Speaker 1: I was very thankful for it.
Speaker 2: It felt like a weird life reap musically and creatively
Speaker 2: in a time of otherwise great uncertainty and anxiety.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of laid back conversations
Speaker 3: with leading names in music. In keeping with these informal interviews,
Speaker 3: each new one is published weekly at midnight. This week's
Speaker 3: episode is hosted by me Greg cochrane from Loud and
Speaker 3: Quiet magazine. We interrupt this period of downtime for Midnight
Speaker 3: Chats to bring you something a little bit special and
Speaker 3: in between series episode of the podcast with Aaron Desner.
Speaker 3: In any ordinary time, I'd be excited about welcoming Aaron
Speaker 3: onto the podcast. But the multi instrumentalist, producer, founding member
Speaker 3: of the National has had, and this is putting it mildly,
Speaker 3: quite an eighteen months. The big headline being that instead
Speaker 3: of making banana bread like everyone else during quarantine, he
Speaker 3: made an album with Taylor Swift Folklore. You probably heard about.
Speaker 3: It went on to win the Album of the Year
Speaker 3: at the twenty twenty one Grammys back in March. I
Speaker 3: guess that surprised a few people, but that new creative
Speaker 3: partnership continued throughout twenty twenty and into this year. Aaron
Speaker 3: also worked on Folklore's sister album, ever More, and he's
Speaker 3: also been involved with Taylor's project to re record and
Speaker 3: release her previous albums in order to re establish the rights.
Speaker 3: As close followers of his work will know, Aaron likes
Speaker 3: to keep busy, whether that's curating brilliant festivals, co running
Speaker 3: the People Platform, or composing the music for an art installation.
Speaker 3: He does so many things there's always a reason to
Speaker 3: speak to him. But on this occasion, excitingly, it's the
Speaker 3: release of a new Big Red Machine album. The multi
Speaker 3: dimensional collective he's formed with Bonnie Ver's justin Vernon, the
Speaker 3: follow up to their self titled debut album in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: is this new It's called How Long Do You Think
Speaker 3: It's Going To Last? And it's out to buy and
Speaker 3: stream from Friday, the twenty seventh of August. In keeping
Speaker 3: with the cooperative spirit of the whole project, it features
Speaker 3: lots of notable guests including Taylor Swift, Robin Pecknold from
Speaker 3: Fleet Fox's Sharon van Etton, Lisa Hannigan, Ben Howard, Anise Mitchell,
Speaker 3: and many others. As you're about to hear in the
Speaker 3: conversation we recorded. It's the songs where Aaron takes lead vocals,
Speaker 3: not something he does all that often, that I think
Speaker 3: are amongst the standout moments, particularly the track Brycey you'll
Speaker 3: hear me mistakenly call it Bryce in the chat that's
Speaker 3: about his twin brother and bandmate in the National. There's
Speaker 3: also a very moving track called hutch which is an
Speaker 3: ode to his friend and collaborator Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit,
Speaker 3: who sadly passed away a few years ago. Lovely stuff
Speaker 3: of him talking about the closeness of his friendship with
Speaker 3: Justin Vernon as well, given how disrupted everything has been
Speaker 3: throughout this year. In last who wanted to find out
Speaker 3: if he's managed to spend any time in person with
Speaker 3: the National, which he has. They got back together in
Speaker 3: the early summer, so he fills us in on all
Speaker 3: of that. So thanks again to Aaron for recording this,
Speaker 3: especially as he was away spending some time with his
Speaker 3: brother and their family in France at the time. For
Speaker 3: that reason, forgive the odd bit of glitchy Wi Fi audio.
Speaker 3: So here we go a special one off episode of
Speaker 3: Midnight Chats. I'm really happy to introduce Aaron Detzler. Aaron,
Speaker 3: welcome to Midnight Chats. It's great to have you on
Speaker 3: the podcast. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2: And well, thank you. I'm in France near the Spanish border.
Speaker 2: It's the Basque coast, and then my brother lives here
Speaker 2: and we came down and just kind of finally moving
Speaker 2: around a little bit more now that we can.
Speaker 1: So it's Nakes, yeah, near Saint Sebastian, Spain.
Speaker 3: Actually is that having a short break? Are you getting
Speaker 3: to work on something? What's going to taking you there?
Speaker 1: At the moment.
Speaker 2: It's really just like I haven't seen family until in
Speaker 2: a year and a half. So my sister had her
Speaker 2: twenty fifth wedding anniversary and I came over. She lives
Speaker 2: in Italy and my brother lives in France, so I've
Speaker 2: just been like visiting them. But I'm still doing I
Speaker 2: kind of I always work on some things.
Speaker 1: I work.
Speaker 2: I have my laptop and I can still work, so
Speaker 2: it's sort of like never ending, never ending music stuff.
Speaker 1: But I'm good.
Speaker 3: Do you do find it hard like switching off? I mean,
Speaker 3: I mean it feels like you're always working on such
Speaker 3: a range of projects at all times. I mean, obviously
Speaker 3: some of that involves like booking into being with various people,
Speaker 3: like together in the studio, but a lot of the time,
Speaker 3: imagine it's just kind of like tinkering away like remote working.
Speaker 3: Are you good at kind of like being like, no,
Speaker 3: going to turn off the laptop for this week because
Speaker 3: it's a bit of family time, or are you there
Speaker 3: sort of getting up super early in the morning just
Speaker 3: to get a little bit of work done.
