Speaker 1: My dad he thinks he's going to take a walk.
Speaker 1: If he's like, oh god, a stream, where a stream nearby,
Speaker 1: Well let's go take a walk and see what's in
Speaker 1: the stream. And now as no day. That's my record
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: If your cross section of interests include fishing, the National
Speaker 2: and embarrassing stories about meeting the president, not the current
Speaker 2: one a good one, then you are in the perfect place.
Speaker 2: With tonight's Midnight Chats, thank you for streaming episode ninety seven.
Speaker 2: My name is Greg and this evening's guest is Matt Berninger.
Speaker 2: We dialed each other up on the final day of
Speaker 2: August of this year Bank holiday in the UK. Matt
Speaker 2: was in his garage studio in California. I was in
Speaker 2: the corner of my living room in northeast London. And
Speaker 2: the main reason we were chatting is that Matt has
Speaker 2: a solo album, his first solo album coming out on Friday,
Speaker 2: the sixteenth of October. It's called Serpentine Prison and like
Speaker 2: the rest of us in twenty twenty, hasn't exactly gone
Speaker 2: the way that Matt was thinking. It was supposed to
Speaker 2: be full of touring, including some shows where the National
Speaker 2: were marking ten years of high Violet. A shame obviously
Speaker 2: that that hasn't happened, but lockdown has provided him with
Speaker 2: a chance to slow down, ride his bike, hang out
Speaker 2: with his family, and go fishing. And as you'll hear,
Speaker 2: I took great pleasure in introducing him to Mortimer and
Speaker 2: white House Gone Fishing, one of my favorite TV discoveries
Speaker 2: of recent times. I also ask about his bandmates Aaron
Speaker 2: and Bryce Desner's covert work on Taylor Swift's folklore album,
Speaker 2: Matt's own work with the legendary booker t and a
Speaker 2: string of magnificent collaborators on this new album, and got
Speaker 2: into some stories about meeting the Obamas, amongst other things,
Speaker 2: exciting news on his plans for the second movie and
Speaker 2: TV versions of Mistaken for Strangers too, So just quickly,
Speaker 2: I hope you'll indulge me. We talk a lot about
Speaker 2: family in this episode. Matt's new album is dedicated to
Speaker 2: his dad, and it sounds like we both have very
Speaker 2: close families. A few minutes after I finished recording this
Speaker 2: with Matt, I found out my own dad was taking
Speaker 2: ill and he passed away a few days later. Didn't
Speaker 2: really know what a podcast was, but he knew that
Speaker 2: people enjoyed Midnight Chats and that was good enough for him.
Speaker 2: He was very proud. So this episode is for my
Speaker 2: dad and for all the dads. I've just become one
Speaker 2: myself this week. But yeah, let's get going. It was
Speaker 2: as fun as you'd imagine hanging out with Matt. He's
Speaker 2: excellent company. Enjoy the next forteen minutes or so. There
Speaker 2: are some links to some of the stuff we mentioned
Speaker 2: in the show notes. Do check those out there. You'll
Speaker 2: also find our supporters button. That's how you can keep
Speaker 2: this podcast going by making a contribution if you're in
Speaker 2: a position to do so. Matt Berninger on Midnight Chats,
Speaker 2: You're not.
Speaker 1: I'm getting this weird. I think it's because of this
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar is hold on? Did you hear that? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there it goes.
Speaker 3: I could hear it like a little yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 3: was the accus I was like, what is that?
Speaker 4: As the acoustic guitar which I can't play, it makes
Speaker 4: that noise though.
Speaker 3: It looks good. Record That study is lovely. By the way,
Speaker 3: study my.
Speaker 4: Garage my man gave Slash Dojo Slash. This is actually
Speaker 4: the garage behind my brother's house. Okay, tables have turned.
Speaker 4: I'm living in his garage now, not really, this is
Speaker 4: my studio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, you want to look around. I
Speaker 1: don't know what. I'm afraid what you might see, the.
Speaker 3: Like big leather bound books and atlas I have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's full of that cologne and petruli and art
Speaker 4: books and and vinyl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2: I've been really enjoying the playlist that you've been putting
Speaker 2: out the last few months, the Social Distancing Distortion playlists,
Speaker 2: where you've been adding loads of the music that you've
Speaker 2: been enjoying.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me a little bit.
Speaker 2: About when you started that and how you've enjoyed putting
Speaker 2: that together?
Speaker 4: Right when it started? Gosh, that's a good question. I
Speaker 4: think I just thought it was it was a funny title.
Speaker 1: For Social Distancing.
Speaker 4: I'm a big Social Distortion fan, and so I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I should I should launch something, you know, thinking I'll
Speaker 4: just do this for like a like a one week
Speaker 4: or two weeks, and you know, and yeah, that was
Speaker 4: six months ago. So yeah, and I kept doing it,
Speaker 4: and I actually I've got I got addicted to making playlists,
Speaker 4: and so I've been I stopped that one a few
Speaker 4: weeks ago, just it's it's holding steady at twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: But I've also done another trying to do a hundred
Speaker 4: song playlist for another thing. I've been working on this
Speaker 4: playlist for for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I
Speaker 4: keep refining it. Yeah, I playlists are making playlists is
Speaker 4: like is like making art to me. You know, it's
Speaker 4: like it's every song is is very specific and.
Speaker 1: That the sequence has to be just right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my playlists usually implode on shuffle just although you know,
Speaker 4: the sequence that only makes maybe makes sense to me,
Speaker 4: but that doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: But when I when I first came across the place
Speaker 2: that you were making the first few tracks, I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is an introduction to Matt's taste.
Speaker 3: It was like Dizzy Rascal, fix Up, look.
Speaker 4: Sharp and even I even kind of copied Dizzy's uh
Speaker 4: Boy in the Corner Boy in the Duck Corner cover
Speaker 4: for my cover a little bit. I was inspired by it,
Speaker 4: just like, well, you know, he's sitting there on the
Speaker 4: floor in the corner, and he's just like a boy
Speaker 4: in the corner. I'm sitting in a corner on like
Speaker 4: the cover of my album Anyway just is a little nod.
Speaker 4: I love that Racket record he was on. He was
Speaker 4: on the same label as us back well he's still
Speaker 4: I mean with for a D and Beggars Banquet in
Speaker 4: that group, so we used to see.
Speaker 1: Him around a little bit.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he knows who ever paid an
Speaker 4: attention to us at all, but yeah, I was a
Speaker 4: huge fan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how do they come together?
Speaker 2: Do you sort of like do you rummage through Spotify,
Speaker 2: like looking through different sort of playlists and algorithms.
Speaker 4: Or no, I mean sometimes it's I mean there's a
Speaker 4: lot of songs on the playlists that have that have
Speaker 4: just popped up because once once you start a playlist
Speaker 4: and then it suggests more things that you like, you know,
Speaker 4: and I would say, like one out of ten are
Speaker 4: just sometimes our discoveries from my own playlist, right, my
Speaker 4: own Yeah, yeah, so yes, the algorithm.
Speaker 1: I guess. But but most every once in a while
Speaker 1: there's there's something like that.
