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.