Speaker 2: It's weird, Like I think I'm good at I'm lazy
Speaker 2: with certain things, like I don't. It takes a lot
Speaker 2: for me to open the laptop and pro tools and
Speaker 2: actually are working on something. But I always play instruments,
Speaker 2: so like.
Speaker 1: That part never really turns off.
Speaker 2: Wherever I am, there's usually like there's a piano here,
Speaker 2: and there's guitars and stuff, so I pick those up.
Speaker 2: And that's actually when oftentimes that's when the most interesting
Speaker 2: things happen, is when you're not really intending to work,
Speaker 2: but you just accidentally stumble onto something, or when you're
Speaker 2: playing music and you don't know what it is or
Speaker 2: you don't know what it's for. That's when the interesting
Speaker 2: things happen, at least for me. Because if I sit
Speaker 2: down and I'm being more intentional like trying to write something,
Speaker 2: usually it comes out a little bit like contrived or
Speaker 2: sort of I don't know, something that less inspired than
Speaker 2: if you just sort of like are doing it in
Speaker 2: a more abstract way and then you stumble into some
Speaker 2: place that's interesting. So that's kind of like work. I
Speaker 2: never really stop playing music, but I do stop like
Speaker 2: editing and playing the computer.
Speaker 3: Basically looking forward to chatting to you in a second
Speaker 3: about all of the well, the Big Red Machine record
Speaker 3: that's coming out very but there are always reasons to
Speaker 3: feel sort of nostalgic and certain hooks and anniversaries and
Speaker 3: things like that, especially with all the work that you've
Speaker 3: done over the years. But I noticed that this year
Speaker 3: is twenty years since you started Brassland. So this is
Speaker 3: the record label that you set up to well to
Speaker 3: release music from the national originally, I suppose, and then
Speaker 3: it's gone on. You've obviously worked with so many like
Speaker 3: tremendous artists over those kind of decades. But I wondered
Speaker 3: if you had any sort of reflections on starting that
Speaker 3: label and what it's gone on to do and the
Speaker 3: artists that it's sort of meant that you've gone on
Speaker 3: to work with and what that's been like.
Speaker 2: Thank you for asking about Breslayn. I mean Breslin was
Speaker 2: it was. We started it with our friend Alec Handley Bemis,
Speaker 2: who's really like been the leader of it. And he
Speaker 2: was someone who went to college with my brother, and
Speaker 2: he was a music journalist and like just a really
Speaker 2: smart person and a good friend, and he was also
Speaker 2: really cynical. Kind of early I remember when he first
Speaker 2: met my brother, who said my brother was playing the
Speaker 2: guitar on the college campus where they went like sitting
Speaker 2: outside playing the guitar, and Alec went up to him
Speaker 2: and introduced himself and then asked if Bryce was in
Speaker 2: a band, and Bryce was like yeah, and like Alec
Speaker 2: was like, well, I probably won't like your band, which
Speaker 2: I don't know. You know, Like we always joked about
Speaker 2: that because he was like, you know, he's kind of
Speaker 2: cynical but extremely knowledgeable.
Speaker 1: And we've had we joked that we put out music.
Speaker 2: We've always put out music that no one else would
Speaker 2: put out or something. Made a pretty good career of that,
Speaker 2: but that's not actually entirely true. I think we just
Speaker 2: tried to put out records that didn't They felt like
Speaker 2: Braslan would be the best home and that maybe didn't
Speaker 2: make sense in other places. And but yeah, they started
Speaker 2: with the national clubs, but then we had so many
Speaker 2: interesting artists book and gays and this is the Kid
Speaker 2: and you know, people like Eric Friedlander and there were
Speaker 2: a lot of awesome records that we put out. But
Speaker 2: over time, like it's really been Alex working. We've brace
Speaker 2: named down and to do that both things, and we
Speaker 2: kind of still stay involved much as we can.
Speaker 3: And I mean kind of linked to that obviously the
Speaker 3: last few years, well about five years ago now, I
Speaker 3: think it was you launched People, which is like, you know,
Speaker 3: a platform for like a record label, a platform, a
Speaker 3: place where people can kind of come together as a community.
Speaker 3: Obviously you've done sort of festivals and live events with
Speaker 3: that as well, like the People FESTI we did in Berlin,
Speaker 3: And I wondered how, through the sort of past eighteen months,
Speaker 3: how you've seen that community evolve, because obviously, as we've
Speaker 3: all had to you know, face to face, haven't spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time physically with other people, you know
Speaker 3: that it feels like basically a lot of that has
Speaker 3: been built on the chemistry that comes out of people
Speaker 3: being together a lot of the time physically. So I
Speaker 3: just wondered how that how you've seen that kind of
Speaker 3: evolve the past eighteen months with what with everything that's
Speaker 3: been going on.
Speaker 2: People, which actually we have we have to spell it
Speaker 2: with letters and numbers upside down because People magazine apparently
Speaker 2: owns the use of the word people, which is given
Speaker 2: me a more like every man and woman term than people.
Speaker 2: But anyways, we call originally we called it people, and
Speaker 2: then we got to cease and desist from the people
Speaker 2: their own people. But I think initially it started as
Speaker 2: as an idea kind of coming out of I think
Speaker 2: a feeling that collaboration between artists and giving people a
Speaker 2: chance to make new music is vital to growing and
Speaker 2: pushing forward what you're doing and being able to like
Speaker 2: not I think with so many artists they get stuck.
Speaker 2: Musicians get stuck kind of in this cycle of making
Speaker 2: records and then promoting them, in the sort of that
Speaker 2: bottleneck of make a record and then promote it, wait
Speaker 2: for it to come out and promote it and tour
Speaker 2: and then make another one, and it kind of like
Speaker 2: and you play the same songs over and over on tour.