Speaker 4: For example, artists like Julia Jacqueline I didn't know anybody
Speaker 4: think about, or Hailey Hendrix or there's a lot, there's
Speaker 4: a lot, there's tons and tons of artists on there.
Speaker 1: That I'm like, who is this?
Speaker 4: And also there's a ton of artists that like, I know,
Speaker 4: I'm like friends with that. I suddenly an old song
Speaker 4: of there's like a Lucy Dacas. I don't know if
Speaker 4: I didn't put this one on the Social Distortion one,
Speaker 4: but the Lucy Dacas song just came up in my
Speaker 4: yesterday that I never heard it, and it's what is it?
Speaker 1: It's it's an old one.
Speaker 4: I just I just I've been listening to it for like,
Speaker 4: over and over and over again Forever half Mast, off
Speaker 4: of her record Forever half Mast, And I'm like, how
Speaker 4: have I never heard that song?
Speaker 1: Even though she's open for us, she must have played it,
Speaker 1: but that's why. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's that kind of way. Sometimes I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 4: where's that one song by Archers of Low for Oh,
Speaker 4: where's that one song by.
Speaker 1: You know, Rancid or Little Kim?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I put there's is Little Kim and Biggie Smalls
Speaker 4: on there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it is somewhere.
Speaker 1: They're on the new one anyway.
Speaker 4: I love their romance. I used to live in the
Speaker 4: same neighborhood, the Underhill up and off of Vanderbilt up
Speaker 4: in uh sort of that neighborhood in Brooklyn where they
Speaker 4: used to hang and stuff, and so I've always had
Speaker 4: a Biggie small as Little Kim, sort of like feeling
Speaker 4: their presence back when I was, you know, living in
Speaker 4: Brooklyn and stuff. Yeah, and I love all that super
Speaker 4: sex positive stuff. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 4: dirt this is These are definitely adult playlists.
Speaker 2: Was it almost like a therapy starting doing that at
Speaker 2: the beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. I mean I actually didn't think of it
Speaker 1: as a therapy at the beginning.
Speaker 4: I started because I was just I was like, you know,
Speaker 4: that'd be a funny name for a playlist, social distancing distortion,
Speaker 4: and you know, I put tons of social distortion on there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: But then it became and since then music, throughout the
Speaker 4: last six months months, music and books and art and
Speaker 4: art books and stuff have definitely been have definitely been
Speaker 4: I think for me, the thing that's kept me most
Speaker 4: centered and grounded and kept me positive and optimistic. And
Speaker 4: I really, really, really really get a lot out of
Speaker 4: all kinds of art and just I mean I'm a
Speaker 4: Catholic and I actually get a lot out of the Bible.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot in there I hate, but
Speaker 4: but I kind of consider records and art, books and movies,
Speaker 4: and you know, as there are.
Speaker 1: All works of art. The Bibles have a great work
Speaker 1: of art that.
Speaker 4: Provided great guidance, you know, and then the industry ruined
Speaker 4: it so that religion industry or whatever. So so now
Speaker 4: music and painting and movies and that stuff is genuinely
Speaker 4: where I find guidance.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like Nick Cave. I've gotten more from Nick Cave
Speaker 4: than the Bible. And Nick Cave just has devoured the
Speaker 4: Bible inside and out. You know, he knows every tool
Speaker 4: of the Bible to tell stories. And yeah, so I
Speaker 4: definitely art is where I find wisdom and expression and Catharsis.
Speaker 2: Yesterday I went into central London for the first time
Speaker 2: in months. I'm speaking to you from home in northeast London,
Speaker 2: so it's not a not very far away it's short
Speaker 2: tube journey and that's felt quite strange, although it's a
Speaker 2: bank call today where I.
Speaker 4: Am, and I've been on a log long tube journey
Speaker 4: in my mind lately. But anyway, that's a good name
Speaker 4: for a song. Short anyway, Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3: What's it like where you are?
Speaker 2: And like how does it compare, Like, just tell me
Speaker 2: a little bit about the circumstance and how things are
Speaker 2: where you are.
Speaker 4: Well, I am very lucky, in privileged to have a backyard,
Speaker 4: you know, to have a to have a home, to
Speaker 4: be to be a housed person, and a lot of
Speaker 4: Americans don't even have that.
Speaker 1: And so especially in my neighborhood in Venice, it's.
Speaker 4: A mixture of a lot of extreme wealth and a
Speaker 4: lot of extreme poverty, and a lot of extreme mental illness.
Speaker 4: And it is a lot of people who have succeeded
Speaker 4: and a lot of people who've fallen through the cracks.
Speaker 1: And it's a very stark portrait of America.
Speaker 4: I think Venice is. But I'm from Cincinnati. That's always
Speaker 4: felt like a stark portrait. I feel like every place
Speaker 4: I've ever lived Brooklyn has felt like a stark microcosm
Speaker 4: of America. And I would assume almost everybody I don't know,
Speaker 4: you know, everybody. I mean, people in Mobile, Alabama probably
Speaker 4: feel that way too, that their community is a microcosm
Speaker 4: of America. So yeah, that's where I am, and I've
Speaker 4: been I've been lucky to spend a lot of time
Speaker 4: in the sun.
Speaker 1: I've been you know.
Speaker 4: I've also been sleeping at my own pace, which means
Speaker 4: I go to bed really early, and I wake up
Speaker 4: really early, and I usually take a pretty good nap
Speaker 4: during the day. And I'm kind of like a by
Speaker 4: phasic sleeper. Apparently Jeff Tweety is also just like, I
Speaker 4: can only sleep for four hours at a time then
Speaker 4: and then I wake up and have to do something
Speaker 4: for ten, you know, or eight, and then I go back.
Speaker 1: To sleep for four, work for eight.
Speaker 4: That's how I, you know, And sometimes it's I'm not
Speaker 4: on the schedule the rest of the world or my family.
Speaker 4: My for a family, My wife and daughter are night ours,
Speaker 4: so they're always up till like, especially during this they're
Speaker 4: up to like midnight, both of them, just like watching
Speaker 4: Gilmore Girls or whatever, you know, and doing their thing,
Speaker 4: and I, you know, I wake up shortly after some
Speaker 4: sometimes I wake up just a few hours after they
Speaker 4: all fall they fall asleep.
Speaker 1: It's but it's good. Everybody's kind of everybody's making it
Speaker 1: work for themselves. My daughter's in online school, and that's tough.
Speaker 1: She misses friends. But we've been we've been doing okay.
Speaker 2: So at the moment, what does an average day look
Speaker 2: like for you, you're obviously getting up early, but you
Speaker 2: are you trying to use those early hours to be productive,
Speaker 2: to create, or to just give yourself a.
Speaker 3: Bit of space? How are you using that time?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I wake up usually around fourish, I mean around four
Speaker 4: to twenty, and I will lay there and uh yeah,
Speaker 4: and I sometimes I won't I won't even I won't
Speaker 4: even move for forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: But you know, I just slowly. I don't use alarms anymore,
Speaker 1: you know, alarm waking you.
