August 24, 2021 • 40 mins
We interrupt this period of downtime for Midnight Chats to deliver a special one-off bonus episode with Aaron Dessner.
Some of us made banana bread during the 2020 Covid-19 quarantine... Aaron co-wrote and co-produced The GRAMMYs' Album of the Year folklore with Taylor Swift – a fruitful creative partnership that's continued into 2021.
This week (27 August 2021) Big Red Machine – his collaborative project with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon – will release their second album How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?
Greg Cochrane called up Aaron at his twin brother Bryce's home in France, to talk about his friendship with Vernon, the experience of working with Taylor Swift and The National's first post-pandemic meet up.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was very thankful for it.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It felt like a weird life reap musically and creatively
in a time of otherwise great uncertainty and anxiety.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of laid back conversations
with leading names in music. In keeping with these informal interviews,
each new one is published weekly at midnight. This week's
episode is hosted by me Greg cochrane from Loud and
Quiet magazine. We interrupt this period of downtime for Midnight
(00:30):
Chats to bring you something a little bit special and
in between series episode of the podcast with Aaron Desner.
In any ordinary time, I'd be excited about welcoming Aaron
onto the podcast. But the multi instrumentalist, producer, founding member
of the National has had, and this is putting it mildly,
quite an eighteen months. The big headline being that instead
(00:53):
of making banana bread like everyone else during quarantine, he
made an album with Taylor Swift Folklore. You probably heard about.
It went on to win the Album of the Year
at the twenty twenty one Grammys back in March. I
guess that surprised a few people, but that new creative
partnership continued throughout twenty twenty and into this year. Aaron
(01:17):
also worked on Folklore's sister album, ever More, and he's
also been involved with Taylor's project to re record and
release her previous albums in order to re establish the rights.
As close followers of his work will know, Aaron likes
to keep busy, whether that's curating brilliant festivals, co running
the People Platform, or composing the music for an art installation.
(01:40):
He does so many things there's always a reason to
speak to him. But on this occasion, excitingly, it's the
release of a new Big Red Machine album. The multi
dimensional collective he's formed with Bonnie Ver's justin Vernon, the
follow up to their self titled debut album in twenty eighteen,
is this new It's called How Long Do You Think
(02:01):
It's Going To Last? And it's out to buy and
stream from Friday, the twenty seventh of August. In keeping
with the cooperative spirit of the whole project, it features
lots of notable guests including Taylor Swift, Robin Pecknold from
Fleet Fox's Sharon van Etton, Lisa Hannigan, Ben Howard, Anise Mitchell,
and many others. As you're about to hear in the
(02:24):
conversation we recorded. It's the songs where Aaron takes lead vocals,
not something he does all that often, that I think
are amongst the standout moments, particularly the track Brycey you'll
hear me mistakenly call it Bryce in the chat that's
about his twin brother and bandmate in the National. There's
also a very moving track called hutch which is an
(02:45):
ode to his friend and collaborator Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit,
who sadly passed away a few years ago. Lovely stuff
of him talking about the closeness of his friendship with
Justin Vernon as well, given how disrupted everything has been
throughout this year. In last who wanted to find out
if he's managed to spend any time in person with
the National, which he has. They got back together in
(03:06):
the early summer, so he fills us in on all
of that. So thanks again to Aaron for recording this,
especially as he was away spending some time with his
brother and their family in France at the time. For
that reason, forgive the odd bit of glitchy Wi Fi audio.
So here we go a special one off episode of
Midnight Chats. I'm really happy to introduce Aaron Detzler. Aaron,
(03:29):
welcome to Midnight Chats. It's great to have you on
the podcast. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And well, thank you. I'm in France near the Spanish border.
It's the Basque coast, and then my brother lives here
and we came down and just kind of finally moving
around a little bit more now that we can.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So it's Nakes, yeah, near Saint Sebastian, Spain.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Actually is that having a short break? Are you getting
to work on something? What's going to taking you there?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
At the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's really just like I haven't seen family until in
a year and a half. So my sister had her
twenty fifth wedding anniversary and I came over. She lives
in Italy and my brother lives in France, so I've
just been like visiting them. But I'm still doing I
kind of I always work on some things.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I work.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I have my laptop and I can still work, so
it's sort of like never ending, never ending music stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
But I'm good.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Do you do find it hard like switching off? I mean,
I mean it feels like you're always working on such
a range of projects at all times. I mean, obviously
some of that involves like booking into being with various people,
like together in the studio, but a lot of the time,
imagine it's just kind of like tinkering away like remote working.
Are you good at kind of like being like, no,
going to turn off the laptop for this week because
(04:46):
it's a bit of family time, or are you there
sort of getting up super early in the morning just
to get a little bit of work done.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It's weird, Like I think I'm good at I'm lazy
with certain things, like I don't. It takes a lot
for me to open the laptop and pro tools and
actually are working on something. But I always play instruments,
so like.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That part never really turns off.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Wherever I am, there's usually like there's a piano here,
and there's guitars and stuff, so I pick those up.
And that's actually when oftentimes that's when the most interesting
things happen, is when you're not really intending to work,
but you just accidentally stumble onto something, or when you're
playing music and you don't know what it is or
you don't know what it's for. That's when the interesting
(05:29):
things happen, at least for me. Because if I sit
down and I'm being more intentional like trying to write something,
usually it comes out a little bit like contrived or
sort of I don't know, something that less inspired than
if you just sort of like are doing it in
a more abstract way and then you stumble into some
place that's interesting. So that's kind of like work. I
never really stop playing music, but I do stop like
(05:52):
editing and playing the computer.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Basically looking forward to chatting to you in a second
about all of the well, the Big Red Machine record
that's coming out very but there are always reasons to
feel sort of nostalgic and certain hooks and anniversaries and
things like that, especially with all the work that you've
done over the years. But I noticed that this year
is twenty years since you started Brassland. So this is
the record label that you set up to well to
(06:17):
release music from the national originally, I suppose, and then
it's gone on. You've obviously worked with so many like
tremendous artists over those kind of decades. But I wondered
if you had any sort of reflections on starting that
label and what it's gone on to do and the
artists that it's sort of meant that you've gone on
to work with and what that's been like.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Thank you for asking about Breslayn. I mean Breslin was
it was. We started it with our friend Alec Handley Bemis,
who's really like been the leader of it. And he
was someone who went to college with my brother, and
he was a music journalist and like just a really
smart person and a good friend, and he was also
really cynical. Kind of early I remember when he first
(06:58):
met my brother, who said my brother was playing the
guitar on the college campus where they went like sitting
outside playing the guitar, and Alec went up to him
and introduced himself and then asked if Bryce was in
a band, and Bryce was like yeah, and like Alec
was like, well, I probably won't like your band, which
I don't know. You know, Like we always joked about
that because he was like, you know, he's kind of
(07:20):
cynical but extremely knowledgeable.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And we've had we joked that we put out music.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
We've always put out music that no one else would
put out or something. Made a pretty good career of that,
but that's not actually entirely true. I think we just
tried to put out records that didn't They felt like
Braslan would be the best home and that maybe didn't
make sense in other places. And but yeah, they started
with the national clubs, but then we had so many
(07:45):
interesting artists book and gays and this is the Kid
and you know, people like Eric Friedlander and there were
a lot of awesome records that we put out. But
over time, like it's really been Alex working. We've brace
named down and to do that both things, and we
kind of still stay involved much as we can.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
And I mean kind of linked to that obviously the
last few years, well about five years ago now, I
think it was you launched People, which is like, you know,
a platform for like a record label, a platform, a
place where people can kind of come together as a community.
Obviously you've done sort of festivals and live events with
that as well, like the People FESTI we did in Berlin,
And I wondered how, through the sort of past eighteen months,
(08:31):
how you've seen that community evolve, because obviously, as we've
all had to you know, face to face, haven't spent
a lot of time physically with other people, you know
that it feels like basically a lot of that has
been built on the chemistry that comes out of people
being together a lot of the time physically. So I
just wondered how that how you've seen that kind of
(08:51):
evolve the past eighteen months with what with everything that's
been going on.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
People, which actually we have we have to spell it
with letters and numbers upside down because People magazine apparently
owns the use of the word people, which is given
me a more like every man and woman term than people.