Speaker 2: This has kind of been our experience with the National also,
Speaker 2: and I've always enjoyed having the opportunity to do something different,
Speaker 2: whether it's collaborate with people I've never met before, or
Speaker 2: get up on stage and be more spontaneous or play
Speaker 2: you know, have to take the risk of like not
Speaker 2: totally knowing what you're doing, or just reacting in real
Speaker 2: time to other musicians. And it's a simple idea, but
Speaker 2: actually there aren't I think a lot of there aren't
Speaker 2: a lot of actual opportunities for people to do that,
Speaker 2: or they can be few and far between. His most
Speaker 2: of the music industry is structured around you, like selling
Speaker 2: tickets to your show, where people are going to hear
Speaker 2: the songs that they already know, you know. So we
Speaker 2: found my brother started at the festival in our hometown Cincinnati,
Speaker 2: like sixteen or seventeen years ago, Cincinnati, Ohio. The vestivals
Speaker 2: called Music Now, and the whole idea is to commission
Speaker 2: artists to make new music for it and then perform
Speaker 2: it and so and it was more like more akin
Speaker 2: to new music world or the classical music world, but
Speaker 2: pulling in people from all different kind of multidisciplinary artists,
Speaker 2: but also you know, like from the indie rock world
Speaker 2: or from wherever, you know, like in getting them a
Speaker 2: chance to just write new music and perform it. There
Speaker 2: was so much vitality in that, and so many great
Speaker 2: seeds were planted at music now that then we kind
Speaker 2: of kept trying to look for ways to do that,
Speaker 2: and that's when Justin Burnon and I started the Eau
Speaker 2: Claire Festival in his hometown, which was similar, maybe just
Speaker 2: on a bigger scale because it was outside, but also
Speaker 2: like we tried to get people to come do something
Speaker 2: they hadn't done before, or to work with people they'd
Speaker 2: always wanted to, which but they didn't have the chance anyways.
Speaker 2: And then that migrated into working with the Mitchelbergers in Berlin,
Speaker 2: Tom and Dedan and we started the People Festival there
Speaker 2: with them, and we had to and you kind of
Speaker 2: did a lot of things at the hotel because they
Speaker 2: kind of provided this sort of oasis where you could
Speaker 2: come live and stay at the hotel and work on
Speaker 2: new music with people, and there was all kinds of
Speaker 2: collaboration that happened there. And then we you know, they're
Speaker 2: at the funk House, the old radio campus in Berlin.
Speaker 2: There we gathered the first time, there were one hundred
Speaker 2: musicians for a week and then there were performances, and
Speaker 2: the second time we had another one and there were
Speaker 2: two hundred musicians. Kind of insane how much music was
Speaker 2: made and how many seeds were playing it and sort
Speaker 2: of projects came out of that. Really, then we started
Speaker 2: to realize that there could be there's a need to
Speaker 2: like also have a platform for releasing that music and
Speaker 2: sharing it with people, and so we started we tried
Speaker 2: to start a streaming platform, which sort of worked, but
Speaker 2: it was also like going to be a huge amount
Speaker 2: of effort to build it and maintain it, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't really what we set out to do.
Speaker 1: So then we started.
Speaker 2: Another record label which exists now and that's where like
Speaker 2: Big Red Machine is coming out on that and a
Speaker 2: lot of other music, as much music as we can
Speaker 2: possibly release. But I think it's yeah, it's been hard
Speaker 2: not to be able to. Marry Hickson is this amazing
Speaker 2: organizer and producer who lives in Ireland and she was
Speaker 2: the one really organizing the residencies and so as when
Speaker 2: COVID came, all these plans kind of got suspended or scrapped,
Speaker 2: but now it's slowly starting to come back. But in
Speaker 2: the meantime, I feel like people have still been able
Speaker 2: to really work remotely with each other and it's kind
Speaker 2: of been amazing how people have adapted. And I mean
Speaker 2: it's obviously made so much music in during the quarantine
Speaker 2: and during this kind of like period where no one
Speaker 2: can travel. But yes, people, it's just a loose idea,
Speaker 2: but the basic idea and you see it in the
Speaker 2: Bigger Machine record, is collaboration and trying to create this
Speaker 2: sort of these community sense of community and music and
Speaker 2: really like open exchange of ideas.
Speaker 1: And I find.
Speaker 2: Myself really growing a lot when I do that, as
Speaker 2: opposed to like just making stuff by myself or being
Speaker 2: just staying in the national and doing my thing. You know,
Speaker 2: like that can start to be confining or kind of
Speaker 2: you can easily stagnate.
Speaker 3: I think you mentioned Mary Hickson there. I came to
Speaker 3: the Sounds from Safe Harbor festival in Cork in Ireland
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen, which was one of the most exciting
Speaker 3: weekends of music I've ever been to. I think because
Speaker 3: not just the fact that you know obviously that you
Speaker 3: were there with the National and Bonnie Beer was there
Speaker 3: playing and loads of fantastic artists were there, but it
Speaker 3: was full of sort of what felt like really spontaneous
Speaker 3: moments of music and just just completely different and for me, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure this was the purpose, but it
Speaker 3: kind of reinvented what I thought of music festival could be.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm pleased to hear that there's
Speaker 3: going to be You're keen to get back and do
Speaker 3: more of that stuff again in the future as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mary's she's like she's always working on a lot
Speaker 2: of ideas and there's a bunch of things starting to
Speaker 2: be playing right now. But I think it's it's again,
Speaker 2: it's a simple idea to sort of give people time
Speaker 2: and space to make something new, but it doesn't happen enough,
Speaker 2: you know. I think it's a lot of it's just
Speaker 2: something that and Mary is particularly good at that and
Speaker 2: just give so much encouragement and been emphasizing process kind
Speaker 2: of over the product. That's also you know, Tam Nadine
Speaker 2: Mitchelbergers still are hosting a lot of great things at
Speaker 2: the in Berlin also, and it's just I think it's
Speaker 2: been a really positive movement.