Speaker 4: Up out of your natural bi rhythm or pace is
Speaker 4: like and when you're on tour, all it is is
Speaker 4: a series of alarms, and all day long, it's just like, Okay,
Speaker 4: you have fifteen minutes to nap, then you have to
Speaker 4: do an interview, then you have forty five minutes to
Speaker 4: get back to the hotel. Then you have eight you know,
Speaker 4: you have an hour then at the hotel to eat
Speaker 4: and nap. Then and another alarm goes off because you
Speaker 4: got to get back for sound check. It's you're always
Speaker 4: just chasing schedule. And now that there's no schedule, I'm
Speaker 4: turned my alarms off, right, and so I'm I'm much Yeah,
Speaker 4: my brain is my brain's burned out, but still pretty
Speaker 4: is more fluid, you know than usual, just because of
Speaker 4: whatever my sleep and just also just being home. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm super super busy. I've been, I've been working
Speaker 4: like crazy, yet I'm still much more relaxed than I've
Speaker 4: been in fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I mean, this must be the longest stint that you've
Speaker 2: actually spent at home for that.
Speaker 4: Amount of time. Ten probably a decade. Yeah, since my
Speaker 4: daughter was born. I don't think. Yeah, I've never been
Speaker 4: I've never been home this long of a stretch with
Speaker 4: with my with my own kid. Yeah, and that's when
Speaker 4: that's as that's dawned on me. It's made me realize
Speaker 4: that maybe this is a time to rewire everything anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of people have had that,
Speaker 2: like inself included. You just sort of stopping the pause
Speaker 2: to think about like how much energy you exert doing
Speaker 2: things that maybe you don't want.
Speaker 3: To do or we don't need to do so much
Speaker 3: of what I'm.
Speaker 4: Trying not to argue, I'm also I mean, I'm yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to not to not to get into too
Speaker 4: many unnecessary arguments over over unnecessary things, you know, I
Speaker 4: mean like and trying to be more professional and less
Speaker 4: emotional and all that kind of shit, you know, with everything,
Speaker 4: with everything, with my career, with my friends, with my family,
Speaker 4: with my.
Speaker 1: I'm not being more professional with my family.
Speaker 4: I'm being more personal with my family, but more professional
Speaker 4: with everyone else.
Speaker 2: For the last decade, you probably spent I don't know,
Speaker 2: one hundred, one hundred and fifty days out of every
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five on the road away from
Speaker 2: home with the National. So how has it been. I mean,
Speaker 2: you had plans to tour this year that obviously have
Speaker 2: not happening. Have you missed just I mean you spend
Speaker 2: so much time with them so that you're you know, you're.
Speaker 4: I miss my friends. I miss the guys I miss.
Speaker 4: I think we all miss each other. I don't think
Speaker 4: any of us miss airports or hotels. I think all
Speaker 4: all five of us and or seven of us including
Speaker 4: Kyle and Ben in the National, if you're talking about
Speaker 4: the National specifically, everyone's so grateful to be home with
Speaker 4: their families the same.
Speaker 1: Way I am. So, Yet we all do.
Speaker 4: I think we miss each other some and we definitely
Speaker 4: miss we miss we miss playing, we missed the fans.
Speaker 4: I miss the faces. I missed the spit, I missed
Speaker 4: the wine and the and the getting. You know, I
Speaker 4: missed it jumping into that crowd. And I don't know
Speaker 4: how what a national show would be like if it
Speaker 4: was all spread out or socially distanced, and I just
Speaker 4: it wouldn't feel like a national show. And that's got
Speaker 4: everybody really depressed. And but I know no one misses,
Speaker 4: you know, airports, I know that for sure.
Speaker 2: On the subject of live music, I mean, I've missed
Speaker 2: it a hell of a lot, and I missed it
Speaker 2: even more on Saturday night, my wife and I and
Speaker 2: watched Mistaken for Strangers and just the visceral I mean
Speaker 2: that we can till get in a second about that film.
Speaker 1: There's the poster. There's the poster back there.
Speaker 3: Oh fantastic, it's right above my bald spot.
Speaker 2: It made me really viscerally miss live music, seeing like
Speaker 2: the performance extracts in the movie.
Speaker 3: But also, but conversely, it also made me it.
Speaker 2: Really cheered me up because it's just such a heartening,
Speaker 2: funny film.
Speaker 3: Human film.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, are you thinking about would you like
Speaker 2: to do something like that again? That was the thing
Speaker 2: that reminded me of of really just how much I
Speaker 2: miss it.
Speaker 4: Tom is, well, he's still asleep, but he's when he's awake,
Speaker 4: he's usually working on Mistaken Changers too. Yeah, and he's
Speaker 4: also doing He and he in his roommate Chris are
Speaker 4: sort of this filmmaking duo Chris Croy and they're they're
Speaker 4: doing all my videos and they did all of it there.
Speaker 4: Tom did all my videos for ELVI. So Tom, Tom
Speaker 4: and I have in careern my wife have continued to
Speaker 4: develop the Mistake in for Strangers thing, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: Mistake Change Too is coming out some some year. Yeah,
Speaker 4: who knows. Tom's pitched it as as if the first
Speaker 4: one was, you know, on a year on tour with
Speaker 4: my brother's band. This is you know, a year in
Speaker 4: the studio with my brother, I guess, And a lot
Speaker 4: of it is the making of Serpentine Prison with Booker
Speaker 4: and all those guys. But then, as much as Mistaken
Speaker 4: Strangers Won was actually was about the national or a tour,
Speaker 4: I think this one is goes off that narrative quickly
Speaker 4: into other things, and this one the tables have sort
Speaker 4: of turned where maybe whereas the first one, Tom was
Speaker 4: you know, struggling with his direction and I was there
Speaker 4: trying to whip him into some sort of direction, maybe
Speaker 4: too aggressively. This one is the tables have turned where
Speaker 4: Tom Moore is. Tom's more that providing support for me
Speaker 4: and guidance for me through some rough stuff, you know,
Speaker 4: a little bit. I mean, that's kind of what's that's what.
Speaker 4: That's how he pitched it to me. And I don't
Speaker 4: I haven't seen anything, but I was in the studio
Speaker 4: and I was I know when he was around, so
Speaker 4: I know what he's got.
Speaker 2: My favorite line in the first movie, I think actually
Speaker 2: is delivered by your daughter, which is where.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like exactly so.
Speaker 2: Where your brother Tom is having this kind of crushing
Speaker 2: He's in the middle of the edit for the film
Speaker 2: and he's having this period of real crushing self doubt
Speaker 2: and he and he says to your daughter, you know,
Speaker 2: am I going to be a big famous director one day?
Speaker 2: And she just cuts him down and just says no.
Speaker 3: And she was.
Speaker 4: Just mad because she wanted her she wanted her Grover
Speaker 4: phone back, I think, and she's just that's all she wanted,
Speaker 4: and so he was, yeah, and he was. She was
Speaker 4: also mad because Tom in that scene was moving into
Speaker 4: her room and he was moving in with us, and
Speaker 4: so that was her bedroom and we were here to
Speaker 4: move her out so Tom could move into her house.
Speaker 4: So she was she was like, what the hell is she?