But anyways, we call originally we called it people, and
(09:15):
then we got to cease and desist from the people
their own people. But I think initially it started as
as an idea kind of coming out of I think
a feeling that collaboration between artists and giving people a
chance to make new music is vital to growing and
(09:36):
pushing forward what you're doing and being able to like
not I think with so many artists they get stuck.
Musicians get stuck kind of in this cycle of making
records and then promoting them, in the sort of that
bottleneck of make a record and then promote it, wait
for it to come out and promote it and tour
and then make another one, and it kind of like
(09:58):
and you play the same songs over and over on tour.
This has kind of been our experience with the National also,
and I've always enjoyed having the opportunity to do something different,
whether it's collaborate with people I've never met before, or
get up on stage and be more spontaneous or play
you know, have to take the risk of like not
(10:19):
totally knowing what you're doing, or just reacting in real
time to other musicians. And it's a simple idea, but
actually there aren't I think a lot of there aren't
a lot of actual opportunities for people to do that,
or they can be few and far between. His most
of the music industry is structured around you, like selling
(10:39):
tickets to your show, where people are going to hear
the songs that they already know, you know. So we
found my brother started at the festival in our hometown Cincinnati,
like sixteen or seventeen years ago, Cincinnati, Ohio. The vestivals
called Music Now, and the whole idea is to commission
artists to make new music for it and then perform
(11:02):
it and so and it was more like more akin
to new music world or the classical music world, but
pulling in people from all different kind of multidisciplinary artists,
but also you know, like from the indie rock world
or from wherever, you know, like in getting them a
chance to just write new music and perform it. There
(11:23):
was so much vitality in that, and so many great
seeds were planted at music now that then we kind
of kept trying to look for ways to do that,
and that's when Justin Burnon and I started the Eau
Claire Festival in his hometown, which was similar, maybe just
on a bigger scale because it was outside, but also
like we tried to get people to come do something
(11:44):
they hadn't done before, or to work with people they'd
always wanted to, which but they didn't have the chance anyways.
And then that migrated into working with the Mitchelbergers in Berlin,
Tom and Dedan and we started the People Festival there
with them, and we had to and you kind of
did a lot of things at the hotel because they
(12:04):
kind of provided this sort of oasis where you could
come live and stay at the hotel and work on
new music with people, and there was all kinds of
collaboration that happened there. And then we you know, they're
at the funk House, the old radio campus in Berlin.
There we gathered the first time, there were one hundred
musicians for a week and then there were performances, and
the second time we had another one and there were
(12:25):
two hundred musicians. Kind of insane how much music was
made and how many seeds were playing it and sort
of projects came out of that. Really, then we started
to realize that there could be there's a need to
like also have a platform for releasing that music and
sharing it with people, and so we started we tried
(12:46):
to start a streaming platform, which sort of worked, but
it was also like going to be a huge amount
of effort to build it and maintain it, and it
wasn't really what we set out to do.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So then we started.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Another record label which exists now and that's where like
Big Red Machine is coming out on that and a
lot of other music, as much music as we can
possibly release. But I think it's yeah, it's been hard
not to be able to. Marry Hickson is this amazing
organizer and producer who lives in Ireland and she was
the one really organizing the residencies and so as when
(13:18):
COVID came, all these plans kind of got suspended or scrapped,
but now it's slowly starting to come back. But in
the meantime, I feel like people have still been able
to really work remotely with each other and it's kind
of been amazing how people have adapted. And I mean
it's obviously made so much music in during the quarantine
and during this kind of like period where no one
can travel. But yes, people, it's just a loose idea,
(13:42):
but the basic idea and you see it in the
Bigger Machine record, is collaboration and trying to create this
sort of these community sense of community and music and
really like open exchange of ideas.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I find.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Myself really growing a lot when I do that, as
opposed to like just making stuff by myself or being
just staying in the national and doing my thing. You know,
like that can start to be confining or kind of
you can easily stagnate.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
I think you mentioned Mary Hickson there. I came to
the Sounds from Safe Harbor festival in Cork in Ireland
in twenty seventeen, which was one of the most exciting
weekends of music I've ever been to. I think because
not just the fact that you know obviously that you
were there with the National and Bonnie Beer was there
playing and loads of fantastic artists were there, but it
(14:28):
was full of sort of what felt like really spontaneous
moments of music and just just completely different and for me, yeah,
I mean, I'm sure this was the purpose, but it
kind of reinvented what I thought of music festival could be.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Really.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm pleased to hear that there's
going to be You're keen to get back and do
more of that stuff again in the future as well.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, Mary's she's like she's always working on a lot
of ideas and there's a bunch of things starting to
be playing right now. But I think it's it's again,
it's a simple idea to sort of give people time
and space to make something new, but it doesn't happen enough,
you know. I think it's a lot of it's just
something that and Mary is particularly good at that and
(15:11):
just give so much encouragement and been emphasizing process kind
of over the product. That's also you know, Tam Nadine
Mitchelbergers still are hosting a lot of great things at
the in Berlin also, and it's just I think it's
been a really positive movement.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
You mentioned that that sort of the collaborative spirit is
sort of a strong core element of Big Red Machine.
I mean, obviously, right at the heart of it is
yourself and Justin. Away from the obvious chemistry that you
have in terms of creativity writing music together, how do
you and Justin kind of compliment each other just as
being mates as friends? Like how does it work together?
(15:48):
Like why do you get on so well?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I mean, we're from similar places in a way, or
at least we're both in Western He's from a small
Wisconsin town, western Wisconsin. I'm obviously from Ohio, which is
more it feels like more East coast in a way,
or something like a little bit people aren't quite as
nice or something as they are and Wisconsin. But I
(16:13):
think he's not. One thing I would say is like
he's not naturally someone who would seek the spotlight, and
neither am I. He's basically just like someone who is
obviously so gifted musically and then really like it just
is in his soul. And I grew up in a
similar way where it's like I've just been playing music
since I was a kid, and it's just like my
(16:34):
natural state. But I'm not that I don't kind of
love some of the a lot of the trappings of
it or something or like having to cultivate the spotlight
or seek it or something into like we I think
we have really enjoyed just making music for the sake
of making it, not really knowing what it is. Almost
(16:57):
like somehow when we're together, there is this feeling a
little bit it's almost childlike, like the wonder of like, dah,
let's just make some stuff, or let's start to get
some people together do something almost like you're just whatever.
Doing acid with your friends and making noise is getting
back in touch with the feeling of like why you
(17:18):
make music in the first place. Forget the acid. I
just mean, like you know, I mean literally some of
the bigger machines happen like that. But I think it's
like it just feels very easy. It's like our friendship
has grown strong over a very long period of time,
because it's been thirteen or fourteen years, but a lot
of it has revolved around just like tinkering with music. Well,
(17:40):
I guess the truth is a lot of over time
because like I've been on tour for so long, like
the national tour for over twenty years. So eventually, like
a lot of your friendships are kind of connected to
what you do because I don't I haven't been home
a whole lot to make other friends or something, you
know what I mean. So it's like a lot of
the people you know are people that are kind of
like in the same doing similar things or out there
(18:03):
because you just end up seeing each.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Other that, as you already mentioned, there's a whole lot
of other stuff that goes along with making the music
that you make. How do you support each other? Like
what are you kind of you know, do you lift
each other up through the times when it's not as easy?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
You do?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
You know? Do you know when it's time to just
like crack open a beer and just be there for
each other that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's maybe another aspect of
our friendship is that we both have had our struggles
with you know, ups and downs or kind of sometimes
anxiety or depression, and he's been very helpful to me
(18:43):
and caring and vice versa, and kind of also not
having big expectations with a lot of friends, I as
some I struggled when I was a kid as a teenager,
I had fairly serious depression and I kind of always
am scared of it a little bit or it's like
always like just somewhere out there.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
So I do things to take.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Care of it, and I relate to other people that
have that also and can be helpful, I think, because
like I'm sympathetic to it or empathetic. He's the same way.
But he so it's like and music is definitely therapeutic
or it's important in this emotional way to him in
the same way it is to me or something I think,
and so or at least, and I think maybe Bigger
(19:27):
Machine a lot of the music is like has this circular,
almost meditative like you can feel you can feel me
like rocking myself, soothing myself, and I think there's something
that like strikes a real chord with him with that also.