Speaker 3: You mentioned that that sort of the collaborative spirit is
Speaker 3: sort of a strong core element of Big Red Machine.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, right at the heart of it is
Speaker 3: yourself and Justin. Away from the obvious chemistry that you
Speaker 3: have in terms of creativity writing music together, how do
Speaker 3: you and Justin kind of compliment each other just as
Speaker 3: being mates as friends? Like how does it work together?
Speaker 3: Like why do you get on so well?
Speaker 1: It's a good question.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're from similar places in a way, or
Speaker 2: at least we're both in Western He's from a small
Speaker 2: Wisconsin town, western Wisconsin. I'm obviously from Ohio, which is
Speaker 2: more it feels like more East coast in a way,
Speaker 2: or something like a little bit people aren't quite as
Speaker 2: nice or something as they are and Wisconsin. But I
Speaker 2: think he's not. One thing I would say is like
Speaker 2: he's not naturally someone who would seek the spotlight, and
Speaker 2: neither am I. He's basically just like someone who is
Speaker 2: obviously so gifted musically and then really like it just
Speaker 2: is in his soul. And I grew up in a
Speaker 2: similar way where it's like I've just been playing music
Speaker 2: since I was a kid, and it's just like my
Speaker 2: natural state. But I'm not that I don't kind of
Speaker 2: love some of the a lot of the trappings of
Speaker 2: it or something or like having to cultivate the spotlight
Speaker 2: or seek it or something into like we I think
Speaker 2: we have really enjoyed just making music for the sake
Speaker 2: of making it, not really knowing what it is. Almost
Speaker 2: like somehow when we're together, there is this feeling a
Speaker 2: little bit it's almost childlike, like the wonder of like, dah,
Speaker 2: let's just make some stuff, or let's start to get
Speaker 2: some people together do something almost like you're just whatever.
Speaker 2: Doing acid with your friends and making noise is getting
Speaker 2: back in touch with the feeling of like why you
Speaker 2: make music in the first place. Forget the acid. I
Speaker 2: just mean, like you know, I mean literally some of
Speaker 2: the bigger machines happen like that. But I think it's
Speaker 2: like it just feels very easy. It's like our friendship
Speaker 2: has grown strong over a very long period of time,
Speaker 2: because it's been thirteen or fourteen years, but a lot
Speaker 2: of it has revolved around just like tinkering with music. Well,
Speaker 2: I guess the truth is a lot of over time
Speaker 2: because like I've been on tour for so long, like
Speaker 2: the national tour for over twenty years. So eventually, like
Speaker 2: a lot of your friendships are kind of connected to
Speaker 2: what you do because I don't I haven't been home
Speaker 2: a whole lot to make other friends or something, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So it's like a lot of
Speaker 2: the people you know are people that are kind of
Speaker 2: like in the same doing similar things or out there
Speaker 2: because you just end up seeing each.
Speaker 3: Other that, as you already mentioned, there's a whole lot
Speaker 3: of other stuff that goes along with making the music
Speaker 3: that you make. How do you support each other? Like
Speaker 3: what are you kind of you know, do you lift
Speaker 3: each other up through the times when it's not as easy?
Speaker 1: You do?
Speaker 3: You know? Do you know when it's time to just
Speaker 3: like crack open a beer and just be there for
Speaker 3: each other that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that's maybe another aspect of
Speaker 2: our friendship is that we both have had our struggles
Speaker 2: with you know, ups and downs or kind of sometimes
Speaker 2: anxiety or depression, and he's been very helpful to me
Speaker 2: and caring and vice versa, and kind of also not
Speaker 2: having big expectations with a lot of friends, I as
Speaker 2: some I struggled when I was a kid as a teenager,
Speaker 2: I had fairly serious depression and I kind of always
Speaker 2: am scared of it a little bit or it's like
Speaker 2: always like just somewhere out there.
Speaker 1: So I do things to take.
Speaker 2: Care of it, and I relate to other people that
Speaker 2: have that also and can be helpful, I think, because
Speaker 2: like I'm sympathetic to it or empathetic. He's the same way.
Speaker 2: But he so it's like and music is definitely therapeutic
Speaker 2: or it's important in this emotional way to him in
Speaker 2: the same way it is to me or something I think,
Speaker 2: and so or at least, and I think maybe Bigger
Speaker 2: Machine a lot of the music is like has this circular,
Speaker 2: almost meditative like you can feel you can feel me
Speaker 2: like rocking myself, soothing myself, and I think there's something
Speaker 2: that like strikes a real chord with him with that also.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we definitely like we definitely have fun. You know,
Speaker 2: it's fun, Like when we get together, it just feels
Speaker 2: it feels very good, comfortable.
Speaker 1: It's never been never been an effort.