Speaker 4: She was not a fan of Tom that day. Now
Speaker 4: she loves Tom. They're the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now she's now she's almost twelve, and yeah, uncle Tom
Speaker 4: is like one of her best friends.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm really pleased to hear that this work on
Speaker 2: a follow updown, I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: We're trying to get a TV show made too.
Speaker 3: Okay, along a similar line which.
Speaker 4: Mistaken for Strangers, the show, the show would be would
Speaker 4: be much, would be less, would be less documentary, and
Speaker 4: be more scripted, you know. I mean, as everyone knows,
Speaker 4: there are parts of Mistaken Strangers one that we're sort
Speaker 4: of recreated or you know, there's there's yeah, there's.
Speaker 3: A poetic license to shape the noun.
Speaker 4: There's craft involved. But the story is all true, you know,
Speaker 4: the story, you know, all that is I would definitely
Speaker 4: say Mistaken Strangers is a very true story. Even though
Speaker 4: some scenes we had we kind of we had to
Speaker 4: sort of fill in the gaps, you know, and Tom's
Speaker 4: a good actor.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, so what have you learned in the
Speaker 2: process of trying to get a TV show made.
Speaker 1: Then I've learned never to ever try to get a
Speaker 1: TV show made.
Speaker 3: Really, is that dispiriting?
Speaker 4: Not dispiriting, it's a oh god, I have too many
Speaker 4: it's too much of a mountain to climb.
Speaker 1: It's too much of a Yeah. I mean, we've been
Speaker 1: we've we've taken.
Speaker 4: Versions of Mistaken for Strangers. We've gotten this close, you know,
Speaker 4: with Netflix, all all of them, with all the players,
Speaker 4: the who lose, the all of them, the hbos and
Speaker 4: and there, and it's been fun. It's been We've learned
Speaker 4: how to pitch, We've learned how not to pitch. We've
Speaker 4: also learned that there's a lot of marble turners, meaning
Speaker 4: just like people say, oh, we love your idea, and
Speaker 4: then like they turn it and they like here and
Speaker 4: they hand it back to you. Now it's our idea
Speaker 4: and we're going to do this with it. I'm like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: that's not the idea.
Speaker 1: We wanted to do.
Speaker 4: And you know they still my marble, still my idea. No,
Speaker 4: I don't want to turn it into uh, you know,
Speaker 4: indie rock sitcom. You know, I don't want a writer's room.
Speaker 4: I don't want a writer's room, you know. And I
Speaker 4: mean we took my wife and I went out to
Speaker 4: a Sundance episodic lab a few years ago with this
Speaker 4: concept and hung up and talk like literally sitting in
Speaker 4: this big room of all these people. We got our
Speaker 4: proposal was accepted, and so we went to the episodic
Speaker 4: lab where they at at Sundance Robert Redford's thing, and
Speaker 4: we're all in this room, big conference room chairs in
Speaker 4: a big circle, and all the different people, all the
Speaker 4: different sort of like people from the industry, and all
Speaker 4: the other people who were writers who had different TV
Speaker 4: shows accepted to the program. We're all in this big
Speaker 4: circle meeting each other's orientation day and there's an empty
Speaker 4: chair right next to me, and I was speaking to
Speaker 4: a woman to my right and just chit chatting with her.
Speaker 4: My wife was sort of on the other side of
Speaker 4: the circle. We all spread out, and all of a
Speaker 4: sudden heard the chair screak squeak next to me, and
Speaker 4: I look over and Robert Redford's standing right there and
Speaker 4: he's like, hi on, Bob.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Hi Bob, Matt, and he's like
Speaker 1: hi on Matt, and we.
Speaker 4: Just had this little conversation about about the TV show
Speaker 4: and he's had that sounds and then and then we
Speaker 4: had this so we spent like a week out there
Speaker 4: Sundance and that was my only own the interaction with
Speaker 4: Robert Redford. But it was it was I really.
Speaker 1: I relive it all the time. I relive it all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I also got a hug from Michelle Obama once, and
Speaker 4: I relived that.
Speaker 1: There's those are two things. I'm like, Oh, go back
Speaker 1: to that moment for just ten seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anytime you just need a little bit of a Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's not like I can give Robert Redford a ring
Speaker 4: and chit chat about his ideas for that, you know,
Speaker 4: how do I get this show made? But maybe maybe
Speaker 4: I'll maybe I'll cast him as my dad or something.
Speaker 2: You could think although, because you've said before that he
Speaker 2: reminds you of your dad, right, Oh my.
Speaker 4: God, Well my dad reminds me of Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, my dad reminds me of I don't know John.
Speaker 4: Muir and Walt Whitman and Robert Redford and uh, I
Speaker 4: don't know John Candy, I don't know.
Speaker 1: My dad's the best.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gon.
Speaker 2: Talk a bit about your dad in the second because
Speaker 2: I know that, like, it's a big part of the
Speaker 2: reason for Jane Goodall.
Speaker 4: My dad's a very Jane good Old type of type
Speaker 4: of monkey man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then let's talk about seventeen Prison.
Speaker 3: So it's your first side of album.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of rooted in family, the origins of
Speaker 2: the inspiration and the reason for kind of wanting to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: But can you just tell.
Speaker 2: Them tell me a little bit about how originally you'd
Speaker 2: intended this of being like a collection of covers, right,
Speaker 2: You're master group of songs that you really wanted to
Speaker 2: do versions of and that was sort of in your
Speaker 2: mind for quite a while. And he wants to do that,
Speaker 2: and it hasn't turned out like that, obviously, But tell
Speaker 2: me a little bit about the original plan.
Speaker 1: But it turned out.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's a it's a serpentine story, it's a
Speaker 4: securitest story, but I would tell it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So about twelve years ago, I got an email inviting
Speaker 4: me to sing on a Booker t record called Road
Speaker 4: from Memphis and to do a duet called Representing Memphis
Speaker 4: with Sharon Jones. That Booker's daughter, Olivia wrote the lyrics
Speaker 4: for and I couldn't believe I got that email, and
Speaker 4: so I said yes and went down one day to
Speaker 4: a studio in Lower Manhattan and went into an elevator
Speaker 4: and I don't know if the other went up or
Speaker 4: down in this building because it was like one of
Speaker 4: those weird buildings that just has a studio somewhere in
Speaker 4: small studio somewhere in it.
Speaker 1: And but the elevator doors open, Lauren Hill was standing there.
Speaker 4: She let me get out, and then she got in
Speaker 4: and left. I was like, I think that was Lauren Hill.
Speaker 4: Then I go in the room and there's Questlove and
Speaker 4: lou Reid had just left. Sharon Jones came bursting in
Speaker 4: just like a like a sunshine and tornado at the
Speaker 4: same time.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: And then and uh yeah, And I was only there
Speaker 4: for about three hours, and Booker and his wife and
Speaker 4: everybody was just so warm.
Speaker 1: And it was a chaotic thing.
Speaker 4: And and and I just I hit it off with
Speaker 4: Booker and be recorded and Sharon and I sang right
Speaker 4: into the same microphone live, you know, and we only
Speaker 4: did a few takes. And He's just like, go, go go,
Speaker 4: you know, He's he's being in this studio with Booker
Speaker 4: is like being in a swimming pool.
