Harmonium: With all of your recent performances, and especially with the recent Pitchfork Festival, you guys have developed a reputation for being one of the best live bands around. Is that flattering? And are there any live shows you have particularly liked?

Dessner: It’s flattering anytime someone takes an interest in our music. We kind of started this whole thing as more a project amongst friends; it’s very private the way we work, and even our own enjoyment of whatever success we’ve had. So any kind of public renown seems pretty removed from what we are actually doing. Live playing in The National is really fun and cathartic. I saw Deerhoof play this weekend and it was the best concert I have seen in quite a few years.

Harmonium: Would you rather be in an awesome live band that never translates well on record, or vice-versa?

Dessner: Ideally both is the right answer to that question! I don’t think it works to be one or the other.

Harmonium: Both times you’ve come to Toronto since Alligator, you didn’t have anyone playing strings. Do you feel the lack of a permanent string player on your tour hurts your songs?

Dessner: Actually Padma Newsome who is in Clogs with me does about 80% of the touring with us. Unfortunately, he didn’t come to Toronto ether time. The band is definitely different without him; I think he just adds to the intensity and to the range of color in our music.

Harmonium: A lot of older songs seem to get “the Alligator treatment” live, in that they allow Matt to let loose with that emotion that’s been winning people over with each performance. Was this your way of adapting with the different compositions live or did you all just realize what a precious resource he is?

Dessner: We don’t decide to do that, it just happens from doing the same thing every night on tour, songs evolve naturally. He started screaming during live shows before we ever did that on record.

Harmonium: Your first two discs were amazing in their own ways, but only with Alligator did you guys really start getting a lot of publicity. What do you think was the cause of this?

Dessner: Well the most obvious difference is the record was released on a much larger indie label (Beggars Banquet) – before we had self-released our albums with Brassland—a small label we helped found. So Alligator reached a much wider audience. But I think it was also our strongest record.

Harmonium: For an EP, Cherry Tree has a lot of very good and fully fleshed-out songs (“About Today” and “Cherry Tree” in particular). Did you guys ever consider extending the disc into a full album or repeating those songs on Alligator?

Dessner: Cherry Tree was actually supposed to be a full-length- or the songs on that EP were part of a batch of songs we recorded in Bridgeport with Peter Katis (who mixed Alligator and is producing our new record right now). They were recorded in Febuary 2004 (Alligator was done that September) and included some songs which we kept for Alligator – “Daughters of the Soho Riots,” “Karen,” “Lit up,” “all the wine” (which is on both albums) – were all recorded during the Cherry Tree sessions. We just felt that the songs on Cherry Tree would fit better on their own – and we also wanted to release one more record on our own label before doing a full-length.

Harmonium: Lyrically all of your discs deal with the nuances of mature relationships, but musically Cherry Tree and Alligator really picked it up a notch. Did you guys just feel it was time for a change or did something inspire the slightly different tone you seem to have taken?

Dessner: That might be a question for Matt if you are referring to the lyrics. Musically I think all our records trace the process of us becoming more of a live band. The first album was made before we had ever played a show, and by the time Cherry Tree was made we had toured a lot behind Sad Songs. Songs like “Cherry Tree,” the live version of ‘Murder Me Rachel,” and “About Today” are still some of the songs which represent best what we do live. In fact Cherry Tree is essentially a live recording.

Harmonium: On that note, seeing you guys live you really seem like a cohesive unit, does that match what happens in the studio? I assume with two sets of brothers and a lead singer who seems to blend right in, you guys get along well enough. But with your brother and yourself being in a band with more instrumental feel, I’m sure your ideas conflict with the others sometimes (but I guess that results in awesome and completely unique tracks that cross both styles like “About Today”.)

Dessner: The National functions very much like a family. There is a lot of fun and we do get along very well. But we also fight a lot, and recording can take forever because we are a democracy. Finishing a song is like trying to get a bill through Congress.

Harmonium: I think the fighting solidifies your role as a family unit even more. Is Bryan a machine or is it really possible for a human to have such great timing?

Dessner: He is a very tall man, with back problems, and yes, very good time. We have been playing with him (my brother and I) since we were 14.

Harmonium: While The National and Alligator have been getting a lot of play, your other venture Clogs put out your fourth LP this year. With both you and your brother in both bands, are either of you open to the other’s styles?

Dessner: Well actually my brother only guests on one track with Clogs (“5/4”). He doesn’t actually perform with us, so really I am the only member who crosses over as well as Padma Newsome who does all the arrangements for The National. And yes, there is definitely a crossover of influence between the two bands. And it goes both ways; with The National’s songwriting influencing the way Clogs does things.

Harmonium: With the success of The National, where does that leave Clogs and do you plan on touring as Clogs?

Dessner: We tour when The National is off the road, and we don’t tend to do long rock tours. This past year we did a lot of touring with The Books and with Bell Orchestre who are both similar bands that we love.

Harmonium: This question is as much self-indulgence as “proper” interview fodder: what is said in the background at the end of “Secret Meeting”…or is it better left up to the listener?

Dessner: I’d be in trouble if I told you that! The most creative incorrect conjecture I have heard was “Italian Ice Importer”*

*- Writer’s Note: my vote, after listening to the Black Sessions bootlegs is “don’t draw the ace and fold it”, although I’ve heard and have come up with all kinds of crazy lines myself.

-- Jack Pereira

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