But yeah, we definitely like we definitely have fun. You know,
it's fun, Like when we get together, it just feels
(19:49):
it feels very good, comfortable.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
It's never been never been an effort.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I mean, having followed your work with different projects that
you've done. With this Big Red Machine album specifically, it
feels quite certainly on the tracks where you kind of
like take lead vocals, very like, very personally. I feel
like as a listener I kind of learned a lot
about you to pick out a couple of songs that
I wanted to mention. Obviously there's a track on there Bryce,
so you know, really it's a beautiful song kind of
(20:16):
obviously kind of about your brother. And I wondered, like
what Bryce's reaction was when you perform that or played
it to him for the first time, because it's like
it's a sort of it's to my ears. You absolutely
tell me if I'm wrong, but it's just kind of
like it's almost a sort of tribute to your connection
and his support for you and your life together.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Basically, Yeah, absolutely, it's almost like a love letter to him,
thanking him for not letting me far between the cracks
sometimes or sort of going maybe if I've ever been
in a tail spin, which I have, he's usually the
one who like grabs me by the grabs me and
pulls me out of it. Yeah, And I mean literally
(20:56):
that's what he's done, I think, and I'm thankful for
that because not everyone has that person in their life.
And so when you have a twin and like for
whatever reason, I ended up. I was the twin that
ended up more with that like whatever potentially that brain
that sometimes goes dark. And it's weird because it's not
(21:16):
really almost never. It's almost just like abstract doesn't have
to do with anything. It's just like a chemical thing
that can happen sometimes. But having a twin brother who
was like so caring and unwilling to like let me fall.
Basically he just kind of like literally did my homework
and he wrote he wrote my papers almost for a
(21:37):
whole year when we were seniors in high school, and
he like you know, would shake me awake and make
me get in the shower and stuff like that just
to kind of like keep me from just while or
just turning into this sort of whatever I was turning into.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And I think.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
That's what that song is about, also, just looking back
at your childhood and searching for remedies and just like
thinking about how in a time before you've made mistakes
or the kind of uncertainty and anxiety and that comes
with adulthood.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
You know. I think that's what this record is about,
is like like.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That partly it's like searching for remedies and maybe being
nostalgic about a time before you've lost people or hurt people,
or senior family disintegrate or things like that and kind
of looking for like, I don't know, looking for meaning
or how do you care? How do you like get
how do you get back to something that's a more joyful, innocent,
(22:35):
beautiful sort of innocence.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Of childhood been that song.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I think when I wrote that song, it definitely felt like, Okay,
the record might be about this or something. And then
there are other songs which came after, and I think
other people heard Bricey and felt connected to it also
and wrote influence of the.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Words that they were writing.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Because this record does because there are so many different
singers and writers in it, but it does it weirdly
feels like related, like different characters in the same book
or something.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
And sort of continuing on that personal note of like
close relationships. There's a song called hutch On there, which
is a really moving way to remember your friend Scott
Hutchinson from Frighten Rabbit. That song feels like it's like
you're having a conversation with him, if you know what
I mean. You still obviously think about Scott a lot,
and you wanted to kind of write something about him
and your friendship at music.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
It was I wrote for music, not kind of around
the time that you know, like when not long after
he had passed, and so it has this you know,
obviously it's very melancholic, but there's something that's almost like spiritual.
It's almost Gothic spiritual or something. The feeling and the music.
And I played it for Justin and he he wrote
(23:49):
the vocal melody is kind of saying them in just
very spontaneously, and it sort of sat like that for
a while. The sketch was called Hutch, so I knew
it was about and when he had It's like you
have friends that you know struggle sometimes with depression or
even suicidal thoughts, but you never think it's like one
(24:11):
thing to.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Have those thoughts in another to act on them.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
But the difference between that kind of tragic decision is
such a thin line. It could be like it could
go either way at any point, kind of you know,
And I think that's what the song is a little
bit about, just like how did you get that bad?
And you know what if I could have been more
involved or tried to, you know, check in on you more,
(24:35):
even though I wasn't you know, I wasn't in his
daily life. I'd produced, we had toured a lot together,
and I produced their last album. But I felt very like, yeah,
I felt close to him and I had a lot
of love for him, and he actually was very encouraging
to me in a lot of ways, Like he was
actually one of the people who really pushed me this thing.
I kind of thought I should use my voice more.
(24:56):
And anyways, it was just a total when he went missing,
and then obviously it was found. It was really hard
period because I one of my best friends growing up
also passed away that way, like ten years prior. It
was a very similar situation where like you kind of
wake up one day and they're.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Gone, you know, and you're like, WHOA like it?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Then you search for answers but you don't find it.
So that's what that sounds about it and it's very dark,
but it was cathartic to write it. So then just
and I wrote the words together and when we were
right before the pandemic and Justina never met Scott, but
he felt very like he could very much relate to
this feeling and the fear of losing friends and even
(25:39):
like contemplating those thoughts yourself. But I guess that is
part of this record is just shining a light on
these things. That many more people have these thoughts than
people realize, and it's so important to ask for help
and it's such simple thing, but it's like people do fall.
It's kind of like we call it flu of the mind.
Like if you have the flu or break your leg
(26:00):
or if you've cut your hand, you get medical attention.
But a lot of people don't realize that your mind
is just as if not more important to take care
of you.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
There's there's I mean, obviously there's an abundant amount of
kind of collaborators on this album. Robin Pecknoll is there
from Fleet Foxes. Has that been a kind of long
time ambition to work together with Robin?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I mean, I've always been a fan and I think
he's so incredible gifted, you know, obviously an incredible voice
and songwriter, and he's made incredible records and so I
have a huge amount of respect for him, And yeah,
I did feel that he I guess it's almost like
sometimes I think a bigger machine is like the band
(26:45):
or some sort of like The Grateful Dead or some
of like a band that can open and kind of
encompass a lot of voices and a lot of people
and a lot of different kinds of songwriting, and maybe
like this idea of improving and experimentation that seems kind
of core to It really was welcoming, I think to
(27:05):
certain other musicians. And I did think, like, what if
Justin and Robin were on the same song, wouldn't that
be like special because they're two of these incredibly beautiful
voices of our generation. But it really made sense when
I think Robin really clicked with the music. I had
written the music, and Justin had written the chorus to
that song Phoenix, and then Robin heard it, and I
(27:28):
think it just clicked with him, this dialogue with Justin
because they'd had this conversation in Phoenix backstage years ago. Yeah,
it just kind of like came together. And then Robin
added a lot of production with himself and then also
with his friends the Westerlies, this incredible brass band, and
I don't know, Yeah, it's just an incredibly warm, vibrant
(27:50):
song that it's like the kind of thing you can't
really plan for, you know, you can't make it.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
It just happened.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It lucked into it, I guess so, And like there's
so many kind of inspired performances in that song.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
JT.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Bates, the drummer who is a huge part of Big
Gram Machine, but he's just it's like he's born to
play that song kind of like the way.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You know, it's not a it's like.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
A straightforward song, I guess musically, but he just gives
it such vibrance.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Taylor Swift that pays on a couple of songs on
the Big Red Machine album, And obviously you worked on
her Folklore and Evermore projects last year and done other
work with her as well. I wondered how that came about.
Was that sort of a like a reciprocal thing whilst
you were working together on other material? And yeah, how
did that kind of come to be?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Honestly it was, It wasn't you know.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's just incredibly organic where I think Obviously Taylor had
approached me to collaborate remotely, which led to sharing a
lot of ideas back and forth, and vocalore happened, and
then we just kept going and ever More happened. But
along the way I had played for her a lot
of new Big Rim Machine songs and ideas, and she
(29:03):
loved the first record, and when Justin was obviously collaborating
on Folklore and evermore, and at some point it just
felt like she was we were.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
All just like part of the band or something like.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It was very natural, you know, writing stuff, and I
think she wanted she sang she loved the song Birch,
so she actually sang that first before writing Renegade. That
was towards the end of when we were working on
Folklore that she recorded her vocals for Birch. And then
it was always an air that she thought that she
(29:35):
would you know, that she would want to write more
for Big Red Machine, and it just felt like it
was another spoke in the wheel of stuff that we
were working on. Yeah, it wasn't something like we discussed
very much in like a hey would you do this
kind of way.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It was literally just like.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
We're making stuff and it's fun and it's inspired, and
that's kind of very much where she comes from also,
almost like or that was the energy between us, just
make make music, make songs and see where see what
it is later in a way. So then when she
wrote Renegade, because I had written the music and send
it to her and then she wrote this. She wrote
(30:16):
the song and send it back to me and she
was like, I think this is a bigger machine song,
and I agreed, and then Justin added his parts and
it just kind of happened. But I think that's the
that's again, like why that project exists, I think is
to try to get in touch with that feeling of
spontaneity and just making making music for the joy of it.