Speaker 5: With a with a dolphin or a whale who just knows,
Speaker 5: you know, but it's like being the ocean, you know,
Speaker 5: with with with just with a whale and just just
Speaker 5: follow the whale's He's.
Speaker 4: Incredible and so so jumped ten years and I was
Speaker 4: really thinking about it's time to make this coverage record
Speaker 4: and it was Chris.
Speaker 1: Right before Christmas is twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4: My dad and I had been arguing a lot and
Speaker 4: fighting a lot that particularly Christmas.
Speaker 1: My dad's birthday is Christmas December twenty fifth, by the way, So.
Speaker 4: We were I was up in Seattle, where my sister
Speaker 4: lives and they my parents live there now, and my
Speaker 4: whole family was there, and my dad and I were
Speaker 4: just I spent most of the time in the hot
Speaker 4: tub and not talking.
Speaker 1: To anybody for good reason. And no, it was not
Speaker 1: that bad.
Speaker 4: And my dad and I because they moved out of
Speaker 4: Cincinnati and they sold our house, and just I was
Speaker 4: a little bit raw about all that's about the house
Speaker 4: and stuff. And so that's when I was like, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm gonna I can't talk to my dad
Speaker 4: right now, but I'm going to make him a I'm
Speaker 4: going to make him something for Christmas for I was
Speaker 4: joking I was going to make him a TV show
Speaker 4: or a thing or something, and I posted something about
Speaker 4: it and then and I realized, you know what I
Speaker 4: should do. I should make a covers record like start
Speaker 4: Us because that's his favorite record.
Speaker 1: And I figured out that Booker. I remember that Booker
Speaker 1: produced an arranged start Us so and then I had like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I know Booker. So on December eighteenth,
Speaker 1: I wrote to him. That's why, cause I saw the
Speaker 1: email I wrote it. I went to his website Booker
Speaker 1: t Jones dot com and there's a big management button
Speaker 1: clipped on that and said, hey, this is Matt Berninger. I
Speaker 1: worked with Booker a long time ago.
Speaker 4: I was wondering if he'd want to play or help
Speaker 4: me make a covers record because I'm a big fan
Speaker 4: of Startis blah blah blah, wrote his daughter, who's now
Speaker 4: his manager, wrote back the next day said he'd love to,
Speaker 4: and that's how it started.
Speaker 1: And then we worked on covers for a while.
Speaker 4: And then I also had a bunch of half baked
Speaker 4: sketches with a bunch of people from my first band
Speaker 4: from the national from Elvi for my favorite band, The Walkman.
Speaker 1: Just old friends, just.
Speaker 4: Like tons and tons of friends, and I had these
Speaker 4: and I started sharing with him and he's like, well,
Speaker 4: let's let's also start focusing on those.
Speaker 1: And so when we went into the studio.
Speaker 4: About him, i'd say almost a year after that email,
Speaker 4: we had a bunch of covers, we had a bunch
Speaker 4: of originals ready to go in and do and we
Speaker 4: did it all in fourteen days, and everybody came into
Speaker 4: Venice was in and out, and Booker played that role
Speaker 4: of that sort of shepherd inside of the chaotic tornado,
Speaker 4: you know, or that person. Everybody just followed him. And
Speaker 4: I needed somebody with more presence and more just someone
Speaker 4: that everybody would I needed the record.
Speaker 1: To sound of one piece. I wanted you to be
Speaker 1: able to sound the room.
Speaker 4: Hear the room Booker team, the MG's records are just
Speaker 4: you can I always say this, you can hear the
Speaker 4: musicians look.
Speaker 1: At each other, you know. And that's what it's like
Speaker 1: with Booker.
Speaker 4: And we did it so fast, because like we do
Speaker 4: three or four takes and he's like, Okay, that's the one, and.
Speaker 1: I was like, are you sure, And he's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like, he's like, we could get it a little better,
Speaker 1: but we'd waste so much time, and like nothing's supposed
Speaker 1: to be perfect, and the confidence just to move fast.
Speaker 1: So we did a bunch of covers we did.
Speaker 4: We did a Cure cover, we did a we did
Speaker 4: a Morphine cover, We did a Betty Swan cover, we
Speaker 4: did a Eddie Floyd cover.
Speaker 1: We did a Velvet Underground cover.
Speaker 4: We did some other things that are tender covers but
Speaker 4: are originals, and that's all coming out in the Deluxe,
Speaker 4: So it's all coming out together.
Speaker 2: The cast of players that you got together for that
Speaker 2: fourteen days, like you just described, just sounds like magic
Speaker 2: and what what an amazing opportunity for you to sort
Speaker 2: of to assemble those people.
Speaker 3: You know, we're talking about.
Speaker 2: People like Gail An Drsy of course, he played with
Speaker 2: David Bowie, the booker himself, like you say, Andrew Bird,
Speaker 2: like all all of Mickey.
Speaker 4: Rafael plays harmonica. He plays harmonica on Start Us too.
Speaker 4: He plays harmonica on like every classic with Dylan. He
Speaker 4: plays harm He's all over it too. He's incredible.
Speaker 2: So the first morning of those sessions, you walk in
Speaker 2: all these people are there. How does that feel to you,
Speaker 2: the fact that they're there to help create some magic
Speaker 2: with you. We're full of a Did you have any anxiety?
Speaker 2: Did you just feel that because you know most of
Speaker 2: those people for a while, did that all feel quite
Speaker 2: family orientated?
Speaker 3: What was he.
Speaker 4: Explained, Well, honestly, the first day, I went to the
Speaker 4: studio and my engineer, Sean O'Brien met me there, and.
Speaker 1: It was just Booker.
Speaker 4: I think it was just Booker and Sean and I
Speaker 4: at least for the first half of the first day.
Speaker 4: And I hadn't seen Booker in ten.
Speaker 1: Years or whatever, you know, eleven years. At that point.
Speaker 4: We'd been exchanging files through email and he'd been working
Speaker 4: on all the arrangements. The arrangements were pretty done, but
Speaker 4: he was he was putting it all into so everybody
Speaker 4: had music in front of him, even though most of
Speaker 4: the players don't really read music, but he made sure
Speaker 4: that that was all written. So he was like pro
Speaker 4: capital p producer, you know. He did so much work,
Speaker 4: so much prep before we got in there, and I
Speaker 4: hadn't seen him. So the first day was just waiting
Speaker 4: and then when Booker ride, Booker and his daughter arrived
Speaker 4: and it was Tom Film. It was like I hadn't
Speaker 4: and it was just like I can't. It wasn't until
Speaker 4: he walked in and because he you know, he got
Speaker 4: we got him a little Airbnb and his son, Teddy
Speaker 4: lives lives not far away, and Teddy was in there
Speaker 4: a lot, and it was the first it was it
Speaker 4: was that was the first day of just.
Speaker 1: Like, oh my god, he's really here. This is actually happening.
Speaker 4: He wasn't just some impostor that's been you know, I
Speaker 4: wasn't being catfished by somebody with you know.
Speaker 1: It was actually Booker t And I was like yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was.
Speaker 4: It was so funny and right away he's.
