On the floor, not less than, there wouldn’t appear to be very a lot for Matt Berninger to be unhappy about. The celebrated frontman of The Nationwide, 54, is chummy with Barack Obama. He takes conferences on the San Vicente Bungalows, (the fashionable member’s membership will get name-checked on his new solo album, Get Sunk). And Taylor Swift is a pal and collaborator; he sang on “Coney Island” from Evermore again in 2020; she returned the favor showing on The Nationwide’s 2023 track “The Alcott”.
However the downbeat title Get Sunk, plus a number of songs on the album, got here to Berninger earlier than he emerged from a deep melancholy a number of years in the past — one so paralyzing, he nervous he’d by no means carry out once more. These days, nonetheless, the scruffy poet laureate of middle-aged melancholy has by no means been happier or extra prolific, coming off a post-pandemic sizzling streak that noticed the discharge of a number of Nationwide albums and now, his second launch beneath his personal identify following 2020’s Serpentine Jail.
Berninger sat down with The Hollywood Reporter by way of Zoom to speak about overcoming burnout, his “pile of Legos” lyrics and the cosmic connection between unhappy dads and teenaged women.
Hello, Matt. The place are you proper now?
I’m in my barn in Connecticut.
You had lived in L.A. earlier than that, appropriate?
Sure, I’ve been right here for nearly two years now. Earlier than that it was a decade in Venice, California. And earlier than that it was 15 years in Brooklyn. And earlier than that, it was 100 years in Cincinnati, Ohio.
And which of those locations do you suppose has most formed your world view?
Cincinnati, however then Brooklyn torqued it to an unrecognizable diploma. And so I used to be modified considerably by New York. After which I believe after I stopped altering, I obtained antsy and moved to California. Whenever you transfer to a brand new place, your mind works otherwise, your physique works otherwise, your soul works otherwise. I actually imagine that.
And your songwriting modifications, too, I might assume.
Yeah. There’s additionally a acutely aware effort to alter, however generally it could really feel too apparent and also you get caught in all these effortful songs, which finally ends up not feeling like change in any respect. So that you simply must trick your self. I used to put in writing in notebooks, then I used to be on my telephone, and now I’m making an attempt to get each of these issues out of my palms. So I’m writing on whiteboards. I write on baseballs. I write on books I’m studying. I’ve a replica of Nice Gatsby that most likely has two albums price of songs in it.
I caught your Nationwide present on the Hollywood Bowl final fall.
The Nationwide’s previous three years have been in lots of respects the healthiest of our profession. I had this lengthy melancholy and author’s block, which I’ve talked about an entire bunch. However making of these final two Nationwide data and touring, and making that reside Rome document after which touring with The Warfare on Medicine rapidly grew to become one of the best time I’ve ever had in The Nationwide.
It type of modified my notion of you. There was one thing so playful about your efficiency, and I actually appreciated your talent at a sure type of band fronting, which is extra theatrical and unfastened.
I’ve misplaced my concern of audiences. I’ve misplaced my concern of trying like a idiot, perhaps to an unhealthy diploma. I believe it’s due to in that interval of melancholy, which is now about four-and-a-half years in the past, I used to be afraid of the whole lot. I used to be afraid I might by no means write one other track. I used to be afraid I might by no means be capable of go on stage once more. I used to be afraid I wouldn’t even be capable of return to being an artist, a graphic designer.
The pandemic was a part of it. However I had too many issues occurring. I burnt myself out and I believe bodily, mentally, I type of collapsed. I used to be truly writing about it. My new album title, Get Sunk — and 4 songs on it — I wrote earlier than I went into a extremely dangerous place. However I climbed out of that dangerous place. I used to be having extra enjoyable on stage than I’d ever had in my life. I’m not afraid of simply standing nonetheless. And that applies to songwriting and the whole lot I’m engaged on now. [He gestures at a whiteboard behind him covered in writing.]
What are we taking a look at there? I see a grid. Is every field a track, or how does it work?
Yeah. There’s a bunch of songs on there and I’m writing the lyrics on it. I’m going to put in writing the entire document simply on these boards.
That’s superb. It jogs my memory of TV writers’ rooms.
It simply retains the method enjoyable. And in addition writing with everlasting Sharpies on a whiteboard feels flawed. It’s purported to wipe away. However after I began writing on whiteboards with Sharpies, and it was actually liberating. It was like, “oh, I’m breaking a rule.” After which it helped me break guidelines with the phrases, too.
I noticed what my massive mistake was: It was saying sure to too many issues and believing I might juggle six chainsaws, after I can solely juggle three chainsaws. I believe I do know what I’m doing for the following eight years, kind of. I do know precisely what’s occurring with The Nationwide for eight years. And I do know what’s occurring with my solo stuff for eight years.
What does your solo profession give you that The Nationwide doesn’t?
The Nationwide presents me the whole lot. I get the whole lot I might ever creatively need out of The Nationwide, which means I might do something with The Nationwide. I made a documentary with my spouse and brother by way of The Nationwide. I’ve made a brief movie with Mike Mills, I Am Straightforward to Discover, which can be a really particular valuable document to me. Mike’s movie with Alicia Vikander is a masterpiece. And I met President Obama 4 instances by way of The Nationwide.
Is Obama a mega fan? Do you wind up on his year-end lists? What did you discuss?