(30:38):
And then you know, hopefully it's cohesive, but it's not
like it's more in a way about process than it
is about the final thing, even though in this case
luckily the record is feels like very it has a
feeling of it, I think a classic record, but it
kind of happened in a spontaneous way.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
You spoke earlier about the sort of like your the
trappings that go along with making music sometimes and the
spotlight and not necessarily feeling like that's your favorite part
of doing the job, and I wondered whether, like when
the opportunity did come to work on Folklore and then
ever more and obviously subsequently, like huge amount of spotlight
has been shown on you.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
You've got like.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Camera crew in the studio with you to make a
documentary and then you know, congratulations on winning a Grammy.
By the way, is as a huge spotlight. I mean
that that inevitably comes with we're working as an artist
of like Taylor Swift's notoriety. So did you have to
sort of weigh that up in your mind and decide,
like I do I want to put myself in the
spotlight to work on this kind of project or did
(31:41):
you just know that it was too much of an
exciting kind of artistic opportunity to pass up.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I think well, first of all, because I had really
come to love Taylor as an artist, because it's actually
your friend Ragnar Cartin's and this Icelandic visual artists and
performance artists. And we were around the time that the
National played Sorrow for six hours in a row.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
That was a ragnark here.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
And some Peace, and he's like he's a crazy swifty
like he's really a huge fan of It was when
nineteen eighty nine came out and we were in Nce
and working with him, my brother and I and we
were like blasting.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It was just like kind of like absolutely perfect record
in a way, you know, pop record, And I think
just kind of started to see that what a master
of her craft she is, and also just her songwriting,
the way there are all these different levels of it
(32:42):
and clues, and the way her fans work.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And when she.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Approached me to collaborate, I didn't really. Maybe it was
also just because A having such respect for already, but
B it was a time when the world it slowed
down and the pandemic was in full was April of
April last year, and I had been all I'd been
doing was writing music by myself and working on it
and kind of feeling very inspired musically. So it was
(33:08):
a perfect timing when she came and I just shared.
She asked what I had, and I just was like,
well here, and I guess I happened to just have
this giant folder of stuff that just really clicked. I
think that she just really clicked with and very quickly,
you know, carding and she sent back within hours of
first making contact, and so that just and it was
(33:32):
just this weird It felt like the train just left
the station and didn't stop for a long time, or
hasn't stopped me. But like I think it's I was
very thankful for it. It felt like a weird life raft
or something musically and creatively in a time of otherwise
great uncertainty and anxiety and like you know, live music
(33:53):
had stopped, and you know, but we just ended up
in this weird cocoon writing stuff remotely. So no, I
didn't that was and that's an other thing about her.
She doesn't make you feel I never felt that I
was out of my league or something. You know, She's
just not like that. She makes you feel appreciated and
confident and kind of she's grateful, and she's humble and grounded,
(34:16):
and she just seems like hardworking, incredibly talented.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Artists, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
But there's no I've never had the feeling of like
feeling that I'm working with a giant star, even though
she is obviously, but it's like it doesn't feel. It
feels very like much like working with your good friend
who just happens to be crazy talented, but they're not
making you feel the pressure, you know what I mean.
And even when the record came out, we were on
(34:42):
the phone and folks, work came out, we were on
we were chatting on the phone like at midnight when
it when it came out, it was just like fun.
It was like you know, it wasn't there was no anxiety.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
It just felt like very I don't know, maybe maybe
I was.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
I got lucky that I I never really thought too
much about it, like what it would mean you or
you know, on what scale it was.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
But I guess that's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
There's Coney Island, which is one of my favorite tracks
on Evermore, which is bringing together obviously you'll work with
with Taylor, but also the National and it's like kind
of two of your important worlds kind of merging and
colliding on one song. And I know that you described
it as almost like a sort of full circle moment,
and I wondered if you wouldn't mind talking to me
a little bit about why that felt like a full
(35:29):
circle moment to you.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah. Well, Conney Allen is actually saying that my brother
brace wrote started the music for and he and he
had worked a lot on Poklore and also and Evermore,
and obviously we do so much together, and then I
had sort of developed it and Taylor wrote Conny Allen
(35:50):
with Joe actually and Joe Allen, and they then felt
that it was like because it felt very much maybe
of the club of all the songs we made that
one felt the most related to the national or something
musically maybe, or sort of like a character. I think
(36:10):
in her mind of the song, she just was hearing Matt.
And so we asked Matt if he would if he
would sing, and he was totally up for it. And
then Brian and Scott joined us, and it just felt
like because I feel like everything that I ever, all
the songs they wrote with the band, and all the
(36:31):
work I've done with Matt and everyone is what prepared
me to do everything I do now, whether it's all
the Taylor where all the work with the Taylor and
I have done, or big grim machine stuff. It's like
I kind of went to this twenty plus year school
of like making songs and records, uncompromising sort of records.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
With your buddies, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
You sort to figure it out, like how do you
make great recordings, how do you write songs? How do
you structure these ideas? Because it's in a way, the
way we work has always been kind of remote, because
we hardly ever sit in the same room and like
hash things out. It's usually like I make sketches, and
Matt writes and sketches and then the band develops it anyway,
(37:17):
So just I did feel like full circle that song.
I mean, it's it's very much a Taylor Swift song,
but then the National's presence in it. You can really
you can feel, you know, in Matt's voice and Brian's
drumming and Bryce's work and got and so it just
it felt it felt good to connect those dots.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
When was the last time you were in a room
together with the rest of the band with the National,
because obviously that the opportunities have probably been few and
far between the last eighteen months. But have you have
you managed to get back together see each other?
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah, we were together in April and it was really
nice for the first time. I mean it was May.
I can't remember, like for the first time in almost
a year and a half because we walked off stage.
And December and Lisbon and it was one of the
best National shows I think we've ever played. It was
in this coliseum or something in Lisbon, and you just
(38:10):
remember that. I think it was like fifteen thousand people
and they were just in Portugal. It's kind of one
of the best audiences in the world. It just I
remember thinking to myself that this is the last National show.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I'll be glad or happy that I like to.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Go out in this way. I don't know why I
thought that, because I don't know. It's not like I'm
that fatalistic. But and we didn't know about the pandemic
at that time. It was December twenty nineteen. But then
it turns out that was the last National show. Maybe not,
I mean not ever. We'll play again, but for a
long time. It's been the first time that we haven't
had a break in twenty years of this long so
(38:50):
it was nice to get together and April we just
played a lot of music and shared a lot of ideas.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
But it's still going.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
To be a while before we're it'll be till next year.
I think that we act before we actually release anything
or tour, you know, but hopefully.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
It's hard.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It feels like we might not ever get back to
it because it's you know, who knows. It's like the
world is so unstable and the variant and all that.
You know, It's like it definitely feels like getting back
to that moment where you step on stage is still
feels distant, even though I know people are doing it now,
but anyways. But yeah, that's so I have seen them
and we're in touch and we have a lot of ideas.