Speaker 1: It was just like instant warmth, instant sort of art.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: We just started working right away and then and.
Speaker 4: Then people started coming in and not and I only
Speaker 4: had about a couple of people at a time. I
Speaker 4: flew everybody, and so there was a tiny studio, so
Speaker 4: I couldn't have everybody there the whole time.
Speaker 1: So I had like a couple of.
Speaker 4: People there for the first week, and then we would
Speaker 4: work on their songs with Booker, and then they would leave,
Speaker 4: and then other people would come in and whoever was
Speaker 4: there that week would work on whatever song we were
Speaker 4: working on, including the song that they brought. So and
Speaker 4: we did everything in fourteen days and it was it
Speaker 4: was wild and awesome, and we had took breaks walking
Speaker 4: down to the beach.
Speaker 1: It was you know, it was fourth of July.
Speaker 4: We were in there during for the July and we
Speaker 4: all went went and watched the fireworks on the beach
Speaker 4: and Booker was wearing a black Nike track suit in protest,
Speaker 4: you know, in solidary with Colin Kaepernick, and that was
Speaker 4: so awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just he's just the best.
Speaker 2: You've described the album as being it's not about your dad,
Speaker 2: but it is for your dad.
Speaker 3: Have you have you have you gifted it to him yet?
Speaker 3: Have you know? Have you have you have you played
Speaker 3: it to?
Speaker 4: No? Actually, I think I sent my mom a link,
Speaker 4: a drop back links links to it all, but they
Speaker 4: they I think they Mom just figures that barely knows
Speaker 4: how to do it. Nobody's been figured out how to
Speaker 4: put anybody's phones there. I keep asked my sister, just
Speaker 4: put it on their phone. I think I sent them
Speaker 4: a stream, but they don't know what.
Speaker 1: The stream is. You know, my dad, my dad. He
Speaker 1: thinks he's going to take a walk if you if
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, good, there's a stream.
Speaker 4: Where's a stream nearby, Well, let's go take a walk
Speaker 4: on see.
Speaker 1: What's in the stream. And I was like, no, no, that's
Speaker 1: my record for you anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so but he's you know, they they've heard it.
Speaker 1: They love it. And I talked to I talked to
Speaker 1: my dad. I've been talk to my.
Speaker 4: Dad a lot lately during COVID, and my parents have
Speaker 4: been really uh, it's been really nice. I've always been
Speaker 4: really close with my mom and dad, and my sister
Speaker 4: and my brother. My sister Rachel, who was not in
Speaker 4: mistaken for strangers the first one, and only because because
Speaker 4: she we didn't get anything that we could use where
Speaker 4: she was in and she was so mad that she
Speaker 4: wasn't in it.
Speaker 1: But she's they're the best. But I have a very,
Speaker 1: very very close family.
Speaker 3: COVID's made me really.
Speaker 2: I think I was quite protective over my parents before
Speaker 2: COVID and made me really. I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was like the same view in the early days when
Speaker 2: it was locked down. I was like video calling and
Speaker 2: every other day, just what have you been doing today?
Speaker 2: And how are you doing today, as if just like
Speaker 2: it was like accelerated, as if like a decade had
Speaker 2: passed and I was suddenly sort of looking active. And
Speaker 2: it hasn't. Really, it's sort of stuck that way. Has
Speaker 2: it been like that for you?
Speaker 4: Well, my parents are so funny, like we I just
Speaker 4: I you know, I send them, I just call my
Speaker 4: mom and I was like, hey, are you still alive?
Speaker 4: You know, and we just make fun of it, and
Speaker 4: and you know, and they're like, oh, I am, let
Speaker 4: me check on your father, you know, and she's like, yeah.
Speaker 4: So we're very a lot of dark humor about all
Speaker 4: the that's the burning is always sort of just managed
Speaker 4: to take the darkest things and find what's what's bright
Speaker 4: about them or or and just learn how to lean
Speaker 4: into them. And I learned that from both my mom
Speaker 4: and my dad a lot. And they're very different people.
Speaker 4: And my mom's Irish, kind of from an Irish background,
Speaker 4: my dad's from a sort of German background, and so
Speaker 4: mixture both in those sides of the family is very
Speaker 4: loving yet sort of you know, two different, very different
Speaker 4: sort of family histories and stuff like that. And so
Speaker 4: so I feel very much a continuation of all the stuff,
Speaker 4: you know, I feel I feel like families and family
Speaker 4: is one of these things.
Speaker 1: It's like stands beyond DNA.
Speaker 4: You know, family becomes a lot very very it's a
Speaker 4: very fluid word.
Speaker 3: And what do you think you're trying to say to
Speaker 3: your dad with this album? Is it?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 2: Because you mentioned that you were arguing quite a bit
Speaker 2: over the family.
Speaker 1: I think it's just an album.
Speaker 4: It's not like I said, it's I'm not trying to
Speaker 4: communicate to him. I'm just I'm I'm I'm writing about myself,
Speaker 4: you know, and a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: And I just I think he'd like it. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a big fan.
Speaker 4: He's a big fan of the National He's a big
Speaker 4: fan of of everything. My mom is just obsessive. My
Speaker 4: mom comes to every show and the front row screaming
Speaker 4: every word, and my dad likes to sit back and
Speaker 4: just kind of watch everybody else watch me.
Speaker 1: You know. He's really he loves that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's not about him at all, but it's
Speaker 4: it's I just I just knew he would like it.
Speaker 2: And all those people you kind of reeled off earlier
Speaker 2: in terms of like give your dad reminds you of
Speaker 2: the like Robert Redford and you know Jane Goodall, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Like that is just because he's got the characteristics, Like
Speaker 2: you know, what characteristics does he passed down to you.
Speaker 4: He's a lawyer professionally, he's a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's I mean, he's.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I could tell some many funny stories
Speaker 4: with my dad. My dad worked at a caddy shack
Speaker 4: Western Hills Country Club caddy shack at which I ended
Speaker 4: up working at that caddy shack too when I for
Speaker 4: a while, when I was in high school and when
Speaker 4: he was in high school. Pete Rose, the baseball player
Speaker 4: for Cincinnati Reds, probably maybe one of the best baby
Speaker 4: possibly the best baseball player of all time. But he's
Speaker 4: not in the Hall of Fame because he bet on
Speaker 4: baseball and he's a very controversial character. Pete Rose is
Speaker 4: the West Side of Cincinnati, just like my dad and
Speaker 4: dad was. My dad was the guy was older, and
Speaker 4: it was close. My dad was running the caddy shack,
Speaker 4: literally the caddy shack, and he was closing the snack
Speaker 4: bar and he was closing it down and he was
Speaker 4: about to leave. And Pete Rose, who's who's just kind
Speaker 4: of a notorious uh west Sider, Cincinnati westsider comes you know,
Speaker 4: he's young than him and just and comes busting in
Speaker 4: and demanding something from the snack mar and my dad's like,
Speaker 4: we're trying to leave, and he said no, and Pete
Speaker 4: was pissed on the counter and so yeah, and so
Speaker 4: my I don't know what happened after that is is uh,
Speaker 4: there are mixed histories. But my version is that then
Speaker 4: my dad beat the piss out of Pete Rose. But anyway,
Speaker 4: I don't know exactly what happened, but my dad and
Speaker 4: Pete Rose didn't get along in high school.