Speaker 3: I mean, having followed your work with different projects that
Speaker 3: you've done. With this Big Red Machine album specifically, it
Speaker 3: feels quite certainly on the tracks where you kind of
Speaker 3: like take lead vocals, very like, very personally. I feel
Speaker 3: like as a listener I kind of learned a lot
Speaker 3: about you to pick out a couple of songs that
Speaker 3: I wanted to mention. Obviously there's a track on there Bryce,
Speaker 3: so you know, really it's a beautiful song kind of
Speaker 3: obviously kind of about your brother. And I wondered, like
Speaker 3: what Bryce's reaction was when you perform that or played
Speaker 3: it to him for the first time, because it's like
Speaker 3: it's a sort of it's to my ears. You absolutely
Speaker 3: tell me if I'm wrong, but it's just kind of
Speaker 3: like it's almost a sort of tribute to your connection
Speaker 3: and his support for you and your life together.
Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, absolutely, it's almost like a love letter to him,
Speaker 2: thanking him for not letting me far between the cracks
Speaker 2: sometimes or sort of going maybe if I've ever been
Speaker 2: in a tail spin, which I have, he's usually the
Speaker 2: one who like grabs me by the grabs me and
Speaker 2: pulls me out of it. Yeah, And I mean literally
Speaker 2: that's what he's done, I think, and I'm thankful for
Speaker 2: that because not everyone has that person in their life.
Speaker 2: And so when you have a twin and like for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, I ended up. I was the twin that
Speaker 2: ended up more with that like whatever potentially that brain
Speaker 2: that sometimes goes dark. And it's weird because it's not
Speaker 2: really almost never. It's almost just like abstract doesn't have
Speaker 2: to do with anything. It's just like a chemical thing
Speaker 2: that can happen sometimes. But having a twin brother who
Speaker 2: was like so caring and unwilling to like let me fall.
Speaker 2: Basically he just kind of like literally did my homework
Speaker 2: and he wrote he wrote my papers almost for a
Speaker 2: whole year when we were seniors in high school, and
Speaker 2: he like you know, would shake me awake and make
Speaker 2: me get in the shower and stuff like that just
Speaker 2: to kind of like keep me from just while or
Speaker 2: just turning into this sort of whatever I was turning into.
Speaker 1: And I think.
Speaker 2: That's what that song is about, also, just looking back
Speaker 2: at your childhood and searching for remedies and just like
Speaker 2: thinking about how in a time before you've made mistakes
Speaker 2: or the kind of uncertainty and anxiety and that comes
Speaker 2: with adulthood.
Speaker 1: You know. I think that's what this record is about,
Speaker 1: is like like.
Speaker 2: That partly it's like searching for remedies and maybe being
Speaker 2: nostalgic about a time before you've lost people or hurt people,
Speaker 2: or senior family disintegrate or things like that and kind
Speaker 2: of looking for like, I don't know, looking for meaning
Speaker 2: or how do you care? How do you like get
Speaker 2: how do you get back to something that's a more joyful, innocent,
Speaker 2: beautiful sort of innocence.
Speaker 1: Of childhood been that song.
Speaker 2: I think when I wrote that song, it definitely felt like, Okay,
Speaker 2: the record might be about this or something. And then
Speaker 2: there are other songs which came after, and I think
Speaker 2: other people heard Bricey and felt connected to it also
Speaker 2: and wrote influence of the.
Speaker 1: Words that they were writing.
Speaker 2: Because this record does because there are so many different
Speaker 2: singers and writers in it, but it does it weirdly
Speaker 2: feels like related, like different characters in the same book
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: And sort of continuing on that personal note of like
Speaker 3: close relationships. There's a song called hutch On there, which
Speaker 3: is a really moving way to remember your friend Scott
Speaker 3: Hutchinson from Frighten Rabbit. That song feels like it's like
Speaker 3: you're having a conversation with him, if you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. You still obviously think about Scott a lot,
Speaker 3: and you wanted to kind of write something about him
Speaker 3: and your friendship at music.
Speaker 2: It was I wrote for music, not kind of around
Speaker 2: the time that you know, like when not long after
Speaker 2: he had passed, and so it has this you know,
Speaker 2: obviously it's very melancholic, but there's something that's almost like spiritual.
Speaker 2: It's almost Gothic spiritual or something. The feeling and the music.
Speaker 2: And I played it for Justin and he he wrote
Speaker 2: the vocal melody is kind of saying them in just
Speaker 2: very spontaneously, and it sort of sat like that for
Speaker 2: a while. The sketch was called Hutch, so I knew
Speaker 2: it was about and when he had It's like you
Speaker 2: have friends that you know struggle sometimes with depression or
Speaker 2: even suicidal thoughts, but you never think it's like one
Speaker 2: thing to.
Speaker 1: Have those thoughts in another to act on them.
Speaker 2: But the difference between that kind of tragic decision is
Speaker 2: such a thin line. It could be like it could
Speaker 2: go either way at any point, kind of you know,
Speaker 2: And I think that's what the song is a little
Speaker 2: bit about, just like how did you get that bad?
Speaker 2: And you know what if I could have been more
Speaker 2: involved or tried to, you know, check in on you more,
Speaker 2: even though I wasn't you know, I wasn't in his
Speaker 2: daily life. I'd produced, we had toured a lot together,
Speaker 2: and I produced their last album. But I felt very like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I felt close to him and I had a lot
Speaker 2: of love for him, and he actually was very encouraging
Speaker 2: to me in a lot of ways, Like he was
Speaker 2: actually one of the people who really pushed me this thing.
Speaker 2: I kind of thought I should use my voice more.
