow, it feels like it's it still feels ever when we actually try to make something.

It kind of because we also throw away a lot and we get sick of we probably made.

We made a lot more music for this record than we ultimately put on it, and a lot of it's really strong, but I think there's a it's hard for five people to feel confident.

Yeah, how does that process work when you have a song you're working on and let's say like three people in the band think it's great, good to go, like should be on the album, somebody's a holdout, How does that process work?

Well, there is, I would say Matt and I tend to be the most opinionated or some or the most focused in the weeds, you know, and we tend to try to agree or to argue between ourselves and then agree.

So for this record, eventually Matt called me after we'd made probably twenty five songs and finished them and mix them, and he said, and it was kind of because in the past there were these elaborate chess matches of sort of even that like kind of a mind games we would have to play with each other where it's like, you know, it's like he used stalking horses, where you're like, you pretend to really care about a song that you don't care about so you can give it up so he doesn't go after the one that you actually care about.

And we would do that even with like parts of songs like it's really funny like there and that song the System Only Dreams in Total Darkness.

That's on Sleep Well Beast.

There's this big I play this big guitar solo that I knew he loved, you know, but then he was he didn't like this layer of percussion I really loved.

So I was like, fine, we can turn off the percussion, but I'm also going to turn off the guitar solo because I can't live with the guitar so if it doesn't have the support of the percussion.

He's like, no, no, you can't turn off the guitar.

So so we like that was like, yeah, that was back when we were more childish, But this time he Matt.

Matt had gone through a hard time with like writers, blocking, just some the pandemic was a hard period for him, and he came out of it and really gradually just he started to write and write and write, and towards the end, they just kept being more and more songs that we were finishing.

So what we thought was the record kept evolving, and eventually what it became was quite different from the first you know, several months we were working on it, like by last spring, it had kind of morphed into something else.

And he called me when we were done mixing, and he said, you know, we had mixed almost two records worth of material, and he said, look, I think it's these eleven songs.

And for the first time ever, I just was so relieved and happy and confident to hear his vision, you know, and to feel how to feel how inspired he was and the clarity in his mind.

And I just embraced it.

And then I called my brother because he would be the next most difficult.

It's like all these people you have to convince.

Yeah, And I think Bryce would have preferred that he and I had had a conversation before that conversation with Matt, because there's some interest, there's some really interesting, amazing songs that aren't on it, or that are more complex musically or whatever it is.

But and so I had to have that conversation with Bryce.

But it took, you know, maybe took a second for Bryce to see that Matt was right.

But he I think Matt he had somehow distilled what the story and emotional framework and current of the record was and he felt and he sort of had it.

And so that was really a nice feeling.

And I also think it relates to where I was personally having made all this other music and having generated so much, I became less attached to any one idea and also maybe more trusting of someone else's vision and kind of I don't know, just some space from the national helped me kind of relax about it.

Also, did you feel more confident in yourself as a as a producer or as a musician at that point, Yeah.

It was like during the pandemic.

I just for the first time and almost two decades, I got to be home and just walk the fifty yards or whatever it is between my house and the studio every day and work really intensely with people, you know, like that work that I did with Taylor.

I was learning so much just every day from her and from the process, and growing more confident, I guess, having more seeing how she could bounce off the music I was making, and how we could write and finish songs that I was so compelled by, and then that process, you know, going into working with other people.

I did.

I grew a lot as a producer and as a songwriter, and I think I did also come to really value and appreciate what the National is capable of in my collaboration with all of them and with Matt, just how meaningful it is and and trusting that you know that all these songs are amazing.

You know, they're compelling, and they're in there.

There's for anything to get to the point of being done.

It already has so much there.

So like, if there's twenty five songs and we choose eleven for a record, it doesn't mean that the other fourteen won't eventually, you know, also see the light of day.

We used to hold everything so tightly because we were terrified, terrified of like none of us are natural entertainers and none of us are that.

We kind of came up through the indie rock gauntlet of Pitchfork and you know, live or die by each record.

If like, we all wanted to do this and we loved it so much, but we could also we knew how tenu it was and how I don't know.

We were never the type of band to fall in love with our shadow or think we were that great.

We were kind of the opposite.

We thought we were like the bad News Bears all the time and still do.

It's like we're still kind of like we don't celebrate any achievement for very long, and we kind of dwell on the on anything that's vaguely pathetic, you know, we're kind of like, that's the thing we noticed.