(39:28):
But I think it's going to be really exciting when
we make something new, because everybody's going to have a
lot of energy, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Yeah, And it's like kind of been in sort of
unplanned but enforced break. But maybe that's maybe that's nice,
Maybe that that breathing room quite something new.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
You never know.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Definitely, it's like spans are weird social experiments, and you know,
giving it a little space sometimes is a good idea
that I kind of hope we can like get back
in touch with the weird power of it, you know,
the joy of it and this weird engine. When that
engine is going, when it's really going, it can be
very powerful. And I think finding that and we did,
(40:07):
you know, like you feel it when we like there
were moments when you could feel it clicking, and that's exacting.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
To find previous episodes of Midnight Chats, simply search your
podcast app, don't forget to follow, or subscribe to keep
up as they're published every week at midnight. For more
information on the music magazine that makes this series, visit
Loud and Quiet Dot
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Com anyway, good night,
I was very thankful for it.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It felt like a weird life reap musically and creatively
in a time of otherwise great uncertainty and anxiety.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Welcome to Midnight Chats, a podcast of laid back conversations
with leading names in music. In keeping with these informal interviews,
each new one is published weekly at midnight. This week's
episode is hosted by me Greg cochrane from Loud and
Quiet magazine. We interrupt this period of downtime for Midnight
(00:30):
Chats to bring you something a little bit special and
in between series episode of the podcast with Aaron Desner.
In any ordinary time, I'd be excited about welcoming Aaron
onto the podcast. But the multi instrumentalist, producer, founding member
of the National has had, and this is putting it mildly,
quite an eighteen months. The big headline being that instead
(00:53):
of making banana bread like everyone else during quarantine, he
made an album with Taylor Swift Folklore. You probably heard about.
It went on to win the Album of the Year
at the twenty twenty one Grammys back in March. I
guess that surprised a few people, but that new creative
partnership continued throughout twenty twenty and into this year. Aaron
(01:17):
also worked on Folklore's sister album, ever More, and he's
also been involved with Taylor's project to re record and
release her previous albums in order to re establish the rights.
As close followers of his work will know, Aaron likes
to keep busy, whether that's curating brilliant festivals, co running
the People Platform, or composing the music for an art installation.
(01:40):
He does so many things there's always a reason to
speak to him. But on this occasion, excitingly, it's the
release of a new Big Red Machine album. The multi
dimensional collective he's formed with Bonnie Ver's justin Vernon, the
follow up to their self titled debut album in twenty eighteen,
is this new It's called How Long Do You Think
(02:01):
It's Going To Last? And it's out to buy and
stream from Friday, the twenty seventh of August. In keeping
with the cooperative spirit of the whole project, it features
lots of notable guests including Taylor Swift, Robin Pecknold from
Fleet Fox's Sharon van Etton, Lisa Hannigan, Ben Howard, Anise Mitchell,
and many others. As you're about to hear in the
(02:24):
conversation we recorded. It's the songs where Aaron takes lead vocals,
not something he does all that often, that I think
are amongst the standout moments, particularly the track Brycey you'll
hear me mistakenly call it Bryce in the chat that's
about his twin brother and bandmate in the National. There's
also a very moving track called hutch which is an
(02:45):
ode to his friend and collaborator Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit,
who sadly passed away a few years ago. Lovely stuff
of him talking about the closeness of his friendship with
Justin Vernon as well, given how disrupted everything has been
throughout this year. In last who wanted to find out
if he's managed to spend any time in person with
the National, which he has. They got back together in
(03:06):
the early summer, so he fills us in on all
of that. So thanks again to Aaron for recording this,
especially as he was away spending some time with his
brother and their family in France at the time. For
that reason, forgive the odd bit of glitchy Wi Fi audio.
So here we go a special one off episode of
Midnight Chats. I'm really happy to introduce Aaron Detzler. Aaron,
(03:29):
welcome to Midnight Chats. It's great to have you on
the podcast. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
And well, thank you. I'm in France near the Spanish border.
It's the Basque coast, and then my brother lives here
and we came down and just kind of finally moving
around a little bit more now that we can.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So it's Nakes, yeah, near Saint Sebastian, Spain.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Actually is that having a short break? Are you getting
to work on something? What's going to taking you there?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
At the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's really just like I haven't seen family until in
a year and a half. So my sister had her
twenty fifth wedding anniversary and I came over. She lives
in Italy and my brother lives in France, so I've
just been like visiting them. But I'm still doing I
kind of I always work on some things.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I work.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
I have my laptop and I can still work, so
it's sort of like never ending, never ending music stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
But I'm good.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Do you do find it hard like switching off? I mean,
I mean it feels like you're always working on such
a range of projects at all times. I mean, obviously
some of that involves like booking into being with various people,
like together in the studio, but a lot of the time,
imagine it's just kind of like tinkering away like remote working.
Are you good at kind of like being like, no,
going to turn off the laptop for this week because
(04:46):
it's a bit of family time, or are you there
sort of getting up super early in the morning just
to get a little bit of work done.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It's weird, Like I think I'm good at I'm lazy
with certain things, like I don't. It takes a lot
for me to open the laptop and pro tools and
actually are working on something. But I always play instruments,
so like.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
That part never really turns off.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Wherever I am, there's usually like there's a piano here,
and there's guitars and stuff, so I pick those up.
And that's actually when oftentimes that's when the most interesting
things happen, is when you're not really intending to work,
but you just accidentally stumble onto something, or when you're
playing music and you don't know what it is or
you don't know what it's for. That's when the interesting
(05:29):
things happen, at least for me. Because if I sit
down and I'm being more intentional like trying to write something,
usually it comes out a little bit like contrived or
sort of I don't know, something that less inspired than
if you just sort of like are doing it in
a more abstract way and then you stumble into some
place that's interesting. So that's kind of like work. I
never really stop playing music, but I do stop like
(05:52):
editing and playing the computer.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Basically looking forward to chatting to you in a second
about all of the well, the Big Red Machine record
that's coming out very but there are always reasons to
feel sort of nostalgic and certain hooks and anniversaries and
things like that, especially with all the work that you've
done over the years. But I noticed that this year
is twenty years since you started Brassland. So this is
the record label that you set up to well to
(06:17):
release music from the national originally, I suppose, and then
it's gone on. You've obviously worked with so many like
tremendous artists over those kind of decades. But I wondered
if you had any sort of reflections on starting that
label and what it's gone on to do and the
artists that it's sort of meant that you've gone on
to work with and what that's been like.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Thank you for asking about Breslayn. I mean Breslin was
it was. We started it with our friend Alec Handley Bemis,
who's really like been the leader of it. And he
was someone who went to college with my brother, and
he was a music journalist and like just a really
smart person and a good friend, and he was also
really cynical. Kind of early I remember when he first
(06:58):
met my brother, who said my brother was playing the
guitar on the college campus where they went like sitting
outside playing the guitar, and Alec went up to him
and introduced himself and then asked if Bryce was in
a band, and Bryce was like yeah, and like Alec
was like, well, I probably won't like your band, which
I don't know. You know, Like we always joked about
that because he was like, you know, he's kind of
(07:20):
cynical but extremely knowledgeable.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And we've had we joked that we put out music.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
We've always put out music that no one else would
put out or something. Made a pretty good career of that,
but that's not actually entirely true. I think we just
tried to put out records that didn't They felt like
Braslan would be the best home and that maybe didn't
make sense in other places. And but yeah, they started
with the national clubs, but then we had so many
(07:45):
interesting artists book and gays and this is the Kid
and you know, people like Eric Friedlander and there were
a lot of awesome records that we put out. But
over time, like it's really been Alex working. We've brace
named down and to do that both things, and we
kind of still stay involved much as we can.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
And I mean kind of linked to that obviously the
last few years, well about five years ago now, I
think it was you launched People, which is like, you know,
a platform for like a record label, a platform, a
place where people can kind of come together as a community.
Obviously you've done sort of festivals and live events with
that as well, like the People FESTI we did in Berlin,
And I wondered how, through the sort of past eighteen months,
(08:31):
how you've seen that community evolve, because obviously, as we've
all had to you know, face to face, haven't spent
a lot of time physically with other people, you know
that it feels like basically a lot of that has
been built on the chemistry that comes out of people
being together a lot of the time physically. So I
just wondered how that how you've seen that kind of
(08:51):
evolve the past eighteen months with what with everything that's
been going on.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
People, which actually we have we have to spell it
with letters and numbers upside down because People magazine apparently
owns the use of the word people, which is given
me a more like every man and woman term than people.
But anyways, we call originally we called it people, and
(09:15):
then we got to cease and desist from the people
their own people. But I think initially it started as
as an idea kind of coming out of I think
a feeling that collaboration between artists and giving people a
chance to make new music is vital to growing and
(09:36):
pushing forward what you're doing and being able to like
not I think with so many artists they get stuck.