Speaker 1: That's my dad.
Speaker 4: And then but you know, but if my dad is
Speaker 4: also the guy who's just like he's in a golf
Speaker 4: league and all of his friends in his golf league
Speaker 4: in Cincinnati are Republicans, and he and he was the
Speaker 4: only Democrat, and he's the guy who slammed he he
Speaker 4: had he just put his fist on the table and
Speaker 4: stand up and walk out on them, you know, recently
Speaker 4: and all his best old friends. He's like, I can't
Speaker 4: hear what you guys are saying. And it's my dad.
Speaker 4: He's a badass. Yeah, like his best friends, he just
Speaker 4: he said, no, guys. You know, these guys are all
Speaker 4: in their seventies, you know, and my dad still will
Speaker 4: still lean into that bullshit. You know, his kids he
Speaker 4: went to grade school with, you know, and been golfing
Speaker 4: with for his entire life. He finally just you know,
Speaker 4: he's been He speaks honestly to those people too, and
Speaker 4: he's a hero man.
Speaker 3: Your dad sounds fantastic. Yeah, right, I'm guessing.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've always been like really kind of like
Speaker 2: politically active with the band, and like, you know, it
Speaker 2: sounds like your dad has kind of got strong beliefs
Speaker 2: in that area as well. Like, I mean, we're not
Speaker 2: that far off for a couple of months away from
Speaker 2: the election now, not not even that long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you talk to your family a lot about that?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: Are you tuning into the election much? Are you trying
Speaker 2: to distance?
Speaker 4: We don't. I mean, we don't talk about Trump that
Speaker 4: much because none of us just want to get we're
Speaker 4: just getting my dad is. I mean, I'm probably furthered,
Speaker 4: I'm further.
Speaker 1: To the left than my dad is.
Speaker 4: But sometimes we'll argue, sometimes we will argue viciously about
Speaker 4: points that we're both so far we're both, we're both
Speaker 4: we're just so close to each other in terms of
Speaker 4: where feelings on things. Yet well, we'll fight about minutia
Speaker 4: and we're like, we're on the same side.
Speaker 1: Why we fight?
Speaker 4: So we like we actually don't dig into it too
Speaker 4: much because we'll end up we'll end up just arguing
Speaker 4: over like we're on this, why are we arguing? You know?
Speaker 4: And the Catholic Church, it's like, I have a I
Speaker 4: have a lot of mixed feelings about the Catholic Church,
Speaker 4: and my dad does as well, but you know, I
Speaker 4: have harsher feelings towards it than he does, and he's
Speaker 4: always trying to explain his perspective on it, and I
Speaker 4: hear it, you know, and but he hears mine. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of times where where we just like, Dad,
Speaker 4: you're not listening, or Matt, you're not listening my dad.
Speaker 1: My dad's best advice to me has.
Speaker 4: Always been he's He's like, my boy, you need to
Speaker 4: slow down. And I always am trying to slow down
Speaker 4: and that's hard to do, but that's that's that's always
Speaker 4: his thing.
Speaker 1: Slow down. Also, keep a smile on. That's this other thing.
Speaker 2: Always says that little expression just remind yourself, keep a
Speaker 2: smile on. Another question on Serpentine Prison that the album
Speaker 2: opens with a song called My Eyes Are T Shirts,
Speaker 2: And I think.
Speaker 1: I wrote that with Scott from the From the Nail,
Speaker 1: Yeah right.
Speaker 2: The first couple of lyrics of that song like, I
Speaker 2: hope don't mind is going to read them out ahead.
Speaker 2: My eyes are like T shirts, They're so easy to read.
Speaker 2: Aware them for you. That they're all about me is
Speaker 2: possibly one of my favorite opening lines of any album
Speaker 2: this year.
Speaker 3: I had it on this morning.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit about that song,
Speaker 2: because it's a It's a beautiful way to open the record.
Speaker 1: I think I think that song.
Speaker 4: Is a lot about about honesty and about meaning.
Speaker 1: I'm not a good liar. I'm not a good card player.
Speaker 1: I have a tell.
Speaker 4: I mean, Brian Devendorf anytime I've ever played cards with
Speaker 4: actually anybody. If I play cards with like bad poker players,
Speaker 4: they like they know my tell within like three hands,
Speaker 4: and I don't.
Speaker 1: Know what it is.
Speaker 4: And so for whatever reason, just the truth is always
Speaker 4: just written all over my fucking face. You know, you
Speaker 4: can to see it in my eyes whatever it is,
Speaker 4: So I generally haven't I don't get away.
Speaker 1: With lying because I'm a bad liar. I think that's
Speaker 1: what this whole song is kind of about.
Speaker 2: Earlier one, you mentioned how there's a couple of things
Speaker 2: that are kind of just firmly in your memory, that
Speaker 2: meeting the shallow Obama get out from the shallow bambas one.
Speaker 3: Is it true that when you met Bush?
Speaker 1: Go ahead, go ahead, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Was going to say, is it true that you called
Speaker 3: him mister President?
Speaker 1: I did. I was so nervous. We're all standing in
Speaker 1: a line in a tent.
Speaker 4: It was in Iowa, and it was I think I
Speaker 4: think it was I think it was the midterms and
Speaker 4: we were there to perform. Chris Cornell was also there
Speaker 4: and his family, so it was really interesting. So it
Speaker 4: was it was. It was Chris Cornell, his family, in
Speaker 4: the national all standing there in this like tent in
Speaker 4: the middle of a cornfield and waiting to meet the
Speaker 4: president for the first time. And that was crazy. And
Speaker 4: we're all, you know, and then we hear his voice.
Speaker 4: We're inside this like plastic tent, you know, and I
Speaker 4: hear his voice and we're all just like, oh, here
Speaker 4: he comes, and he's just chit chatting. Somebody laughing on
Speaker 4: his way in and he comes in. He's just got
Speaker 4: this smile, he's just got He's just a very very
Speaker 4: warm person, very very very smiley, very sincere. Looks you're
Speaker 4: right in the eyes, and his smiles are always super genuine.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I've met him four times now actually, and
Speaker 4: talked to him once on the phone for for uh
Speaker 4: for so so, but this was the first time, and
Speaker 4: I was so nervous and he walked up and it
Speaker 4: was I was in the middle of I remember they
Speaker 4: kept going down and saying hello to everybody, meeting everybody,
Speaker 4: looking right in the eye.
Speaker 1: Shaking your hand.
Speaker 4: And he came up to me and he looked me
Speaker 4: right in the eye and I said, I said, son,
Speaker 4: honor to meet you, mister president, and and and.
Speaker 1: He looked at me. He was like, you fucking with me?
Speaker 1: And I was like what I think I did? And
Speaker 1: then he it's like, nice to meet you, mat and
Speaker 1: they moved on.
Speaker 4: I was like, fuck, it was just I was so
Speaker 4: dry mouth, and I think there was I think he
Speaker 4: might have thought I was. I was saying he was
Speaker 4: being too wasn't being aggressive enough or something, And that wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was just dry mouth.
