Suddenly, The National finds a whole new world of fans
Alligators are hard to ignore. In the case of the National, a quintet comprising two sets of brothers and a college friend who moved from Cincinnati to Brooklyn to play bitterly bemused, soul-ravaged songs about dreams and failure, an album named for that carnivorous reptile is what got the group noticed -- finally -- after six years of sulking in the shadows.
The National is one of the hottest bands on the road right now, having sold out just about every show it's played. Its new album, "Boxer," was leaked to fans over the Internet well before its official May release date -- a sure sign of digital-age rock stardom -- and has been getting rave reviews. As of this week, the disc remains in the Top 20 on Billboard's independent albums chart.
Hard to believe that this is the same group that only two years ago was playing to indifferent audiences in all but empty rooms. In a sense, the success of the National's current tour -- which returns to the Middle East tonight for the second of a pair of, yes, sold-out shows -- has as much to do with a long-delayed reaction to its 2005 disc, "Alligator," as it does a reception for the equally terrific "Boxer." The National represents the inverse of the typical pop universe, where gratification is often instant and fleeting: a late-blooming band of 30-somethings that continues to blossom and grow its audience.
Let's backtrack: "An underground band that has a loyal but small following" is what National frontman Matt Berninger once imagined his band's fate to be, after it made a pair of superb but scarcely heard albums for a small French imprint. But the darkly decadent murk and tug of the National's sound, bejeweled with Berninger's sybaritic baritone and rueful reflections on anxiety, desire, and regret, did catch the ear of the New York indie label Beggars Banquet . It scooped up the band, gave it creative carte blanche, and released "Alligator" without having heard one note of the work beforehand.
That album, all baleful stealth, psychic drift, and hung - over epiphanies, would eventually be lauded as a rock masterpiece echoing artists as stylistically varied but spiritually similar as the Afghan Whigs , Nick Cave , and Leonard Cohen . But things didn't start out so gloriously good. Despite a rash of enthusiastic press that accompanied the release of "Alligator," the National embarked on a headlining tour only to discover, to its chagrin, that much of the audience would leave after the opening sets by two of the tour's hotly hyped openers, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and the Arcade Fire .
"We learned how to put on shows for four people," says Berninger over the phone from inside the band's tour van en route to Atlanta. Despite the similarly ardent praise currently being lavished on the National's gorgeous, glittering "Boxer," Berninger sounds like a man who can't quite comprehend how radically his band's fortunes have improved. In fact, tonight's Middle East date was added after last night's show sold out instantly. The second show sold out just as quickly. "It's been kind of crazy," he says. "We've been to all of these places many, many times before and now all of a sudden there's a big crowd showing up for the first time. It's a nice turn of events."
Like its predecessor, "Boxer" was recorded and produced with longtime collaborator Peter Katis at Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Conn. It too is freighted with a nocturnal rush of urban tension and an insomniac's astute, if slightly woozy, observations. Unlike the dystopian cityscapes of "Alligator," however, Australian composer Padma Newsome's overcast washes of piano and muted accents of trumpet help create more of an insular mood and interior locale this time out. On tracks such as "Slow Show," "Apartment Story," and "Start a War" -- the last of which could be about the personal, the global, or both -- the National moves its malaise indoors.
" 'Start a War' is 99 percent just about a relationship, but just by using the word 'war', it torques [the sentiment] in a slightly different way," Berninger says. "So the record isn't about politics, but politics are a character in the album. I mean, nobody wants to hear from an indie-rock band about how bad the political situation is right now.
"The truth is, this is a case of the songs being written when we literally were trying to hold on to relationships or to reconnect with people and things, whether they're girlfriends or wives or friends we hadn't seen because we had been gone and touring for so much of 'Alligator,' " Berninger continues. Some of the tracks, he says, reflect "desperate attempts to rekindle something, and a desire to just stay home, settle down, not go out, and spend as much time in a private space as possible. The record was described somewhere as 'agoraphobic,' and I thought that was funny but also appropriate."
These days, Berninger has gotten used to increasing numbers of listeners analyzing the hidden meanings or secret allusions behind his opaque lyrics, delivered with dissipated clarity and wrapped inside what sounds like a semi-soused croon. "I guess I do sound a little half-cocked when I sing," he allows with a laugh. "But I would describe it more as buzzed." The characters who populate "Boxer" are mostly in control. "But yeah," Berninger adds slyly. "They're maybe one sheet to the wind."
Recording "Boxer" amid the high hopes that came after the breakthrough of "Alligator" added a new element to the National's creative process: an awareness of outside expectations. "We knew that more people would be paying attention to this album," Berninger says. "Any other time we went into the studio, we didn't know how many people would even hear the record. But I think the fact that people did find us and eventually started paying attention to us validated our approach."
What has not changed since the National's inception in 1999 is its democratic collaborative approach. Berninger claims that the lack of a principal songwriter is what gives the band -- which includes brothers Aaron (guitar, bass) and Bryce (guitar) Dessner, and Scott (guitar, bass) and Bryan (drums) Devendorf -- its unique, multifaceted chemistry. Ideas are explored, dropped, aborted, reconsidered. Endings of prospective songs are switched from back to front; bridges are built, then burned. Nothing is sacred.
That dynamic, says Katis, can ultimately make a better album, but it also makes getting to the finish line harder. "You can go on forever second-guessing yourself, so that can be a challenge, and that happened a lot with 'Boxer,' " Katis says. "Also, when bands first start making records, they basically record songs as they've written them. But that changes after a while, and when there's an element of experimentation, it takes much, much longer."
Says Berninger: "We're all obsessive in trying to make a great song, so we'll tear it apart and try to give it some weird, magical personality. We never know quite where it's going to end up. But because there's no leader and nobody's precious about the song, everybody's happy to chop the head off of it if it makes a better song."
"Boxer" was a hard-won triumph, however. "I'm not sure I should tell this story, but on the very final day of mixing, there was a phone call from a very high-up person at the record label who was not happy with the record, and it was chaos," Katis says. "Everyone thought it was over -- that this record was not going to come out. Now, of course, given its success, it's almost laughable." 