It's like instead of being like, wow, you know, traffic Morning News is number five on the Triple h RT, we're like, wow, we're stuck at number five below the Dave Matthew's been like, oh well, but that's just kind of that.

It's like the nature of self effacing Ohio or something where we come from is kind of like just don't don't think you're all that.

That could be helpful, though totally.

I wish sometimes I could enjoy it all a little more.

My brother and I talk about this, is like why like even when we want a Grammy or something and I've won Grammys, and like even I kind of like, instead of thinking that's fun yor great, I'm the type to be like, well, my favorite artists have never won Grammys or you know, that kind of thing, like so like what does it really mean?

Anyways, Yeah, that kind of thing.

But anyways, I'm trying to get better at just enjoying the enjoying the moment.

We have to take a quick break, and then we'll come back with more from Leo Rose and Aaron Desner.

We're back with Aaron Dosner and Leo Rose.

I saw pictures of you at the Grammys this year, like sitting sort of like at Taylor's table or near her, and I was just wondering, like, what was that like for you being in that scene?

Is it fun?

Like?

Is it a fun night?

I mean, Taylor is amazing.

She's a good like we've become really close friends, and she couldn't be more lovely and fun and just she's legitimately just a really lovely, hyper intelligent, down to earth person.

So I love hanging out with her.

And even in that, like I think those situations it's so unnatural for me to be have a camera in my face or be in the spotlight like that or have to look like I'm having a good time all the time, but genuinely hanging out with her and with Jack Antonoff and Margaret quality with it.

We're sitting with us and it was just fun.

So I was able to relax and have fun.

And she's really It's intense for her also, I would imagine because there's always attention on her because of who she is, but she manages to have a good time and to help people around her have a good time.

So I was lucky in that sense.

And I've even you know, because we went to the pandemic Grammys altogether for Folklore when we won, so that I was thankful for that because i'd sort of this was quite different.

It was much more like whoa.

This was more in a weird way.

This was more fun, was like more energy.

The Folklore one was almost like easier though, because there was just no You just went and said out a tiny little table and there was no audience.

It was a bizarre scene.

Yeah, I was looking at that like, wow, this is such a strange Grammys.

Totally, but it is.

I think it's been really fun to be around that, you know, as as I've been to the Grammys a few times, like with the National went years ago when we were nominated for Trouble Will Find Me, and we had no idea what the Grammys were actually like, so we didn't realize that our Grammy, the Alternative Rock or Alternative Music one that we were nominated for, was actually not part of the telecast and so oh, we were kind of in our tickets to the actual real we joke, the real Grammys, the part that's like the eight Awards or whatever it is that are actually on TV.

Like our tickets for that we were like way back, you know, not even like in the like in the noses, and it was kind of like and we were all just like, well, why did we even come?

And who cares?

And so the next year or a couple of years later, when sleep Obeast was nominated, we just didn't go.

And actually Scott was the only one who went because he was in town.

And then I was actually in the shower, not watching and ingrid my.

I have my daughter who's now eleven.

But she came in and she was like, Daddy, like you want a Grammy?

Like is that bad?

Is that bad?

And I was like, oh, well it's not bad.

She's and it's like is it good.

I was like, well, it's not exactly good, you know.

But fast forward to Folklore Grammys.

It was fun to actually just like have a great time and I think it really deserved to win.

And Taylor is it was really fun to perform with.

It was amazing, like actually performing with her and Jack.

And then Taylor won for Best Video, which was great.

And so I don't know, it's fun.

It's like I'm learning to just go with the flow and have fun and not not really think that much about it.

So it must be interesting to see her in different environments, because when you were working on Folklore and Evermore, it sounds like you were just sort of hold up in your studio, and it was during the pandemic, so I imagine there weren't many people around and you were just collaborating on music and writing music.

And then to see her in a setting like the Grammys where she's like one of the biggest superstars in the room, Yeah, what did you learn from seeing those two sides of her?

It is interesting yet, because I got to know her closely in a time where she was very much out of the public eye.

And I think very much the work that we did with Folklore and Evermore we benefited from sort of everything had stopped and we were just really making the music that felt natural in that moment, and this kind of exchange of ideas was rapid and very prolific and very you know, her songwriting and the music I was making in the music we were making together just felt incredibly natural, and we got eventually we got to spend time together and do work here at Long Pond, and folklore was all remote.

But then evermore we were together more and we had amazing moments, you know, and just kind of sitting with this, how did this happen?

