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The National‘s Aaron Dessner has opened up about their album ‘Laugh Track‘ and working with Phoebe Bridgers.
- READ MORE: The National – ‘Laugh Track’ review: a heavier companion record
Speaking to Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, Dessner discussed ‘Laugh Track’, the band’s surprise ninth album that came in quick succession off the back of April’s acclaimed ‘First Two Pages of Frankenstein’. It was announced this past weekend (September 15) during a concert at their Homecoming Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio. The LP was released three days later on September 18.
“It’s always like this special moment when you realise it’s bouncing off people and it’s cathartic in people’s lives and just songs take on a much different, they always surprise us,” Dessner told Lowe.
He continued: “The life that a song has is unpredictable and that’s the best part of making music, I think, is seeing where it goes. …I’m also thinking you’ve learned how to deal with anxiety and the suffering that’s in your thoughts better and you start to be able to be more in the moment with the process.
“I think we also have been playing really well live all of a sudden. I think these are best shows that we’ve ever played. The whole thing just feels, it feels like a new chapter. I know maybe we say that every time, but this time I really mean it.”
‘Laugh Track’ features various collaborations from Bon Iver on ‘Weird Goodbyes’, Rosanne Cash (daughter of Johnny Cash) on ‘Crumble’ and Phoebe Bridgers on the title track.
Speaking about teaming up Bridgers on the song, Dessner said: “I think we all know and love Phoebe. She’s obviously such an amazing artist and songwriter. Years ago, we toured a lot together and got to know her really well. I think she really is a fan of Matt’s writing and I think that song in particular Matt felt like she would embody the weird mix of dread and humor and just beauty that’s in there.”
He continued: “Of course, she did. She’s so graceful how she just works. When she puts her mind to it, she really perfects it and works really hard and sent us the vocals and they were like, wow. It was wonderful.”
Bridgers has previously spoken out about her love for the indie veterans. As part of an exclusive cover interview with The National and their collaborators for an issue of Uncut, Bridgers discussed her admiration for the band.
“My friends and I have this joke about The National,” she said. “Obviously they’re hugely popular, but we still feel this ownership over them.”
Adopting a ‘stroppy and possessive’ tone, she mimicked an argument with her friends, “‘No but you don’t like them in the right way! Do you even understand how profound this band is?’” before adding: “Because they are profoundly fucking amazing.”
Bridgers was also a guest feature on the band’s eighth album, ‘First Two Pages Of Frankenstein‘, which came about when frontman Matt Berninger found himself suffering from depression and writer’s block, before Bridgers inadvertently inspired him by playing him some new songs she’d been working on.
“The musicians whose lyrics I care about who are not in my bands, they’re rare to me and dear to me,” said Bridgers. “So I thought it would be a cool experiment.”
Speaking of the solace he took from their conversations about lyrics, Berninger told Uncut: “She knows she’s good at defining what she hates about herself… I was deep in a self-hating zone and I thought, ‘Well, alright, that’s what you’re supposed to write about.’”
Discussing the band’s fondness for collaboration, Dessner told Lowe: “I think it was just natural that that collaborative energy, which is for us biological, that that would over time expand to a large community.”
“I also think it’s like we’re all students of music, history, and kind of especially legendary periods of rock and roll and stuff in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I think we’ve always wanted to have a community and we didn’t at first for a while and then we just brick by brick built one. I think we’ve been lucky to be invited by all kinds of collaborators to work with them. Now it just feels like this ecosystem of people exchanging ideas,” he added.
In a four-star review of ‘Laugh Track’, NME shared: “The tightness of ‘First Two Pages…’’s singles like ‘Tropic Morning News’ and ‘Eucalyptus’ are somewhat absent, though the looser structures and decision to allow the songs room to grow, melodically and lyrically pays off. In a statement shared with the record, Berninger says the period “feels like the shedding of a skin” and the band walk into the unknown once again for their next creative cycle: a thrilling new chapter will surely emerge.”
