Perhaps lost amid the swell of activity related to this week's DAM!fest is tomorow night's performance by The National at the Black Cat. The National rose to prominence in 2005 behind their fourth album Alligator, which Uncut Magazine called "Their first masterpiece." Bloggers fawned, mainstream media followed suit and soon The National were on the tips of indie rock loving tongues all over the country. Except, perhaps, in Washington D.C. Despite the band being on the road for 10 months in 2005, the band didn't play a single show in The District behind Alligator until March of this year. Last Thursday, DCist had the chance to speak with lead singer Matt Berninger about their aversion to the nation's capital, day jobs, their upcoming record and that tour with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, among other things.

What can you tell me about your new record?

We've been working on a new record for a couple of months now. We'll probably be finished in about five weeks or so.

So are you still in the actual process of recording?

We were in the studio in Connecticut with Peter Katis for six weeks or so and then we had this tour planned so we could take a break and get some perspective and then go back in and finish it. So we're about 75% of the way done.

Does that help the whole recording process to go out and play some shows?

Yeah. When you're in the studio and just kinda writing stuff for a while, sometime you don't get much perspective on what you're doing. So for us it's nice to be able to walk away for a couple of weeks and just listen to the stuff and enjoy it. Sometimes you can forget where the gut of the song is and just start piling stuff on. It gets us back so we can hear where it needs to go. That's the spot we're in right now.

Photos by Kyle Gustafson.

Did you have any songs ready when you went into the studio?

Nothing was finished. We had four or five that had vocals and music but we had 15 or 20 other musical sketches that I hadn't written anything to. So we went into the studio less developed than we've ever been, so alot of it was evolving and changing shape alot from the day we started to where we are now. Some of the songs might turn into something completely different. We do that alot. We'll record a song a certain way and then pull it apart and try it a totally different way. We're never very precious about the original way that a song was written. Since we don't have a specific song writer that writes an entire song by himself, we're not precious about keeping a song a certain way. We'll tear it apart a lot.

Alligator was highly regarded and well received by pretty much everyone. Do you feel any pressure now that you're working on the follow up?

We feel a lot of pressure but I'm not sure it's due to the fact that Alligator was well received. It was well received but it's not a record that many people on a larger scale even know about. It's not like the Strokes second record or anything like that.

So you're not worried about making the next Sam's Town?

[laughs] I wish we were that successful that we had to worry about that. But no, we still consider ourselves, and if you look at the numbers, we're definitely an underground band.

If you don't mind me asking, do you know how many copies of Alligator you've sold?

That's a good question. Worldwide it might be 100,000. I haven't paid attention to it for several months now. On that scale of indie rock, we're a small candle in the corner in terms of market share. We're just a small underground thing. But for me, to have 100,000 records being bought by people I've never met, is an incredible feeling. We've all felt great about it. But when you look at other bands and all the hype, it's a very small number. But we don't weight it that way. The only pressure we have now is to keep making music we like. And we hope other people like it.

Did putting Alligator out on Beggars Banquet help in this capacity?

Yeah, I think it was in more stores and had better distribution and that sort of thing. Beggars doesn't spend a lot of money on promotion, which is good because they also don't depend on theirs bands to sell hundreds and hundreds of thousands of copies of their records. They're not wasting a lot of money they have to make up later. They're a conservative, smart label and they let us make whatever kind of record that we want and if we sell 50,000 copies of it, they're happy. We don't get that kind of pressure from Beggars to write hit songs, which is nice.

Are you ready to get back into touring mode and go out and promote your new material?

Frankly I'm looking forward to finishing this record and doing nothing but freelance work and not thinking about the band for a few months. Come March and it'll all kick in and we'll be doing a bunch of touring. But from the time we finish the record to when we go out on the road, I think I'm gonna try to have nothing to do with music for a while and go to a day job for a while if I can.

Is that so you can recharge your batteries a little?

Yeah, just to have other things to think about.

Or is it more of an economic thing?

A combination. If I didn't need to work, would I? I don't know. I don't know if I would have that kind of motivation. There's a thing when you're just writing songs and you're just touring and focusing just on the band, the pressure starts to build up and take some of the fun out of it. I guess going back to the day job makes you realize why you love the band so much.

Yeah, like why you quit your day job in the first place.

[laughs] Yeah, so I'm looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to coming home every day and not being in a hotel or the studio.

You guys toured extensively in 2005...

2005 was around ten months of touring...

And the shows were all over the world, US, UK, France, Germany...

Yeah, mostly it was centered in the US and Europe, we didn't go to Australia...

Or Washington D.C.

[pause] Or Washington D.C. [confused] Yeah, or as far as Washington.

You guys didn't even play D.C. in 2005.

We didn't?

No.

We played at the Black Cat.

That was March of this year.

Oh right. Maybe we didn't. I thought we opened for The Walkmen or something there.

That was 2004.

Was it really? [laughs]

Yep. This is all per your website, which is very handy for things like this.

Maybe you're right. I don't know why that would have been.

So why do you people hate Washington D.C.?

We don't! We're coming back in a week or two.

I have to confess something, I started all the "The National hate Washington D.C." rumors on my own personal blog.