How do we make all all of this stuff that is so meaningful to us and eventually to you know, when it got released to her fans and to all my fans, and just it felt like this whole story that had almost written itself during that time, and it was you know, special, and it was really different than when everything restarted, and you know, we collac I did work on I was lucky to participate in the re recording of Fearless and of Red, and she contributed to the Big Rid Machine, and there was all the kind of like that collaborative process and energy continues to this day.

And so I would say, now, you know, she's about to go on what will be the biggest tour in history, you know, and it's just fair very much the same person.

You know.

It's just even though she's like when I see her in a quiet setting and she's like making dinner or something, and the person that has to be, you know, in the Spotlight.

It's the same same persons.

I learn a lot from that.

It's very I don't know, just give me faith and people and and the way she is kind and appreciative of all of her success.

And frankly, like when having worked with her, it's even though she's has achieved so much, it's not that surprising to me because I see how hard she works and how talent talented she is.

So I don't in that sense, I do I find that really harmonious or something, But I know what you mean.

It's kind of like it's a different feeling.

And also I think that she's smart the way that she evolves.

And even like the music we made for Midnight's like one of our I think the best time I've ever written is called what Have, could Have?

Should Have?

How did that song come together?

I mean, the truth is that song.

We wrote that song together and recorded it while we were together in LA for the Folklore Grammys, so that it goes back that far.

And then the same with high infidelity, and those songs we actually recorded in her house the vocals who recorded them then and I just kept making music, and it was kind of like after we had made Folklore and evermore, I started to have ideas which I would share, and eventually she obviously made most of Midnights with Jack and it became something different.

But you know, the you know, high in fidelity and would have, could have, should have in the Great War, and we made hits different with Jack and Taylor and I also, and it was great to be a part of that record in that way.

It was really special.

Are you working on new music now?

I'm probably not at liberty to say, but I think we Yeah, I mean I thought.

You would say that.

Yeah, it's like once you.

Sounds like you're always sounds like you're always working.

Yeah, it's like she's slow.

Yeah, she's a very she's a prolific songwriter and she doesn't really stand still and and and I'm done either, you know.

So there's a nice there's just a nice exchange of ideas that is ongoing.

Do you ever analyze that, like with with Taylor being such a prolific songwriter or with you being so prolific with the music that you write or whoever you're working with, do you sit and analyze where these ideas come from.

A little bit?

Yeah, Like I I've become aware that it's for me, where the music comes, it feels like it comes from inside.

I originally feel like I became very generative as a musician in terms of creating ideas and sketches I call them, but they're basically songs without word words.

When I was a teenager and I was sort of suffered, I was kind of had a very depressive streak in my teenageyers like a lot of people do.

But music was this outlet and I always felt like I was harvesting what was inside, this commotional ambiguity or just joy and sadness coexisting inside of me.

And it was cathartic just to kind of like harvest it in music and that you could make music which might really express what you're feeling.

And you know, that was always what it was.

It's how I make music.

And sometimes you feel like it rings you dry, like it can kind of feel like you're ringing out a rag in the water there's no more water left or something.

Or sometimes I feel a little bit like I don't have anything left to give, But then it comes back and it fills up again.

And there's certain people that I just click with in this very deep way, like Taylor, which I had no idea would happen other did she, but somehow she The music that I shared with hers a Cardigan that sketch, which was something I had been writing, was the first song that she wrote for Folklore to music that I had shared, and it was and she tells the story well that it felt like there were images in it in the sound.

There was like a story in the sound that she was hearing, and she was able and she you know, it's her story in her words, but she felt like it was telling her something.

And Matt has said things like that as well, that he feels like the music when he listens to it's like a soundtrack to a film that's already exists or something, or story that is writing itself, or just some somehow he's tapping into something.

And I guess that's my feeling is I try to write music that I can listen to on its own and that feels like it's already about something, even though I'm like, it's not entirely clear what it's about, and then certain writers are able to give it shape and substance, and I love that process.

It feels risky when you share it because you just you like step over that Cliff of like, no matter how many songs you've made it or how many people you've worked with, it always feels vulnerable when you open yourself up to someone because they might not hear anything or click with anything.

You know.

So and in Taylor's case, it felt really when she asked if I had anything or if I would want to collaborate remotely, and I had this whole folder of stuff I'd been working on intensely.

But before I said that.

Was your solo material, right to open for the bony Bear.