Speaker 2: And anyways, it was just a total when he went missing,
Speaker 2: and then obviously it was found. It was really hard
Speaker 2: period because I one of my best friends growing up
Speaker 2: also passed away that way, like ten years prior. It
Speaker 2: was a very similar situation where like you kind of
Speaker 2: wake up one day and they're.
Speaker 1: Gone, you know, and you're like, WHOA like it?
Speaker 2: Then you search for answers but you don't find it.
Speaker 2: So that's what that sounds about it and it's very dark,
Speaker 2: but it was cathartic to write it. So then just
Speaker 2: and I wrote the words together and when we were
Speaker 2: right before the pandemic and Justina never met Scott, but
Speaker 2: he felt very like he could very much relate to
Speaker 2: this feeling and the fear of losing friends and even
Speaker 2: like contemplating those thoughts yourself. But I guess that is
Speaker 2: part of this record is just shining a light on
Speaker 2: these things. That many more people have these thoughts than
Speaker 2: people realize, and it's so important to ask for help
Speaker 2: and it's such simple thing, but it's like people do fall.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like we call it flu of the mind.
Speaker 2: Like if you have the flu or break your leg
Speaker 2: or if you've cut your hand, you get medical attention.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people don't realize that your mind
Speaker 2: is just as if not more important to take care
Speaker 2: of you.
Speaker 3: There's there's I mean, obviously there's an abundant amount of
Speaker 3: kind of collaborators on this album. Robin Pecknoll is there
Speaker 3: from Fleet Foxes. Has that been a kind of long
Speaker 3: time ambition to work together with Robin?
Speaker 2: I mean, I've always been a fan and I think
Speaker 2: he's so incredible gifted, you know, obviously an incredible voice
Speaker 2: and songwriter, and he's made incredible records and so I
Speaker 2: have a huge amount of respect for him, And yeah,
Speaker 2: I did feel that he I guess it's almost like
Speaker 2: sometimes I think a bigger machine is like the band
Speaker 2: or some sort of like The Grateful Dead or some
Speaker 2: of like a band that can open and kind of
Speaker 2: encompass a lot of voices and a lot of people
Speaker 2: and a lot of different kinds of songwriting, and maybe
Speaker 2: like this idea of improving and experimentation that seems kind
Speaker 2: of core to It really was welcoming, I think to
Speaker 2: certain other musicians. And I did think, like, what if
Speaker 2: Justin and Robin were on the same song, wouldn't that
Speaker 2: be like special because they're two of these incredibly beautiful
Speaker 2: voices of our generation. But it really made sense when
Speaker 2: I think Robin really clicked with the music. I had
Speaker 2: written the music, and Justin had written the chorus to
Speaker 2: that song Phoenix, and then Robin heard it, and I
Speaker 2: think it just clicked with him, this dialogue with Justin
Speaker 2: because they'd had this conversation in Phoenix backstage years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it just kind of like came together. And then Robin
Speaker 2: added a lot of production with himself and then also
Speaker 2: with his friends the Westerlies, this incredible brass band, and
Speaker 2: I don't know, Yeah, it's just an incredibly warm, vibrant
Speaker 2: song that it's like the kind of thing you can't
Speaker 2: really plan for, you know, you can't make it.
Speaker 1: It just happened.
Speaker 2: It lucked into it, I guess so, And like there's
Speaker 2: so many kind of inspired performances in that song.
Speaker 3: JT.
Speaker 2: Bates, the drummer who is a huge part of Big
Speaker 2: Gram Machine, but he's just it's like he's born to
Speaker 2: play that song kind of like the way.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not a it's like.
Speaker 2: A straightforward song, I guess musically, but he just gives
Speaker 2: it such vibrance.
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift that pays on a couple of songs on
Speaker 3: the Big Red Machine album, And obviously you worked on
Speaker 3: her Folklore and Evermore projects last year and done other
Speaker 3: work with her as well. I wondered how that came about.
Speaker 3: Was that sort of a like a reciprocal thing whilst
Speaker 3: you were working together on other material? And yeah, how
Speaker 3: did that kind of come to be?
Speaker 1: Honestly it was, It wasn't you know.
Speaker 2: It's just incredibly organic where I think Obviously Taylor had
Speaker 2: approached me to collaborate remotely, which led to sharing a
Speaker 2: lot of ideas back and forth, and vocalore happened, and
Speaker 2: then we just kept going and ever More happened. But
Speaker 2: along the way I had played for her a lot
Speaker 2: of new Big Rim Machine songs and ideas, and she
Speaker 2: loved the first record, and when Justin was obviously collaborating
Speaker 2: on Folklore and evermore, and at some point it just
Speaker 2: felt like she was we were.
Speaker 1: All just like part of the band or something like.
Speaker 2: It was very natural, you know, writing stuff, and I
Speaker 2: think she wanted she sang she loved the song Birch,
Speaker 2: so she actually sang that first before writing Renegade. That
Speaker 2: was towards the end of when we were working on
Speaker 2: Folklore that she recorded her vocals for Birch. And then
Speaker 2: it was always an air that she thought that she
Speaker 2: would you know, that she would want to write more
Speaker 2: for Big Red Machine, and it just felt like it
Speaker 2: was another spoke in the wheel of stuff that we
Speaker 2: were working on. Yeah, it wasn't something like we discussed
Speaker 2: very much in like a hey would you do this
Speaker 2: kind of way.
Speaker 1: It was literally just like.
