How Taylor Swift 'Sad Dad' Matt Berninger from The National converted into a teenage icon

The legend on the jacket of the distant stranger was “Sad Vads”. The small print was up close. “The National”. Uh. My dog ​​walker did not apply for a community support group, he wore Band Merch: some rock critics who were reclaimed as an honorary badge.

Matt Berninger is enthusiastic to get this snapshot from solidarity from the other side of the world. The gently tapped front man of the national has just ended a day of the rehearsal with his Get Sunk band, which is named after his new solo album. He weaves through Knobworld Studios in Los Angeles and is looking for a quiet place to talk.

“It's so funny, I see teenagers who wear 'sad father' and it's super cool. I love it,” he says. It was the guitarist Aaron Dessner who saw the cheap shot as a Merch opportunity.

Despite the exquisite tone of a dozen albums “I'm usually a really funny, happy father,” he emphasizes. “The 16 of my daughter, and I would say 80 percent of that time I was a happy, funny father. But she saw me sadly. I was there.”

It is worth unpacking the fact that your friends are as likely as the next middle -aged guy to worship your father's work. We will later get to the strange synergy of the national with Taylor Swift. But when you talk about your second album outside the band that he has been predominating for 25 years, it is the sad part that must first be addressed.

With co-author Sean O'Brien, he made a series of songs that we called Sink Five years ago, ”says Berninger,“ but then I was included in a long time of depression and the writer. I have set every project, including many national songs that I have worked on.

“I had already written a song called that strangely Sink A period ago I can only describe the sunken one I have ever been. So it was a cautious series of songs and I avoided listening to them for a long time. “

Berninger told Talk show presenter David Letterman that he was calculated so that he “could not even pick up a baseball”. With colored pens and serpentine lines, he composed his funny and always poetic texts on these things as long as he can remember.

“The first thing I knew was a baseball. I played baseball in elementary school. Then drew the next thing it was. My parents were teachers and lawyers, but I was always an artist in my heart.”

Berninger completed Cincinnati University as a graphic designer in the mid -1990s. He spent a decade as a creative director in New York during the Dot Com boom when the nation came together.

“I still throw baseball with my daughter, I still throw baseball with my father. It is something if you occupy your thoughts and you have the best conversations in the end,” he says. “So walls, shoes, baseball … If an idea hits during reading, I will write it right there in the book. Then I remember: 'Oh, there is a song in this book.'” He laughs. “It is easier to follow where shit is instead of tracking things about a few identical black notebooks.”

In January 2023, the first two sides of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Inexplicably the darkness pierced in Berningen's head. A replacement, vulnerable re-calibration, The first two sides of Frankensteinbecame the first of two new national albums this year. The other was Laughter.

The alcottA brilliantly loaded duet with Taylor Swift was a water catchment torque. When Berninger survived his most bleak days, Dessner had invited to write and produce her Grammy winner folklore Album. It was the case that musical ideas, which demonstrated for the sad chief holder, fell into the hands of the hottest teenage idol in the world.

Since then, Dessner has created two other Swift albums. To AlwaysThe national appeared in the duet of the melancholic ex-lovers Coney Island. In every step there was an approximation of their cooperation, because everyone committed to ideas from genre or demographic characteristics, a revelation.

“It's not like a marketing plug-in,” says Berninger. “It's super organic. Aaron's relationship with Taylor is because she was a big fan … but our connection to her has changed the chemistry of the entire fan base. We learned so much and have more fans that was healthy for all.”

Creative alliances are crucial for Berningen. “I can't do anything myself,” he says. “I can't play a guitar or piano.” When the singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens was invited to contribute boxerThe groundbreaking album of the 2017 band “This is the first time that I realized how much I could learn from entering someone else”.

The “open-to-to-thing” of the citizen has now drawn a dazzling voices into its world, including Sharon van Etten, Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Lisa Hannigan, Phoebe Bridgers, Rosanne Cash and Bon Ivers Justin Vernon.

“I only want singers on our things, which are also great copywriters and songwriters,” says Berninger. He lists them and adds Sink Guests Meg Duffy (also known as hand habits) and Ronboy (Julia Laws).

“These are all artists who write beautiful words. And I know that a good writer will be able to say what I try to say not only to imitate my mood. I have described ourselves as vampires. We invite you and bleed it for your ideas, your brilliance,” he says with a laugh. “Every time someone has worked with us, we learned so much.”

The most important of the past 15 years has been Berningen's wife Carin better. A earlier one New Yorker She began to give feedback to texts and then wrote it by writing feedback.

“We joke that Carin is our Yoko, but it's a loving, inviting thing,” says Berninger. “The more Carin, the better when it comes to these boys.”

It is equally open about remote sources of inspiration. Nick Cave is another artist who has leaned into the dark caricatures of the Pop media for a long time to reduce its darker inner rooms, often on a subtle comedic effect.

“Nick is one of my heroes, one of my conductor in terms of bravery and brilliance in songwriting,” says Berninger. “Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen – these are my trinity.

“All of these men are also fathers. And I think I'm really trying to write about what my mind is taking, and frankly, what takes my mind more than anything, how do I protect my daughter in this terrible world?”

One of the countless great lines from the Canon Canon of the national falls in mind. In anxious vertebrae of I'm afraid of everyone Berninger sings: “With my child on my shoulders, I try to hurt someone I like.” Something about the prioritization of what they protect, balancing tenderness and terror in a precarious world feels like its emotional compass.

“Yes, that's it. I mean, you don't have to have children to feel that way, but if you know why you exist, it is a relief. If it falls down, I could stop everything else and concentrate on this one purpose. Your well -being. This is my child, you know, it is good to know why you're here.”

Berninger is “80 percent certain” that he will bring his with him Sink Band to Australia next summer. At this point, the album and its manufacturer are transformed again. “Healing happens when the plate comes out, I already have -” he waves his hand and throws a baseball.

“I always think that songs are snapshots from an early phase. They are like the high school picture. Only when they play them live, maybe five or ten years later, does the song really find their magic. It goes to college and then into the world. It has to live alone.

“That's why I still love every single national song, because if we do it live, it's different. It is fun to get to your brain from 30 years ago. And realize that you have learned nothing.” It's a sad thought, but today he laughs at least today.

Sink is on May 30th by Concord.