It was, yeah, a lot of it was or I thought I didn't really know, but I thought it was stuff I had been developing to try to figure out what that was, you know.

And she kind of said in a really beautiful way, she said, it doesn't matter.

It could be the weirdest thing you've ever done.

I would love to hear it, or there could be the most unstructured you know, but there's a moment of vulnerability any time you open yourself up and share that way, because I could have shared it and then never heard anything again, you know, or it would have been like and I feel that way still even with Matt, who have written a million songs with.

Yeah, it's like if the thing I love most he doesn't click with it still hurts, you know, or still feels still feels vulnerable.

Well you have to Jedi mind trick him into liking it.

Yeah, I do.

Again, Like that's elaborate, I do.

I've gotten pretty crafty about that too.

Yeah, that feels very much like a sibling relationship.

It is.

Yeah, it's it's kind of like pretend to care about the thing you actually don't care about, because they'll increase the chances he goes for the one you do care about.

Whatever.

Yeah, I heard John Fraschante talking about something very similar.

When he brings ideas to the Chili Peppers, he'll just be really like casual about it, Yeah, and act like he's not completely in love with it and attached to it.

And the more casual it is, the more likely Anthony and Flea are to just, you know, sort of like take it on and try it out.

That's amazing.

Yeah, that's it.

Bands are these It's like being in a in a intimately an intimate but platonic relationship with multiple people simultaneously, and you're just like trying to navigate that.

Right in the national are there like clicks like when you guys were on tour, like who hangs out with who?

Oh yeah, it's elaborate.

Like somebody asked me recently.

I can't remember who it was, but we were going to be in New York and they're like, oh, like, maybe we can hang out, but I wouldn't want to take you away from your bandmates.

And I was like, oh, like, we haven't hung out in like fifteen years or something.

Don't worry.

But no, there are there are these clicks where it's like we joke.

There's the Running Club, which is my brother and I and Ben Lands and Kyle Resnick who played trumpet and trombone or interesting lovely people, and we all really hang out.

It's like the we go running and then we'll go to dinner, whereas Matt and Scott and Brian kind of keep They kind of do their own thing and have their own Scott hangs out actually with he it's funny.

He's he's really close with all the crew and he's kind of the most likable, likable member of the band.

And Matt is very solitary because he kind of needs to he needs space and also to rest, so he kind of you hardly see him unless he's on stage, which is funny.

And then Brian is just he's wonderful.

He kind of like sets up a gym and like works out and relaxes all day long and and has his own vibe too.

But it is bands are I don't know, bands, especially the eight like the band that's the twenty where I think it's the twenty fourth year of the band.

Now.

It's just like it's the weirdest thing.

You know.

People that come right, they're just like, what is going on?

And especially the age that you got together in the age everyone is now, there's so much evolution, personal evolution that happens during that period of time.

Yeah, when you're sort of like separating from from being a kid and being with your parents, you're out on your own and then starting your own families.

Yeah, everyone, It's true.

Everyone has We kind of like have had all the wreckage.

Not all the wreckage fortunately, but a lot of the wreckage that comes with the territory of rock and roll and just you know, fortunately none of the terrible nothing too terrible, but it's like we've all had our moments of struggling and then coming through it.

Yeah, and everyone's been there for each other, so that there's a warm feeling to that, but there's also a recognition that you don't have to always be best friends, you know, and you don't have to hang out when you're not on tour, but that were there and it is like a family, and some of us spend more time together than others, and it goes way back, so there's still like Brian and I were in the middle same middle school advisor class when we were thirteen and fourteen, and we were on the middle school basketball team together with Bryce, and that familiarity and that closeness is wonderful when you're in Tokyo in to twenty twenty three, and or when you're like terrified because you're about to go on stage before the biggest crowd you've ever played in front of and Lisbon in twenty twenty two and there's whatever it is, one hundred thousand people out there at the festival, and you know that it's the person that you were like passing the basketball to when you're thirteen.

It's like this, there is this feeling of like, well, it doesn't actually matter if we fuck this up, because there's always going to be another day, and you know, it does feel like that, But we joke a lot.

Now I'm like, well, this is like a pretty good song for the late period of the band.

It feels like a high water mark of the late period.

Or I'm like, where we joke about older songs, We're like, that was kind of a miss.

You know.

Do you imagine you all will still be together when you're in your seventies and eighties, still playing.

It is a funny thing to think about because sometimes like I'm going to bank it's so ridiculous, you know, but I think we will.