Speaker 2: We're making stuff and it's fun and it's inspired, and
Speaker 2: that's kind of very much where she comes from also,
Speaker 2: almost like or that was the energy between us, just
Speaker 2: make make music, make songs and see where see what
Speaker 2: it is later in a way. So then when she
Speaker 2: wrote Renegade, because I had written the music and send
Speaker 2: it to her and then she wrote this. She wrote
Speaker 2: the song and send it back to me and she
Speaker 2: was like, I think this is a bigger machine song,
Speaker 2: and I agreed, and then Justin added his parts and
Speaker 2: it just kind of happened. But I think that's the
Speaker 2: that's again, like why that project exists, I think is
Speaker 2: to try to get in touch with that feeling of
Speaker 2: spontaneity and just making making music for the joy of it.
Speaker 2: And then you know, hopefully it's cohesive, but it's not
Speaker 2: like it's more in a way about process than it
Speaker 2: is about the final thing, even though in this case
Speaker 2: luckily the record is feels like very it has a
Speaker 2: feeling of it, I think a classic record, but it
Speaker 2: kind of happened in a spontaneous way.
Speaker 3: You spoke earlier about the sort of like your the
Speaker 3: trappings that go along with making music sometimes and the
Speaker 3: spotlight and not necessarily feeling like that's your favorite part
Speaker 3: of doing the job, and I wondered whether, like when
Speaker 3: the opportunity did come to work on Folklore and then
Speaker 3: ever more and obviously subsequently, like huge amount of spotlight
Speaker 3: has been shown on you.
Speaker 1: You've got like.
Speaker 3: Camera crew in the studio with you to make a
Speaker 3: documentary and then you know, congratulations on winning a Grammy.
Speaker 3: By the way, is as a huge spotlight. I mean
Speaker 3: that that inevitably comes with we're working as an artist
Speaker 3: of like Taylor Swift's notoriety. So did you have to
Speaker 3: sort of weigh that up in your mind and decide,
Speaker 3: like I do I want to put myself in the
Speaker 3: spotlight to work on this kind of project or did
Speaker 3: you just know that it was too much of an
Speaker 3: exciting kind of artistic opportunity to pass up.
Speaker 2: I think well, first of all, because I had really
Speaker 2: come to love Taylor as an artist, because it's actually
Speaker 2: your friend Ragnar Cartin's and this Icelandic visual artists and
Speaker 2: performance artists. And we were around the time that the
Speaker 2: National played Sorrow for six hours in a row.
Speaker 1: That was a ragnark here.
Speaker 2: And some Peace, and he's like he's a crazy swifty
Speaker 2: like he's really a huge fan of It was when
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine came out and we were in Nce
Speaker 2: and working with him, my brother and I and we
Speaker 2: were like blasting.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: It was just like kind of like absolutely perfect record
Speaker 2: in a way, you know, pop record, And I think
Speaker 2: just kind of started to see that what a master
Speaker 2: of her craft she is, and also just her songwriting,
Speaker 2: the way there are all these different levels of it
Speaker 2: and clues, and the way her fans work.
Speaker 1: And when she.
Speaker 2: Approached me to collaborate, I didn't really. Maybe it was
Speaker 2: also just because A having such respect for already, but
Speaker 2: B it was a time when the world it slowed
Speaker 2: down and the pandemic was in full was April of
Speaker 2: April last year, and I had been all I'd been
Speaker 2: doing was writing music by myself and working on it
Speaker 2: and kind of feeling very inspired musically. So it was
Speaker 2: a perfect timing when she came and I just shared.
Speaker 2: She asked what I had, and I just was like,
Speaker 2: well here, and I guess I happened to just have
Speaker 2: this giant folder of stuff that just really clicked. I
Speaker 2: think that she just really clicked with and very quickly,
Speaker 2: you know, carding and she sent back within hours of
Speaker 2: first making contact, and so that just and it was
Speaker 2: just this weird It felt like the train just left
Speaker 2: the station and didn't stop for a long time, or
Speaker 2: hasn't stopped me. But like I think it's I was
Speaker 2: very thankful for it. It felt like a weird life raft
Speaker 2: or something musically and creatively in a time of otherwise
Speaker 2: great uncertainty and anxiety and like you know, live music
Speaker 2: had stopped, and you know, but we just ended up
Speaker 2: in this weird cocoon writing stuff remotely. So no, I
Speaker 2: didn't that was and that's an other thing about her.
Speaker 2: She doesn't make you feel I never felt that I
Speaker 2: was out of my league or something. You know, She's
Speaker 2: just not like that. She makes you feel appreciated and
Speaker 2: confident and kind of she's grateful, and she's humble and grounded,
Speaker 2: and she just seems like hardworking, incredibly talented.
Speaker 1: Artists, you know.
Speaker 2: But there's no I've never had the feeling of like
Speaker 2: feeling that I'm working with a giant star, even though
Speaker 2: she is obviously, but it's like it doesn't feel. It
Speaker 2: feels very like much like working with your good friend
Speaker 2: who just happens to be crazy talented, but they're not
Speaker 2: making you feel the pressure, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And even when the record came out, we were on
Speaker 2: the phone and folks, work came out, we were on
Speaker 2: we were chatting on the phone like at midnight when
Speaker 2: it when it came out, it was just like fun.
Speaker 2: It was like you know, it wasn't there was no anxiety.
Speaker 1: It just felt like very I don't know, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I got lucky that I I never really thought too
Speaker 2: much about it, like what it would mean you or
Speaker 2: you know, on what scale it was.
Speaker 1: But I guess that's a good thing.