[more laughs]

But originally it was meant to be a very tongue-in-cheek sort of thing. I emailed your manager and your booking agent a few times and asked them why you weren't playing here and I never got a response.

Oh really? No one ever wrote back? I don't know why. We certainly don't hate D.C. We've played a few rough shows there but we've always had fun.

The funny thing was is that when you finally came through town last March, I was snowboarding in Utah. And I didn't even figure all that out until like two weeks before the show. I had my ticket and everything.

I should have posted that on my blog!

But I finally got to see you guys perform at the Pitchfork Festival this summer. And I have to admit, I thought you guys were great. I was really blown away.

Thanks. That was an awkward show, but all festivals are kind of an awkward experience. It's weird to play in the middle of the day. We hadn't played in along time before that gig. We kind of did it by the seat of our pants, but we really enjoyed it, as much as you can anyway.

It seemed like everyone in the crowd was a big fan, since you guys are from the Midwest. They were all very excited to see you.

That was definitely a re-energizing and reassuring feeling because we'd been in the studio for a while and hadn't been touring for a while. And to play that show and get such a warm response was nice. It was like "OK, people still pay attention to us and they haven't forgotten about us." And it seems like we had more fans after we'd been off the road for a while and then suddenly we came back and did that show and more people knew about us than they did when we stopped touring behind Alligator.

Well, you guys were getting a ton of press throughout the blogosphere because at that point, you'd been around the country a few times. Word was getting out. I got your album from eMusic in early 2006 after seemingly reading about you every other day on Brooklyn Vegan.

We had a couple of places that have really championed us and it was a slow process, but it seemed to be something that was being passed around and people were hearing about it long after we'd packed up the gear and started working on a new record. It's nice to feel like it's still out there and alive and falling on new ears.

What about a band like your former tour mates Clap Your Hand Say Yeah? They were thrust into the spotlight because all the blogs were talking about them, whereas you guys have had more time to develop. I remember reading about the tour you did together when they were opening for you and supposedly everyone was coming to see them. What was that like? I know you guys are friends...

Well, we asked them to tour with us long before their record came out just because we loved it so much and we already knew them. So when that happened, it was awkward. The first few shows of that tour were really awkward because between when we set up the tour and when we hit the road, they blew up and became a phenomenon. And rightly so. That record was one of the most exciting and fun records to have come out in a while. When a lot of the crowd would leave when they were finished, there was a palpable tension, not between the bands, but in the room. It was sort of a funny thing. After one or two shows, we sort of realized that this was going to happen every night. But it didn't actually happen every night. I'd say there were four or five shows where that happened and you could really tell that half the crowd had left. But at the rest of them, we didn't get that feeling at all. But we kind of just swallowed it and said that's the way it's going to be and I think we played really well. I think ultimately we ended up getting more attention than we would have if we'd have gone out without them. It was something that people were talking about. They were calling it "The Battle of the Bands" and the blogs were debating who the better band was and stuff like that. It was something that ultimately made people hear our name for the first time. And after that tour, we suddenly started getting the feeling that more people were paying attention to us than before. But during the tour, between the two bands, it was just constant joking. They were ribbing us and it was a really playful thing. We've been talking about potentially doing another tour in the Spring with them.

That's cool. So you just had to beat their ass in soccer for your revenge.

Yeah! Thank god we won that. [laughs] They had all the crowds, but we won the soccer game!

I remember reading that you guys did a Springsteen tribute...

We were invited to play a song off of Nebraska at a show with a lot of other artists like Martha Wainwright and a ton of different people. It was odd, but really cool and exciting. It was strange to have a bunch of different bands playing. Although I think I'd just rather stay home and listen to the record. But we had a really good time. And Bruce showed up and was really cool. I didn't meet him but everyone else in the band sat down and had some whisky with him and he was giving out advice. Apparently he was a really sweet guy and has been a fan of ours for a while. The only problem was I left so quick right after the gig I was the only guy that didn't get to hang out with him. I'll regret that 'til I die. But it was a cool experience.

Have you set any goals for 2007 to go along with the release of the new record?

I think our goals are to put the record out, do a certain amount of touring without losing our minds, and just have as much fun as we can. It would be great for the record to be successful, but it's not something none of us have a meter to evaluate. If it sold a billion copies we'd be happy and if it sold another 100,000 I think we'd be happy. I think the biggest thing next year is to not implode from all the touring. 2005 was hard being away from home so much. We're not 19 anymore, we want to manage what we can do without starting to hate being in a band. We don't now, but we could see that happening. We don't want to push it to where we're not having fun anymore.

Does the new record have a title yet?

No, not yet.

I was hoping to get a scoop!

There are some song titles, but those change a lot. It's usually in the last couple of weeks that I'll come up with the album title. Everything changes dramatically in the last couple of weeks.

Well, thanks for your time Matt. I'm really looking forward to the show on Thursday. There's a local band opening up for you called Nethers that are probably my favorite band at the moment.

I checked out their website and listened to their MP3's and they were really amazing. I was impressed by what I heard and I'm really excited about seeing them.
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The National play the Black Cat tomorrow, Thursday, Oct. 26th, with Nethers and Devastations. Tickets are $13 and doors are at 8:30. Visit The National's website for some downloadable MP3's.