Actually, I think it's like the songs don't get tired, and it is interesting.

I think I'll play music my whole life, and I would want to play music with my brother and with these guys, and it can evolve in this record that we made.

It really feels it just feels really inspired.

And you can hear the ferocity that we're capable of and the subtlety, and you can hear the improvisation and the composition and the accidental kind of magic that sometimes happens all alongside each other, and that just feels really refreshing to me.

Like how to like it would be hard to do that, to make that, but we did.

It's kind of scary to think about trying to do it again, but like that's always what happens, is like you make something and you're like oh, and you kind of fall in love with it, but then you're like, oh shit, and now I have to try to like what's next?

You know.

Anyways, I feel very grateful for it right now.

What do you think you would have thought if you were, let's say, like twenty years old seeing your life now, how do you think you would think of yourself as like someone who is approaching middle age?

It is crazy sometimes to reflect on how you end up where you end up and why your life takes the shape that it does.

And mine has changed dramatically in the last few years, just all the work that I've been doing and music I've been making, and it's kind of like I know that I worked up to it and that I can back it up with experience and all the hard work and knowledge.

You know.

It's like I don't feel out of my depth, really, but it still feels like there's a big element of luck.

And I know so many really talented people, equally deserving, equally hardworking that maybe haven't had the same level of success or exposure.

And so there's an element of like music and the entertainment industry in general that I think is kind of haphazard or kind of it lacks structure and it's dependent on I mean, I guess hard work and persistence equals luck basically, is what I've come to realize.

And so with my twenty year old self, I think I had my nose to the ground and I was just maybe we were raised in a way too.

There were high expectations or pressure on us from early age because my dad, I don't know, because of his childhood or something.

He didn't have much opportunity growing up.

He was a child of immigrants, growing up in Brooklyn and Queens and sharing a room with his three brothers, and just like he wanted us to achieve a lot, you know, and he put a lot of pressure on us, and it was kind of like it was difficult.

I remember feeling like kind of like that he always expected us to get like perfect grades and be great at everything we would do.

But in a I guess in a positive since it created a lot of I became very hard working and I didn't ever think I was very good at anything because and it caused me to keep pushing.

It's only been recently that I've been able to be like, wow, this is kind of I guess we And it happened gradually every time you like end up on some big stage with the national looking out and people like there's thousands and thousands of people singing these songs, and you have these moments of like, wow, this is I got somewhere you know this is and this is interesting.

But I still my attitude is still not to hold that too close because your successes and your failures you just coexist with all of it, and or like your your the criticism you receive and the plaudits you receive, you have to kind of take the good with the bad.

And for every time that you're lifted up by something, you're also you're gonna flail, you know, the day next day or be pulled down.

I don't know, but I do feel really lucky.

We'll be back after another quick break with more from Leo Rose and Aaron Desner.

We're back with the rest of Leo Rose's conversation with Aaron Desner.

How did you first find music and how how did you first find that you could articulate your feelings through music.

Yeah.

So my dad was a really amazing drummer, and he had this incredible teacher in Queen's in the early six year like late fifties, early sixties, and then he played a lot of like serious jazz in the sixties in New York.

And then he moved to Cincinnati and my mom and him got married and he kind of had to get a real job, quote unquote real job to support us.

And we found his drums in the closet when we were I think we were six years old, my brother and I in this We found it in the furnace room and kind of like pulled them out and he came home from work and we were like what are they?

And I remember he was excited.

He kind of was smiled, and he set them up and the basement he sat down to play, and it was like, holy shit, it was amazing.

It was amazing, you know, and we had no idea.

Yeah, style, like what style drummer was?

He like old school?

You know, he held the drumsticks with the old grip and like incredible rudiments and just really really excellent drummer.

And then we just immediate, I started taking drum lessons, and gradually we started playing guitar and bass, and it was early like that I started to feel that I could.

It came very naturally to us, and we became prolific technically quickly, fairly quickly, and started to just I remember just writing stuff from the very beginning, like when we were eleven, twelve, thirteen years old, and just and my brother started, you know, started saying classical guitar.

We just got really into it.

And it's natural the competitiveness of twin brothers who we should at a room until we were eighteen and were literally staring at each other and we just egged each other on.

So early on I kind of went towards songwriting and my way of doing things, and he went towards like classical technique and composition.

But we would play together.

And then I when I was sixteen, night, all of a sudden, it was like a hit by a truck, not an actual truck, but an emotional truck.