Musicians get stuck kind of in this cycle of making
records and then promoting them, in the sort of that
bottleneck of make a record and then promote it, wait
for it to come out and promote it and tour
and then make another one, and it kind of like
(09:58):
and you play the same songs over and over on tour.
This has kind of been our experience with the National also,
and I've always enjoyed having the opportunity to do something different,
whether it's collaborate with people I've never met before, or
get up on stage and be more spontaneous or play
you know, have to take the risk of like not
(10:19):
totally knowing what you're doing, or just reacting in real
time to other musicians. And it's a simple idea, but
actually there aren't I think a lot of there aren't
a lot of actual opportunities for people to do that,
or they can be few and far between. His most
of the music industry is structured around you, like selling
(10:39):
tickets to your show, where people are going to hear
the songs that they already know, you know. So we
found my brother started at the festival in our hometown Cincinnati,
like sixteen or seventeen years ago, Cincinnati, Ohio. The vestivals
called Music Now, and the whole idea is to commission
artists to make new music for it and then perform
(11:02):
it and so and it was more like more akin
to new music world or the classical music world, but
pulling in people from all different kind of multidisciplinary artists,
but also you know, like from the indie rock world
or from wherever, you know, like in getting them a
chance to just write new music and perform it. There
(11:23):
was so much vitality in that, and so many great
seeds were planted at music now that then we kind
of kept trying to look for ways to do that,
and that's when Justin Burnon and I started the Eau
Claire Festival in his hometown, which was similar, maybe just
on a bigger scale because it was outside, but also
like we tried to get people to come do something
(11:44):
they hadn't done before, or to work with people they'd
always wanted to, which but they didn't have the chance anyways.
And then that migrated into working with the Mitchelbergers in Berlin,
Tom and Dedan and we started the People Festival there
with them, and we had to and you kind of
did a lot of things at the hotel because they
(12:04):
kind of provided this sort of oasis where you could
come live and stay at the hotel and work on
new music with people, and there was all kinds of
collaboration that happened there. And then we you know, they're
at the funk House, the old radio campus in Berlin.
There we gathered the first time, there were one hundred
musicians for a week and then there were performances, and
the second time we had another one and there were
(12:25):
two hundred musicians. Kind of insane how much music was
made and how many seeds were playing it and sort
of projects came out of that. Really, then we started
to realize that there could be there's a need to
like also have a platform for releasing that music and
sharing it with people, and so we started we tried
(12:46):
to start a streaming platform, which sort of worked, but
it was also like going to be a huge amount
of effort to build it and maintain it, and it
wasn't really what we set out to do.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So then we started.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Another record label which exists now and that's where like
Big Red Machine is coming out on that and a
lot of other music, as much music as we can
possibly release. But I think it's yeah, it's been hard
not to be able to. Marry Hickson is this amazing
organizer and producer who lives in Ireland and she was
the one really organizing the residencies and so as when
(13:18):
COVID came, all these plans kind of got suspended or scrapped,
but now it's slowly starting to come back. But in
the meantime, I feel like people have still been able
to really work remotely with each other and it's kind
of been amazing how people have adapted. And I mean
it's obviously made so much music in during the quarantine
and during this kind of like period where no one
can travel. But yes, people, it's just a loose idea,
(13:42):
but the basic idea and you see it in the
Bigger Machine record, is collaboration and trying to create this
sort of these community sense of community and music and
really like open exchange of ideas.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I find.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Myself really growing a lot when I do that, as
opposed to like just making stuff by myself or being
just staying in the national and doing my thing. You know,
like that can start to be confining or kind of
you can easily stagnate.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
I think you mentioned Mary Hickson there. I came to
the Sounds from Safe Harbor festival in Cork in Ireland
in twenty seventeen, which was one of the most exciting
weekends of music I've ever been to. I think because
not just the fact that you know obviously that you
were there with the National and Bonnie Beer was there
playing and loads of fantastic artists were there, but it
(14:28):
was full of sort of what felt like really spontaneous
moments of music and just just completely different and for me, yeah,
I mean, I'm sure this was the purpose, but it
kind of reinvented what I thought of music festival could be.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Really.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm pleased to hear that there's
going to be You're keen to get back and do
more of that stuff again in the future as well.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, Mary's she's like she's always working on a lot
of ideas and there's a bunch of things starting to
be playing right now. But I think it's it's again,
it's a simple idea to sort of give people time
and space to make something new, but it doesn't happen enough,
you know. I think it's a lot of it's just
something that and Mary is particularly good at that and
(15:11):
just give so much encouragement and been emphasizing process kind
of over the product. That's also you know, Tam Nadine
Mitchelbergers still are hosting a lot of great things at
the in Berlin also, and it's just I think it's
been a really positive movement.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
You mentioned that that sort of the collaborative spirit is
sort of a strong core element of Big Red Machine.
I mean, obviously, right at the heart of it is
yourself and Justin. Away from the obvious chemistry that you
have in terms of creativity writing music together, how do
you and Justin kind of compliment each other just as
being mates as friends? Like how does it work together?
(15:48):
Like why do you get on so well?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I mean, we're from similar places in a way, or
at least we're both in Western He's from a small
Wisconsin town, western Wisconsin. I'm obviously from Ohio, which is
more it feels like more East coast in a way,
or something like a little bit people aren't quite as
nice or something as they are and Wisconsin. But I
(16:13):
think he's not. One thing I would say is like
he's not naturally someone who would seek the spotlight, and
neither am I. He's basically just like someone who is
obviously so gifted musically and then really like it just
is in his soul. And I grew up in a
similar way where it's like I've just been playing music
since I was a kid, and it's just like my
(16:34):
natural state. But I'm not that I don't kind of
love some of the a lot of the trappings of
it or something or like having to cultivate the spotlight
or seek it or something into like we I think
we have really enjoyed just making music for the sake
of making it, not really knowing what it is. Almost
(16:57):
like somehow when we're together, there is this feeling a
little bit it's almost childlike, like the wonder of like, dah,
let's just make some stuff, or let's start to get
some people together do something almost like you're just whatever.
Doing acid with your friends and making noise is getting
back in touch with the feeling of like why you
(17:18):
make music in the first place. Forget the acid. I
just mean, like you know, I mean literally some of
the bigger machines happen like that. But I think it's
like it just feels very easy. It's like our friendship
has grown strong over a very long period of time,
because it's been thirteen or fourteen years, but a lot
of it has revolved around just like tinkering with music. Well,
(17:40):
I guess the truth is a lot of over time
because like I've been on tour for so long, like
the national tour for over twenty years. So eventually, like
a lot of your friendships are kind of connected to
what you do because I don't I haven't been home
a whole lot to make other friends or something, you
know what I mean. So it's like a lot of
the people you know are people that are kind of
like in the same doing similar things or out there
(18:03):
because you just end up seeing each.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Other that, as you already mentioned, there's a whole lot
of other stuff that goes along with making the music
that you make. How do you support each other? Like
what are you kind of you know, do you lift
each other up through the times when it's not as easy?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
You do?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
You know? Do you know when it's time to just
like crack open a beer and just be there for
each other that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's maybe another aspect of
our friendship is that we both have had our struggles
with you know, ups and downs or kind of sometimes
anxiety or depression, and he's been very helpful to me
(18:43):
and caring and vice versa, and kind of also not
having big expectations with a lot of friends, I as
some I struggled when I was a kid as a teenager,
I had fairly serious depression and I kind of always
am scared of it a little bit or it's like
always like just somewhere out there.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
So I do things to take.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Care of it, and I relate to other people that
have that also and can be helpful, I think, because
like I'm sympathetic to it or empathetic. He's the same way.
But he so it's like and music is definitely therapeutic
or it's important in this emotional way to him in
the same way it is to me or something I think,
and so or at least, and I think maybe Bigger
(19:27):
Machine a lot of the music is like has this circular,
almost meditative like you can feel you can feel me
like rocking myself, soothing myself, and I think there's something
that like strikes a real chord with him with that also.