We’ve been on his listing a few instances. One time, I believe this fundraiser factor at Reese Witherspoon’s home, we had been there to take an image with him. My brother was making an attempt to not crowd him an excessive amount of, so he got here across the different facet of Obama. Obama didn’t know he was there. Obama jolted. My brother scared the fuck out of Obama. After which he acknowledged him, and he’s like, “Oh! It’s Tom! The brother!” He knew Tom the brother. Barack Obama is essentially the most unbelievably pleasant man. Simply charming, hilarious, appears to be like you within the eye, smiles and is aware of your identify. Similar factor with Michelle Obama. I obtained an enormous bear hug from Michelle Obama.
So The Nationwide has introduced me the whole lot I might dream. So what do I get out of doing stuff exterior of The Nationwide? Simply extra enjoyable stuff with enjoyable individuals. So I solely work with pals, and I’ve so many.
Your lyrics are clearly an enormous draw. Is there any obscure lyric on Get Sunk you would possibly shed a little bit gentle on? A really private one or one that you simply’re happy with?
The track “Nowhere Particular” has, I don’t know, 10,000 phrases in it. There’s extra phrases on “Nowhere Particular” than perhaps the entire remainder of the document put collectively. The lyrics of that one took up the entire inside sleeve. It has so many crisscrossing currents of ideas. “Don’t make me cry behind a black automobile” wasn’t even mine. My pal Jamie wrote that and gave it to me. It’s humorous — the primary line that jumped out to me, I didn’t even write.
I’m trying on the “Nowhere Particular” lyrics now. “So I’m late for the bungalow assembly.” Now to me, that’s a really Hollywood phrase. However what does that imply to you?
That’s a horrible lyric as a result of the phrase bungalow will not be a great track phrase. It’s like saying “supple” or “custard.” However that’sa sensible choice as a result of there’s a story behind it. I used to be late for a gathering with my label Harmony about this document Get Sunk as a result of I used to be out of finances and I used to be out of time. And so we had been assembly on the San Vicente Bungalows in L.A.
You already know, I had a sense that’s what it was referring to, however I didn’t need to assume.
Yeah. And I used to be late for that assembly. This was the day after The Nationwide performed Hollywood Bowl.
No kidding. I really feel so personally invested now.
I recorded “Nowhere Particular” the afternoon after Hollywood Bowl. It was the final track we did for the document. We had yet another day with this piece of music and it was a complete Hail Mary. I pulled collectively all of the lyrics I hadn’t put into songs but that I favored, plus I used to be having loads of issues with the latency in my headphones and the press. And so all of the stuff I’m singing in regards to the click on and the latency had been issues that had been truly taking place. I simply wanted lyrics! So I used to be simply writing the whole lot down.
It ended up this stream of acutely aware assortment, a pile of Legos. I all the time describe my lyrics as collaging or placing collectively Legos. And generally I’ll polish one little inexperienced Lego simply to get it proper for a month. However different instances it’s only a pile of Legos. So I believe “Nowhere Particular” is the primary time I’ve created a track that seems like a pile of Legos. Nevertheless it’s not random. It’s not pure refrigerator-magnet poetry, random gobbledygook.
Effectively, it’s lovely chaos, what you do.
It’s enjoyable. The extra chaotic, the extra enjoyable it’s. Even on stage, the extra chaotic a present, the extra issues that go flawed throughout a reside present are on television, the far more enjoyable it’s for me now. It’s harmful territory, however I don’t care. Rock and roll can’t kill you.
On that tour, you had been promoting “Unhappy Dad” T-shirts, if I recall.
Most individuals know two issues about something. And so a very long time in the past, it appeared just like the issues that The Nationwide was recognized for was being unhappy, miserable, and being older. I’m 54 and I used to be writing about youngsters earlier than I had a daughter. I wrote a track referred to as “Slipping Husband: earlier than I ever met my spouse.
And so that you determined to lean into the stereotype along with your merch?
Proper. Making enjoyable of it. OK, certain, if that’s what everyone’s saying we’re — which isn’t off the mark. We’re all dads and all of us wrestle with anxiousness and melancholy. So let or not it’s “unhappy dads.” What’s humorous is that it actually appeals to teenage women for some motive, or younger ladies. Phoebe Bridgers [told me] there’s a actual similarity to the middle-aged male mind and the adolescent teenage lady mind. That weirdly makes an entire lot of sense to me. I’ve a teenage daughter, and we get one another.
Then there’s all of the unbelievable stuff that Aaron [Dessner, The National’s guitarist] and Taylor Swift have achieved collectively, and me attending to be part of it. I met Taylor seven years in the past out in L.A. We’re simply followers of one another. It began as pals calling and saying, “Let’s do stuff collectively.” Folklore is only a masterpiece. However that connection between Taylor’s fan base and The Nationwide —the unhappy dad, introspective, anxiousness, digging, fretful, melodramatic stuff that I really like to put in writing about — it’s the similar.
There’s an actual hyperlink between that. The teenager seek for pleasure and simply enjoyable, which is I suppose pop music and Brat and all that stuff, is superb. However that gentle and actually darkish, twisted stuff go properly collectively. There’s a actual wormhole between miserable older individuals’s music and youngsters, as a result of I believe depressed older individuals are lastly telling the reality. And youngsters don’t hear that from the world fairly often.