Speaker 3: There's Coney Island, which is one of my favorite tracks
Speaker 3: on Evermore, which is bringing together obviously you'll work with
Speaker 3: with Taylor, but also the National and it's like kind
Speaker 3: of two of your important worlds kind of merging and
Speaker 3: colliding on one song. And I know that you described
Speaker 3: it as almost like a sort of full circle moment,
Speaker 3: and I wondered if you wouldn't mind talking to me
Speaker 3: a little bit about why that felt like a full
Speaker 3: circle moment to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, Conney Allen is actually saying that my brother
Speaker 2: brace wrote started the music for and he and he
Speaker 2: had worked a lot on Poklore and also and Evermore,
Speaker 2: and obviously we do so much together, and then I
Speaker 2: had sort of developed it and Taylor wrote Conny Allen
Speaker 2: with Joe actually and Joe Allen, and they then felt
Speaker 2: that it was like because it felt very much maybe
Speaker 2: of the club of all the songs we made that
Speaker 2: one felt the most related to the national or something
Speaker 2: musically maybe, or sort of like a character. I think
Speaker 2: in her mind of the song, she just was hearing Matt.
Speaker 2: And so we asked Matt if he would if he
Speaker 2: would sing, and he was totally up for it. And
Speaker 2: then Brian and Scott joined us, and it just felt
Speaker 2: like because I feel like everything that I ever, all
Speaker 2: the songs they wrote with the band, and all the
Speaker 2: work I've done with Matt and everyone is what prepared
Speaker 2: me to do everything I do now, whether it's all
Speaker 2: the Taylor where all the work with the Taylor and
Speaker 2: I have done, or big grim machine stuff. It's like
Speaker 2: I kind of went to this twenty plus year school
Speaker 2: of like making songs and records, uncompromising sort of records.
Speaker 1: With your buddies, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: You sort to figure it out, like how do you
Speaker 2: make great recordings, how do you write songs? How do
Speaker 2: you structure these ideas? Because it's in a way, the
Speaker 2: way we work has always been kind of remote, because
Speaker 2: we hardly ever sit in the same room and like
Speaker 2: hash things out. It's usually like I make sketches, and
Speaker 2: Matt writes and sketches and then the band develops it anyway,
Speaker 2: So just I did feel like full circle that song.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's very much a Taylor Swift song,
Speaker 2: but then the National's presence in it. You can really
Speaker 2: you can feel, you know, in Matt's voice and Brian's
Speaker 2: drumming and Bryce's work and got and so it just
Speaker 2: it felt it felt good to connect those dots.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 3: When was the last time you were in a room
Speaker 3: together with the rest of the band with the National,
Speaker 3: because obviously that the opportunities have probably been few and
Speaker 3: far between the last eighteen months. But have you have
Speaker 3: you managed to get back together see each other?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were together in April and it was really
Speaker 2: nice for the first time. I mean it was May.
Speaker 2: I can't remember, like for the first time in almost
Speaker 2: a year and a half because we walked off stage.
Speaker 2: And December and Lisbon and it was one of the
Speaker 2: best National shows I think we've ever played. It was
Speaker 2: in this coliseum or something in Lisbon, and you just
Speaker 2: remember that. I think it was like fifteen thousand people
Speaker 2: and they were just in Portugal. It's kind of one
Speaker 2: of the best audiences in the world. It just I
Speaker 2: remember thinking to myself that this is the last National show.
Speaker 1: I'll be glad or happy that I like to.
Speaker 2: Go out in this way. I don't know why I
Speaker 2: thought that, because I don't know. It's not like I'm
Speaker 2: that fatalistic. But and we didn't know about the pandemic
Speaker 2: at that time. It was December twenty nineteen. But then
Speaker 2: it turns out that was the last National show. Maybe not,
Speaker 2: I mean not ever. We'll play again, but for a
Speaker 2: long time. It's been the first time that we haven't
Speaker 2: had a break in twenty years of this long so
Speaker 2: it was nice to get together and April we just
Speaker 2: played a lot of music and shared a lot of ideas.
Speaker 1: But it's still going.
Speaker 2: To be a while before we're it'll be till next year.
Speaker 2: I think that we act before we actually release anything
Speaker 2: or tour, you know, but hopefully.
Speaker 1: It's hard.
Speaker 2: It feels like we might not ever get back to
Speaker 2: it because it's you know, who knows. It's like the
Speaker 2: world is so unstable and the variant and all that.
Speaker 2: You know, It's like it definitely feels like getting back
Speaker 2: to that moment where you step on stage is still
Speaker 2: feels distant, even though I know people are doing it now,
Speaker 2: but anyways. But yeah, that's so I have seen them
Speaker 2: and we're in touch and we have a lot of ideas.
Speaker 2: But I think it's going to be really exciting when
Speaker 2: we make something new, because everybody's going to have a
Speaker 2: lot of energy, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's like kind of been in sort of
Speaker 3: unplanned but enforced break. But maybe that's maybe that's nice,
Speaker 3: Maybe that that breathing room quite something new.
Speaker 1: You never know.
Speaker 2: Definitely, it's like spans are weird social experiments, and you know,
Speaker 2: giving it a little space sometimes is a good idea
Speaker 2: that I kind of hope we can like get back
Speaker 2: in touch with the weird power of it, you know,
Speaker 2: the joy of it and this weird engine. When that
Speaker 2: engine is going, when it's really going, it can be
Speaker 2: very powerful. And I think finding that and we did,
Speaker 2: you know, like you feel it when we like there
Speaker 2: were moments when you could feel it clicking, and that's exacting.
Speaker 3: To find previous episodes of Midnight Chats, simply search your
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Speaker 1: Com anyway, good night,