But yeah, we definitely like we definitely have fun. You know,
it's fun, Like when we get together, it just feels
(19:49):
it feels very good, comfortable.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
It's never been never been an effort.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I mean, having followed your work with different projects that
you've done. With this Big Red Machine album specifically, it
feels quite certainly on the tracks where you kind of
like take lead vocals, very like, very personally. I feel
like as a listener I kind of learned a lot
about you to pick out a couple of songs that
I wanted to mention. Obviously there's a track on there Bryce,
so you know, really it's a beautiful song kind of
(20:16):
obviously kind of about your brother. And I wondered, like
what Bryce's reaction was when you perform that or played
it to him for the first time, because it's like
it's a sort of it's to my ears. You absolutely
tell me if I'm wrong, but it's just kind of
like it's almost a sort of tribute to your connection
and his support for you and your life together.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Basically, Yeah, absolutely, it's almost like a love letter to him,
thanking him for not letting me far between the cracks
sometimes or sort of going maybe if I've ever been
in a tail spin, which I have, he's usually the
one who like grabs me by the grabs me and
pulls me out of it. Yeah, And I mean literally
(20:56):
that's what he's done, I think, and I'm thankful for
that because not everyone has that person in their life.
And so when you have a twin and like for
whatever reason, I ended up. I was the twin that
ended up more with that like whatever potentially that brain
that sometimes goes dark. And it's weird because it's not
(21:16):
really almost never. It's almost just like abstract doesn't have
to do with anything. It's just like a chemical thing
that can happen sometimes. But having a twin brother who
was like so caring and unwilling to like let me fall.
Basically he just kind of like literally did my homework
and he wrote he wrote my papers almost for a
(21:37):
whole year when we were seniors in high school, and
he like you know, would shake me awake and make
me get in the shower and stuff like that just
to kind of like keep me from just while or
just turning into this sort of whatever I was turning into.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And I think.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
That's what that song is about, also, just looking back
at your childhood and searching for remedies and just like
thinking about how in a time before you've made mistakes
or the kind of uncertainty and anxiety and that comes
with adulthood.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
You know. I think that's what this record is about,
is like like.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
That partly it's like searching for remedies and maybe being
nostalgic about a time before you've lost people or hurt people,
or senior family disintegrate or things like that and kind
of looking for like, I don't know, looking for meaning
or how do you care? How do you like get
how do you get back to something that's a more joyful, innocent,
(22:35):
beautiful sort of innocence.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Of childhood been that song.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I think when I wrote that song, it definitely felt like, Okay,
the record might be about this or something. And then
there are other songs which came after, and I think
other people heard Bricey and felt connected to it also
and wrote influence of the.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Words that they were writing.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Because this record does because there are so many different
singers and writers in it, but it does it weirdly
feels like related, like different characters in the same book
or something.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
And sort of continuing on that personal note of like
close relationships. There's a song called hutch On there, which
is a really moving way to remember your friend Scott
Hutchinson from Frighten Rabbit. That song feels like it's like
you're having a conversation with him, if you know what
I mean. You still obviously think about Scott a lot,
and you wanted to kind of write something about him
and your friendship at music.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
It was I wrote for music, not kind of around
the time that you know, like when not long after
he had passed, and so it has this you know,
obviously it's very melancholic, but there's something that's almost like spiritual.
It's almost Gothic spiritual or something. The feeling and the music.
And I played it for Justin and he he wrote
(23:49):
the vocal melody is kind of saying them in just
very spontaneously, and it sort of sat like that for
a while. The sketch was called Hutch, so I knew
it was about and when he had It's like you
have friends that you know struggle sometimes with depression or
even suicidal thoughts, but you never think it's like one
(24:11):
thing to.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Have those thoughts in another to act on them.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
But the difference between that kind of tragic decision is
such a thin line. It could be like it could
go either way at any point, kind of you know,
And I think that's what the song is a little
bit about, just like how did you get that bad?
And you know what if I could have been more
involved or tried to, you know, check in on you more,
(24:35):
even though I wasn't you know, I wasn't in his
daily life. I'd produced, we had toured a lot together,
and I produced their last album. But I felt very like, yeah,
I felt close to him and I had a lot
of love for him, and he actually was very encouraging
to me in a lot of ways, Like he was
actually one of the people who really pushed me this thing.
I kind of thought I should use my voice more.
(24:56):
And anyways, it was just a total when he went missing,
and then obviously it was found. It was really hard
period because I one of my best friends growing up
also passed away that way, like ten years prior. It
was a very similar situation where like you kind of
wake up one day and they're.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Gone, you know, and you're like, WHOA like it?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Then you search for answers but you don't find it.
So that's what that sounds about it and it's very dark,
but it was cathartic to write it. So then just
and I wrote the words together and when we were
right before the pandemic and Justina never met Scott, but
he felt very like he could very much relate to
this feeling and the fear of losing friends and even
(25:39):
like contemplating those thoughts yourself. But I guess that is
part of this record is just shining a light on
these things. That many more people have these thoughts than
people realize, and it's so important to ask for help
and it's such simple thing, but it's like people do fall.
It's kind of like we call it flu of the mind.
Like if you have the flu or break your leg
(26:00):
or if you've cut your hand, you get medical attention.
But a lot of people don't realize that your mind
is just as if not more important to take care
of you.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
There's there's I mean, obviously there's an abundant amount of
kind of collaborators on this album. Robin Pecknoll is there
from Fleet Foxes. Has that been a kind of long
time ambition to work together with Robin?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I mean, I've always been a fan and I think
he's so incredible gifted, you know, obviously an incredible voice
and songwriter, and he's made incredible records and so I
have a huge amount of respect for him, And yeah,
I did feel that he I guess it's almost like
sometimes I think a bigger machine is like the band
(26:45):
or some sort of like The Grateful Dead or some
of like a band that can open and kind of
encompass a lot of voices and a lot of people
and a lot of different kinds of songwriting, and maybe
like this idea of improving and experimentation that seems kind
of core to It really was welcoming, I think to
(27:05):
certain other musicians. And I did think, like, what if
Justin and Robin were on the same song, wouldn't that
be like special because they're two of these incredibly beautiful
voices of our generation. But it really made sense when
I think Robin really clicked with the music. I had
written the music, and Justin had written the chorus to
that song Phoenix, and then Robin heard it, and I
(27:28):
think it just clicked with him, this dialogue with Justin
because they'd had this conversation in Phoenix backstage years ago. Yeah,
it just kind of like came together. And then Robin
added a lot of production with himself and then also
with his friends the Westerlies, this incredible brass band, and
I don't know, Yeah, it's just an incredibly warm, vibrant
(27:50):
song that it's like the kind of thing you can't
really plan for, you know, you can't make it.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
It just happened.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It lucked into it, I guess so, And like there's
so many kind of inspired performances in that song.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
JT.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Bates, the drummer who is a huge part of Big
Gram Machine, but he's just it's like he's born to
play that song kind of like the way.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You know, it's not a it's like.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
A straightforward song, I guess musically, but he just gives
it such vibrance.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Taylor Swift that pays on a couple of songs on
the Big Red Machine album, And obviously you worked on
her Folklore and Evermore projects last year and done other
work with her as well. I wondered how that came about.
Was that sort of a like a reciprocal thing whilst
you were working together on other material? And yeah, how
did that kind of come to be?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Honestly it was, It wasn't you know.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's just incredibly organic where I think Obviously Taylor had
approached me to collaborate remotely, which led to sharing a
lot of ideas back and forth, and vocalore happened, and
then we just kept going and ever More happened. But
along the way I had played for her a lot
of new Big Rim Machine songs and ideas, and she
(29:03):
loved the first record, and when Justin was obviously collaborating
on Folklore and evermore, and at some point it just
felt like she was we were.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
All just like part of the band or something like.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It was very natural, you know, writing stuff, and I
think she wanted she sang she loved the song Birch,
so she actually sang that first before writing Renegade. That
was towards the end of when we were working on
Folklore that she recorded her vocals for Birch. And then
it was always an air that she thought that she
(29:35):
would you know, that she would want to write more
for Big Red Machine, and it just felt like it
was another spoke in the wheel of stuff that we
were working on. Yeah, it wasn't something like we discussed
very much in like a hey would you do this
kind of way.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
It was literally just like.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
We're making stuff and it's fun and it's inspired, and
that's kind of very much where she comes from also,
almost like or that was the energy between us, just
make make music, make songs and see where see what
it is later in a way. So then when she
wrote Renegade, because I had written the music and send
it to her and then she wrote this. She wrote
(30:16):
the song and send it back to me and she
was like, I think this is a bigger machine song,
and I agreed, and then Justin added his parts and
it just kind of happened. But I think that's the
that's again, like why that project exists, I think is
to try to get in touch with that feeling of
spontaneity and just making making music for the joy of it.