Of like, I just got really depressed for seemingly no reason and kind of had all the clinical signs of depression and music was the only thing that I felt like doing, so I used to sneak out of the house because we didn't have a piano.

I would sneak out of the house and break into the school which was like a mile away and play the and play the piano like at night, Yeah, on the weekend at night.

Yeah.

It was kind of a little it was a little creepy or a little bit like, what's what am I doing?

Where then I was discovered and it became this worrisome thing and I kind of had I fell behind in school because I was depressed.

But I was sort of like rapidly growing as a musician at that time and teaching myself to play the piano, and that's kind of like where my way of playing the piano comes from and where I really started to harvest emotion into these into what I was playing.

So that's really I think it was like sixteen seventeen where I really felt like this is an emotional outlet and it's always been that way since then.

How did it affect your relationship with your brother when you started to get depressed.

It was intense because it was he didn't feel that, and he also, I think felt that he had to hold me because we were close and he could see, and it got a little scary for a while, where it seemed like I was maybe suicidal or just had lost hope or just just really not functioning, and also in the pressure cooker of like I was not doing any of my work and not really showing up for school, and he kind of showed up.

He was writing my papers and he was doing my homework and he was literally like holding me for the It was took sort of a year till I was out of it, but that relationship sort of persisted for a long time of me being the one who was maybe struggling in him being stronger and more together.

But weirdly now eventually it sort of evened out.

And apparently it's typical with twins at some point there can be this kind of imbalance or you know, something like that can happen.

But he it was I think it was hard for him.

It was a little scary, but he really showed up and it allowed him to care for me, which was powerful, and it allowed our music.

It did feel like that's when music became something more.

Because I used to think I would be like a great athlete or something or that that I was really into sports, and I thought you know, I was so focused on that, and music was just something we did since we were little kids that were happened to be good at you know, but I didn't think it.

I didn't think much that I would be a musician.

But it was like when I got depressed and it suddenly was this, I had this emotional need to like pour myself into it.

It just kind of became who I was.

You know, when did you form your first band?

Was it before college?

It was yet like when we were in freshman in high school, we formed a band with the drummer of the National with Brian Sos, Bryce, Brian, and I and we called ourselves Equinox.

It's just a terrible name, but and like you know, with the gym, yeah, there wasn't didn't exist then, but this was like nineteen ninety.

But we we would play at the parties when there was a lot of drugs and like just weed and acid and stuff at the high school parties and also at least a lot of like a lot of kids using stuff fotball players like on steroids and just like aggressive wow people.

So like we kind of hid behind our instruments in a corner just playing like yeah, just jamming and it was really fun and we got really good at it, and like, there's actually some recordings from that time of us playing in somebody's barn or somebody's attic or you know, somebody's patio and we would just play songs we had written, but also like Grateful Dead, and we had so much We had so much fun, but it was also kind of a way not to interact with anyone.

Totally.

Yeah, I know, I totally get that.

Did you guys sound like the National at all?

Well?

I wouldn't say we sounded like the National, although even back then there probably was this chemistry of like how my brother and I play together and harmonize with each other and sort of like the patterns or the circular details.

And Brian was already a great drummer at that age and so probably in a way.

But no, like I think that that sound took a while to develop into what it is, and it was sort of around Alligator where you started to I feel like you can really recognize, like, Okay, that's that's how they sound, and then it's obviously developed.

But yeah, we were probably more like the Grateful Dead or attempting to be back then.

You mentioned earlier you were talking about when you were putting together the songs that would eventually become the new National album, an emotional framework started to become a parent.

How would you describe what that emotional framework was, what it felt like, and when was that apparent to you.

So there was this like at some point I, after having time away from the band and having made all this other music, I started to hear ideas were coming where it was like, oh, this is a National song, and then shared them with Matt, And there was this initial get together in April I think of twenty twenty one where we got together and we just everyone bounced off all these initial ideas that I had and some that my brother had, and Matt wrote a lot to those, and it felt very exciting and like there was this energy like oh, they felt like, oh, we're coming back to this.

But after that, Matt sort of hit a wall emotionally and with writer's buck and he just really couldn't finish anything or write anything else for almost a year.

After that, he just went totally blank and kind of lost himself.

And it felt like but we could all listen to those early sketches in that initial time which were sort of half finished songs, but we could hear in those ideas a vulnerability and a directness in what he was singing that felt it felt like a weird sinuation of Boxer or that era of the national and the musically, it felt like it was in a special place and in a place that we could push.