Speaker 4: Luckily I was able to make up for it and
Speaker 4: for in future conversations.
Speaker 2: And yeah, this period spending it kind of like the
Speaker 2: elongated period, not touring, not like this year you would
Speaker 2: have played a bunch of shows with the National, you
Speaker 2: would have marked for ten years of high violet.
Speaker 3: High violet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know it would have been a year
Speaker 2: full of kind of yeah, like festivals and touring plans
Speaker 2: and everything else. And it hasn't been so like it
Speaker 2: was just just to understand a little bit of like
Speaker 2: your mixture of emotions on that front, the.
Speaker 1: National needed a break.
Speaker 4: We made sleep Out Beast and then at the same
Speaker 4: time we right when we finished sleep ol Beast, Mike
Speaker 4: Mills reached out.
Speaker 1: We started making I Am Easy to Find.
Speaker 4: At the same time, my wife and I were writing
Speaker 4: all these songs along with Aaron Embrace, and they were
Speaker 4: done all the music for so your know de Bergerac
Speaker 4: Musical and that's got twenty five songs in it, or
Speaker 4: well we've written twenty five songs or twenty or thirty
Speaker 4: songs for that, and and Aaron's got big red machine stuff.
Speaker 4: I've got this stuff, the devn doors have Landsdorf, It's
Speaker 4: we were going to spend twenty twenty one on our
Speaker 4: other on our other things, and the fact that twenty
Speaker 4: twenty got canceled. We can't just lift up twenty twenty
Speaker 4: drop it in twenty twenty one, and so we're trying
Speaker 4: to figure that out.
Speaker 3: And we were one of that.
Speaker 2: I was reading Bryce and Aarron's comments about their work
Speaker 2: on folklore and just how top secret that whole thing
Speaker 2: had been.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people they were able to tell about it, you were.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I mean there was there were a
Speaker 4: lot of people that did know about it, but no.
Speaker 4: Aaron called me the night before we talked about a
Speaker 4: lot of things. We hadn't talked in a long time,
Speaker 4: and we talked about a lot of things, and then
Speaker 4: he mentioned it and he said it was coming out soon.
Speaker 4: And I was really excited because I take one of
Speaker 4: my favorite musicians with one of the greatest songwriters, and
Speaker 4: I said that that's incredible. And then I woke up
Speaker 4: the next morning and it was out.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was a huge surprise, huge surprise, and
Speaker 1: it's it's beautiful. I love it.
Speaker 2: I just love the thought that like it was so
Speaker 2: it seemed like such like top security around it that
Speaker 2: they couldn't eat.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that top security.
Speaker 4: But yeah, certain people were informed and certain people weren't.
Speaker 2: Final question is just to hear a little bit about
Speaker 2: I mean, apart from obviously going out and speaking to
Speaker 2: people about Serpentine Prison. Now for the next few weeks,
Speaker 2: what is kind of coming up for you? Like, what
Speaker 2: are the next kind of weeks and months looking like?
Speaker 2: And you're going to be in one place and you.
Speaker 4: Know, I'm working on playlists, riding my bike a lot
Speaker 4: about a fishing rod.
Speaker 1: I've been fishing a few times, haven't caught anything.
Speaker 4: No success, well, yes, a lot of success, because most
Speaker 4: of the point of that is just staring at water
Speaker 4: without looking like a weirdo, without anybody wondering why what
Speaker 4: you're doing.
Speaker 1: That's the point. I think that's why people go fishing.
Speaker 1: And I mean some people are needed.
Speaker 4: A lot of the guys that are out there fishing
Speaker 4: in the morning because they're feeding their families, you know,
Speaker 4: And so I'm learning.
Speaker 1: I'm watching these guys.
Speaker 4: There's these all these Japanese guys that I have this
Speaker 4: really long telescopic line pole that's like twenty five feet
Speaker 4: long and with a little and it's just they're putting
Speaker 4: little peas, just peas on the on the thing, and.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're the ones catching the most. The guys
Speaker 1: with all the me with all the reels and the
Speaker 1: I'm not catching anything.
Speaker 4: So I think I might go a Japanese telescopic rod
Speaker 4: with some green peas. It seems to be working for
Speaker 4: those guys. Yeah, and then they keep all the fishing
Speaker 4: they take it.
Speaker 1: I think they're making there. There's certain fish where I
Speaker 1: fish that you.
Speaker 4: Can eat and most you can't, and so I don't
Speaker 4: know which ones are witch yet, so I won't be
Speaker 4: cooking any yet quite. I used to fish, you know,
Speaker 4: three day, three times, three or four times a week
Speaker 4: for fifteen years or for ten years between like age
Speaker 4: you know, six and sixteen.
Speaker 2: I really kind of got into like slow TV during
Speaker 2: the beginnings of Lookdown, like watching stuff that was really
Speaker 2: like unmantally challenging. And one of my favorite shows is
Speaker 2: about fishing. Oh yeah, it's the British comedians Paul white
Speaker 2: House and Bob Mortimer. No basically okay, so that they
Speaker 2: did a show and Paul white Has did a show
Speaker 2: called The Fast Show many years ago that was a
Speaker 2: big hit in the UK like a sketch show. And
Speaker 2: the whole premise of this show is just simply these
Speaker 2: two comedians just go fishing. Like Bob does the picnics
Speaker 2: the cooking and Paul does the fishing, and it's it's
Speaker 2: just them, that's.
Speaker 3: All it is. But it's it's such like relaxing, like
Speaker 3: funny TV.
Speaker 1: I want to fight, tell me, tell me with that?
Speaker 1: That is. There's also I'm also was.
Speaker 4: A big fan of fishing with John Lewie obviously that
Speaker 4: where John Lourie from Lounge Lizards, and he's fishes with
Speaker 4: Tom Waits and stuff, and they're all just out of
Speaker 4: his dudes, just talking ship in a boat.
Speaker 1: And it's great.
Speaker 4: I watched there's a YouTube guy named bears G who
Speaker 4: I think he fishes out of like sort of northern California,
Speaker 4: San Francisco area, the Bay area, and I watched his
Speaker 4: fishing chanin all the time, and just I just I'm
Speaker 4: relearning how to fish at a higher level by watching
Speaker 4: this guy. And I also just sometimes when I'm too
Speaker 4: tired to go out and actual fish, I'll just sit
Speaker 4: there in bed watching other people watching bears gefish.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it's the next best thing, isn't watching other people
Speaker 2: fish on YouTube?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, my daughter, who's got me watching this show called
Speaker 4: Get Out of My Room, which is these two people
Speaker 4: come in and redesign kids' bedrooms like yeah, it's really
Speaker 4: and their brothers and sisters get to decide like what
Speaker 4: they think their brothers sister is gonna like.
Speaker 1: It's awesome. Yeah, it's called Get out of My Room.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get and check it out. Well, listen that
Speaker 2: thanks very much for doing the podum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's time for you to get out of my room,
Speaker 1: I think, and I just kidding. Yeah, this has been great.
Speaker 1: It's fun. Cool man
Speaker 3: Anyway, good night,