(30:38):
And then you know, hopefully it's cohesive, but it's not
like it's more in a way about process than it
is about the final thing, even though in this case
luckily the record is feels like very it has a
feeling of it, I think a classic record, but it
kind of happened in a spontaneous way.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
You spoke earlier about the sort of like your the
trappings that go along with making music sometimes and the
spotlight and not necessarily feeling like that's your favorite part
of doing the job, and I wondered whether, like when
the opportunity did come to work on Folklore and then
ever more and obviously subsequently, like huge amount of spotlight
has been shown on you.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
You've got like.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Camera crew in the studio with you to make a
documentary and then you know, congratulations on winning a Grammy.
By the way, is as a huge spotlight. I mean
that that inevitably comes with we're working as an artist
of like Taylor Swift's notoriety. So did you have to
sort of weigh that up in your mind and decide,
like I do I want to put myself in the
spotlight to work on this kind of project or did
(31:41):
you just know that it was too much of an
exciting kind of artistic opportunity to pass up.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I think well, first of all, because I had really
come to love Taylor as an artist, because it's actually
your friend Ragnar Cartin's and this Icelandic visual artists and
performance artists. And we were around the time that the
National played Sorrow for six hours in a row.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
That was a ragnark here.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
And some Peace, and he's like he's a crazy swifty
like he's really a huge fan of It was when
nineteen eighty nine came out and we were in Nce
and working with him, my brother and I and we
were like blasting.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
It was just like kind of like absolutely perfect record
in a way, you know, pop record, And I think
just kind of started to see that what a master
of her craft she is, and also just her songwriting,
the way there are all these different levels of it
(32:42):
and clues, and the way her fans work.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
And when she.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Approached me to collaborate, I didn't really. Maybe it was
also just because A having such respect for already, but
B it was a time when the world it slowed
down and the pandemic was in full was April of
April last year, and I had been all I'd been
doing was writing music by myself and working on it
and kind of feeling very inspired musically. So it was
(33:08):
a perfect timing when she came and I just shared.
She asked what I had, and I just was like,
well here, and I guess I happened to just have
this giant folder of stuff that just really clicked. I
think that she just really clicked with and very quickly,
you know, carding and she sent back within hours of
first making contact, and so that just and it was
(33:32):
just this weird It felt like the train just left
the station and didn't stop for a long time, or
hasn't stopped me. But like I think it's I was
very thankful for it. It felt like a weird life raft
or something musically and creatively in a time of otherwise
great uncertainty and anxiety and like you know, live music
(33:53):
had stopped, and you know, but we just ended up
in this weird cocoon writing stuff remotely. So no, I
didn't that was and that's an other thing about her.
She doesn't make you feel I never felt that I
was out of my league or something. You know, She's
just not like that. She makes you feel appreciated and
confident and kind of she's grateful, and she's humble and grounded,
(34:16):
and she just seems like hardworking, incredibly talented.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Artists, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
But there's no I've never had the feeling of like
feeling that I'm working with a giant star, even though
she is obviously, but it's like it doesn't feel. It
feels very like much like working with your good friend
who just happens to be crazy talented, but they're not
making you feel the pressure, you know what I mean.
And even when the record came out, we were on
(34:42):
the phone and folks, work came out, we were on
we were chatting on the phone like at midnight when
it when it came out, it was just like fun.
It was like you know, it wasn't there was no anxiety.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
It just felt like very I don't know, maybe maybe
I was.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
I got lucky that I I never really thought too
much about it, like what it would mean you or
you know, on what scale it was.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
But I guess that's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
There's Coney Island, which is one of my favorite tracks
on Evermore, which is bringing together obviously you'll work with
with Taylor, but also the National and it's like kind
of two of your important worlds kind of merging and
colliding on one song. And I know that you described
it as almost like a sort of full circle moment,
and I wondered if you wouldn't mind talking to me
a little bit about why that felt like a full
(35:29):
circle moment to you.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah. Well, Conney Allen is actually saying that my brother
brace wrote started the music for and he and he
had worked a lot on Poklore and also and Evermore,
and obviously we do so much together, and then I
had sort of developed it and Taylor wrote Conny Allen
(35:50):
with Joe actually and Joe Allen, and they then felt
that it was like because it felt very much maybe
of the club of all the songs we made that
one felt the most related to the national or something
musically maybe, or sort of like a character. I think
(36:10):
in her mind of the song, she just was hearing Matt.
And so we asked Matt if he would if he
would sing, and he was totally up for it. And
then Brian and Scott joined us, and it just felt
like because I feel like everything that I ever, all
the songs they wrote with the band, and all the
(36:31):
work I've done with Matt and everyone is what prepared
me to do everything I do now, whether it's all
the Taylor where all the work with the Taylor and
I have done, or big grim machine stuff. It's like
I kind of went to this twenty plus year school
of like making songs and records, uncompromising sort of records.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
With your buddies, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
You sort to figure it out, like how do you
make great recordings, how do you write songs? How do
you structure these ideas? Because it's in a way, the
way we work has always been kind of remote, because
we hardly ever sit in the same room and like
hash things out. It's usually like I make sketches, and
Matt writes and sketches and then the band develops it anyway,
(37:17):
So just I did feel like full circle that song.
I mean, it's it's very much a Taylor Swift song,
but then the National's presence in it. You can really
you can feel, you know, in Matt's voice and Brian's
drumming and Bryce's work and got and so it just
it felt it felt good to connect those dots.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
When was the last time you were in a room
together with the rest of the band with the National,
because obviously that the opportunities have probably been few and
far between the last eighteen months. But have you have
you managed to get back together see each other?
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah, we were together in April and it was really
nice for the first time. I mean it was May.
I can't remember, like for the first time in almost
a year and a half because we walked off stage.
And December and Lisbon and it was one of the
best National shows I think we've ever played. It was
in this coliseum or something in Lisbon, and you just
(38:10):
remember that. I think it was like fifteen thousand people
and they were just in Portugal. It's kind of one
of the best audiences in the world. It just I
remember thinking to myself that this is the last National show.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I'll be glad or happy that I like to.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Go out in this way. I don't know why I
thought that, because I don't know. It's not like I'm
that fatalistic. But and we didn't know about the pandemic
at that time. It was December twenty nineteen. But then
it turns out that was the last National show. Maybe not,
I mean not ever. We'll play again, but for a
long time. It's been the first time that we haven't
had a break in twenty years of this long so
(38:50):
it was nice to get together and April we just
played a lot of music and shared a lot of ideas.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
But it's still going.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
To be a while before we're it'll be till next year.
I think that we act before we actually release anything
or tour, you know, but hopefully.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
It's hard.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It feels like we might not ever get back to
it because it's you know, who knows. It's like the
world is so unstable and the variant and all that.
You know, It's like it definitely feels like getting back
to that moment where you step on stage is still
feels distant, even though I know people are doing it now,
but anyways. But yeah, that's so I have seen them
and we're in touch and we have a lot of ideas.
(39:28):
But I think it's going to be really exciting when
we make something new, because everybody's going to have a
lot of energy, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Yeah, And it's like kind of been in sort of
unplanned but enforced break. But maybe that's maybe that's nice,
Maybe that that breathing room quite something new.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
You never know.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Definitely, it's like spans are weird social experiments, and you know,
giving it a little space sometimes is a good idea
that I kind of hope we can like get back
in touch with the weird power of it, you know,
the joy of it and this weird engine. When that
engine is going, when it's really going, it can be
very powerful. And I think finding that and we did,
(40:07):
you know, like you feel it when we like there
were moments when you could feel it clicking, and that's exacting.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
To find previous episodes of Midnight Chats, simply search your
podcast app, don't forget to follow, or subscribe to keep
up as they're published every week at midnight. For more
information on the music magazine that makes this series, visit
Loud and Quiet Dot
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Com anyway, good night,
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