So we all remained hopeful.

But it wasn't until a year later when we gathered again because we needed to, that we had that there started to be a breakthrough where he wrote things like once upon a Pool Side and your Mind Is Not Your Friend and Send for Me, and these very emotional songs that clearly relate to someone who is struggling emotionally and wondering if they're going to get to the other side, and contemplating the end of relationships and sort of what was the worried thing you said to me?

And I thought we could get through anything?

And or I keep what I can of you this emotional frame, it's like to me, it's like an emotional framework of wanting to hold on to people that you know and love, but like somehow these structures and these relationships keep keep dissolving, or you know, nothing's helping somehow, whether it's the band, whether we're talking about ourselves.

You know, time to you know, he says, time to take my silent treatment.

It won't be the first.

And to me, that's like this acknowledgment that of that we all you know, I've hurt people, He's hurt people.

We hurt each other in the band sometimes, and it's like kind of trying to acknowledge that and move on and I love each other.

This is my interpretation.

I'm not even sure that's You ever ask.

Him directly about a lyric that you might think he's like intending to say something about the band?

Do you ever ask him?

Is that about us?

It's funny you say that.

It's like it's like a cardinal rule, an unwritten rule that we don't ask each other about our intent.

Really goes way back to the beginning of the band, where it's more it's more interesting I think for all of us if we get to apply our own meaning to things.

And I think the reason the band works well is because we all can empathize with what he's talking about.

But it's also he writes in such a way, which is part of his brilliance, that you can kind of read into it however you want to.

And he definitely likes that, so he tends to not say too much about what things are about.

You know.

Yeah, I imagine as a musician, when it comes time for people to start reviewing your new work, it can be probably hard to read how people either describe the work that you create or you know, critics hearing how they're judging what you just created.

And oftentimes I see people calling the national sad Dad music.

How does that sit with you?

Thanks for asking.

I think it's well sad dads.

So is my idea to take that and put it on a sweatshirt, the National Sad Dads, And we sold like thousands and thousands of them like instantly, and everyone was like, please make sad moms and sad sad teens.

And you know, I think it's a badge of honor.

You know.

I kind of love that people think of us as sad dads or dad rock or all these things.

I kind of think, bring it on, like I'm so proud to be a parent, and also like it's just life.

I think aging is beautiful and interesting and I kind of love everyone's wrinkles.

And you know, how we all look and wish people.

I wish this society wasn't so anti aging and all of that.

It's just really depresses me.

But I would also say that the gauntlet of music criticism is really hard for everyone because it's important and I appreciate journalism, and I appreciate it's like necessary, you know, it's like an important part of I love reading.

I love reading substance of journalism.

I love things like this, like in depth discussion with artists you're interested in and with smart people, and I think that's wonderful.

What's hard is like being graded by a subjective person in a way that might lift something up or destroy it.

And it's kind of the luck of the draw who you get, because you could call something brilliant or something pedestrian or dismiss it, and it just depends on your perspective, you know, and what you like.

But what it does, unfortunately, is it hurts especially younger artists who are coming up, or people who are fragile or vulnerable.

And I would say a lot of artists are you know, a lot of people, whether you're making whatever art form you're making, people aren't.

You might have a thick skin, but more often than not, you don't.

And so like, I've seen people be destroyed by a bad Pitchfork review, not in terms of theirs six but in terms of their emotional stability.

And it hurts, you know, because people spend years working on something and then either get celebrated or torn apart for it in one day, and nothing can prepare you for that, you know.

Yeah, I'd love to hear more about you as a dad.

It sounds like your studio is close to your house, so you can leave one and then go to the other, and it's like two parallel universes.

Yeah, how do you balance life as the very busy working musician and then home life.

It's hard, but it's also I'm lucky that the studio is right by the house, and it kind of there's this balance that has developed that really does work, where I float in and out, but I wake up every day that I'm home and make them breakfast and take them to school no matter what, even if I'm like horribly jet lag or exhausted, and just really try to be present with them.

And I've learned to slow down with them and sort of, really, my parents never played with us.

I don't have no memory of them getting on the floor and playing or we're just left to our own devices, which is also great.

But to me, it's really meaningful to actually take delight in your children and to really meet them where they are, you know.

And I feel like I've gotten good at that and then that suits my personality in fact, just to kind of like play, you know.

So it's been really amazing.

Yeah, And musically it's really inspiring just they follow it all because they hear me listening.

I listen in the car when I drive.

I listen to what I'm working on and reflect and that really helps them kind of just feel into where I am.

And they call it.

They call it daddy music.

And actually my daughter, My daughter's funny because during folklore and evermore, she would hear there's a story where she once asked me, like, Daddy, do you know Taylor Swift and I sort of had sworn been sworn to secrecy because we had to be secret just to avoid any We wanted just to no one to know what we were doing.

And I and I totally lied.

I was like, no, she's so talented, like I wish i'd like literally the day before we'd been finishing a song or something.

But but then later as she those records came out and they obviously they fell in love with folklore and nevermore.

But but Ingram was already a fan of all her other music and said like sometimes she's like, can we Daddy?

Can we listen to Taylor?

And I'll put on like Cardigan or whatever Invisible String or something she's and she'll be like, no, not a Daddy tailor song, like a real She'd be like, I want to hear a real tailor song?

You like, what do you mean?

What's wrong with it?

And she was like, well, like the Daddy I like the Daddy ones, but could we hear like I'm so anyways, that's very fair, that's so great.

Yeah.

One thing I noticed, just looking at the artists that you've worked with, it seems like outside of the national you work with a lot of female songwriters, female musicians.

Yep.

And I'm wondering if you've thought about why that is, or if there's something about your temperament or yourself as a musician the way you play that compliments women.

I think I definitely, having been in a band with dudes for so long, I think I enjoy working with single artists like individual artists, and the simplicity of that work where there's really just myself and whoever I'm working with, and it simplifies a lot of the complex psychology of a group dynamics.

I tend to not that I avoid bands, but I'm already in a band, you know.

And my sister's always been a huge influence on my brother and I artistically.

She's a visual artist and she was a dancer, but she's just always really really respected her way of approaching in her like she's very uncompromising and really like the sense of this says is clarity, and she was such a great listener to us also, and I just it was very natural when I first collaborated with Sharon Bennette and was the first record that I made that I was technically the producer outside of the band, and she was just at an early point in her career and we met because my sister booked her to play this basement in our neighborhood in Brooklyn.

I don't think it mattered that women or man, but like maybe in a sense, I appreciated the different perspective, you know, and also just felt like there were so many dudes at that time making and now it's kind of nice because it's almost like where are the dudes or what are like where's the like what are they doing?

Because it's I feel like most of my favorite artists are women and a lot of incredible writers right now.

Honestly, it's like, I don't know how else to grow as an artist or a musician other than to make music with other people and see how their brain works, you know, because that's how you learn.

Like I just made this record with Gracie Abrams that I love and like she's half my age.

She's literally half my age.

She's twenty three and I'm forty six.

I definitely benefited as much working from with her as she did with me.

And I love that.

I love that, I love that feeling.

You mentioned that there's a bunch of leftover tracks from the sessions that became the New National album.

Why not just put those out as the next album?

Like, would you consider doing that or do you go back to the drawing board and do you start fresh?

I would say that might happen because it is it's like very strong and like there is another album that is basically done, you know, and it's really some of my favorite songs are in that batch, and I think we might do that, but knowing us, what probably happened is some of that will will surface on the next album, but we'll probably make a lot of other ideas.

And I do think we have this feeling that this is our like kid amnesiac moment of like there are sister albums that are really and we're going to finish another one much faster than he would think, you know.

So that's even like right now, I might go downstairs and I can hear them playing, and when I have a feeling, they're going to be like we got something, what do you think?

And I'll be like, wow, I don't like it, but let's try this or whatever.

I'll say.

But are they all down there right now?

They are?

Yeah?

Cool.

So you guys are rehearsing right now.

Yeah, for tour, we're like learning these songs.

Yeah.

So it's always like you feel like you just have never played music before.

You're like, oh, like you know, your mind is not your friend.

I was trying to relearn the piano part, which is obviously me playing it, but it's like I completely forgot how it goes after I did it, so it's like I have to like write so anyways.

Well, best wishes with the new album, and thank you so much for talking today.

Thank you really appreciate it.

Thanks to Aaron Jasner for giving us a look into the National's inner workings and his approach to produce it.

You can hear all of our favorite Nationals song along with other stuff Aaron's worked on on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com.

You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes.

You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.

Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Ben Tolliday, and Eric Sandler.

Our editor is Sophie Crane.

Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.

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A Team Music's by Kenny Beats.

I'm Justin Mischman,