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The National: being brave and being kind

It borders on cacophony, building and building, rising and rising, a serene, hazy storm of guitars and rioting drums. Amongst the melee, a bearded figure spins slowly on the spot, turning this way and that, his hands clasped in front of his chest almost prayer-like. He screams but it’s inaudible above the din. He grasps a wine glass, taking a sip before hollering again, throwing the container high above the stage as the song nears a climactic close.

This is the work of five men from Ohio who grew up very slowly indeed, struggling through laymans jobs in the boroughs of New York by day. Then by night, they would release all that frustrating tension in the bars, clubs, theatres and eventually stadiums of the world.

The National are a band comprised of two sets of brothers, and a wayward vocalist whose cracked baritone murmur is powered by wine that so often goes skywards.

Six albums and more than a decade on, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Scott and Brian Devendorf, and Matt Berninger have plotted the slowest possible route to a success that has seen them debut at #3 in the US Billboard chart, and well within the top ten in more than a dozen other countries.

In the depths of Alexandra Palace in London, in the band’s dressing room, bass player Scott Devendorf sits forward in an antique chair, elbows on knees, peach-shaded spectacles resting on his nose.

“It's been a gradual change honestly,” he mutters softly, almost inaudible. “We've done almost every level of touring from tiny, tiny bars to places like this [Alexandra Palace], and we've done it so slowly over the years that we've got used to it in that way. Sometimes it’s like ‘holy crap’.”

“It is one of the motivating things. We spent a long time trudging away for a small, or no, audience so there is a certain satisfaction that, yeah okay, the thing that you've worked on for years is kinda working out.”

The National are embarked on yet another tour, this time in support of their latest record Trouble Will Find Me. Hailed as one of their most triumphant, it upgrades the melancholia of previous records, sieving out the unrelenting, though still glorious, dourness, and painting a fresh coat on a face streaked with old tears.

“They write songs about existential dread,” Pitchfork writer Ian Cohen says, “and the real pressures that result when others are depending on you to have your shit together.”

“It speaks its own language – as all the best albums do,” Laura Snapes once wrote in The Guardian of breakthrough record Boxer. “While for some, the idea of a record primarily concerned with surviving domestic life must seem hellishly boring or self-indulgent, the humanity it displayed was something I had rarely encountered in music before.”

“The National are letting light and air into their shadows,” Rolling Stone mainstay David Fricke stated, while Andy Gill of The Independent pointed out that “the lurking power of feelings can just as readily numb, or stun, as drive one to paroxysms of cathartic emoting.”

Their last show in New Zealand was at the Powerstation in Auckland, and sold out across three nights. On February 4th this year, they will graduate to Vector Arena’s concrete cavern.

It should be no challenge to the five-piece and their assorted brass accompaniment.

Devendorf grins: “As the venues have gotten bigger we've upped the production, not to an obnoxious level, because the shows can still be very intimate, but there's also a loud element to the band that is kinda stadium rock.”

“Matt has come out of his shell over the years, as far as being a performer. The band is better at playing together. We're dynamically trying to get something that goes into those bigger venues, yet retain the intricacy of the music.”

The confidence shows. The band would once remain stationary, engrossed in their creations.

Now, the power of their compositions can be seen on the band’s faces; catharsis and experience pushed through the amplifiers without every ounce of passion that can be summoned. Berninger, who used to cling to the microphone stand, shoulders hunched over, now roams the stage between verses, venturing into the audience during crescendos.

“We have to bridge the gap,” Devendorf explains, “It has to be a palatable experience that sounds great and looks great. It's been pretty successful. We're very conscious of that, probably too conscious.”

The band have reached their highest peak yet, not through a hit sold to advertisements, or the trumpeting burbles of a blogger, or even the machinations of an ailing record label.

Hard work is their motivator and the signifier – they are a world-weary group finding celebration and reward amongst, or even despite, the ‘next big things’.

It seems strange to find a band so celebrated only now just reaching their peak. It fits a mould of the American Dream long since disregarded and thrown out. They exemplify what the Dream used to be: slaving away at the coalface for years in the hope of an eternity in comfort. Their exhortations exist to alleviate anxiety, to confront fears, to understand our past relationships, and the ones yet to come.

With the success and higher profile comes a desire to act out political convictions previously smothered.

In November of 2008, as the American Presidential elections neared a bland plateau of platitudes and promises soon to be broken, The National threw their weight behind presidential hopeful Barack Obama, playing at campaign rallies. The commander-in-chief proclaimed them as one of his favourite acts.

How does the band feel now, as Americans, after so many revelations and scandals?

“We found it…complicated to get into politics. Some of our fans were kinda pissed off about it for whatever reason. It was risky but it was something we felt worth doing at the time.”

“There’s a litany of things now,” Devendorf says with a sigh. “Snowden, drones, complaints that I think we can agree aren't wonderful. Not supporting Obama really means the alternative to him. It's horrifying.”

“In 2008 we were so tired of Bush, and that is what got us involved originally. We've never been intentionally a political band.”

But in ‘Afraid of Everyone’ [from High Violet], Berninger sings of protecting his family with the “orange umbrella” of Citigroup, and laying “the young blue bodies with old red bodies”, before hollering “I don’t have the drugs to sort it out” alongside paranoid guitars.

Devendorf refuses the point: “People read politics into the lyrics of some songs, and certainly they are there but I think it's a little more 'personal politics'. I don't think we're trying to send a big message to anyone.”

Berninger, always enigmatic and contrarian in his lyrics, notably moved towards a higher power in his writing on Trouble Will Find Me. While the microscopic examinations of relationships still play a major role, Berninger’s thoughts turn to the Almighty: from the titles of ‘Heavenfaced’ and ‘Demons’, to the “worried talk to God”, to “bright white heaven hanging over me”, to “careful fear and dead devotion”. He figured out “how to be faithless”, and finally grasped that “God loves everybody, don’t remind me.”

“I don't believe in a heaven or hell, or an entity beyond,” Berninger stutters, enveloped in the folds of a burgundy couch, forming his thoughts carefully. “I always wonder why it's not more of a motivating and inspiring, the idea that it is just us, if you think about it, for me, it’s made me feel more connected to the world…even facing death. If I've been a good father and a good friend then when I'm gone, when my lights get turned off for whatever reason, it’d be okay. I'm not worried about the nothingness.”

“I like to write about stuff that doesn't have any obvious answers,” he continues, finding a rhythm. “The stuff that's really blurry, whether it's romance, or if you feel self conscious in the world, or mortality, or these blurry things that don't have clear rights and wrongs, that's the stuff I find the most enjoyable to make rock songs out of.”

“There’s a line on one of the records, a thought that my wife had: ‘be brave and be kind’ [‘Baby We’ll Be Fine’ from Alligator]. Those are the two things, not that I'm either sometimes, but it's that kind of simple philosophy that I think makes the most sense to me. “

Berninger seems to be the adhesive, soldering together the gorgeous and chilling arpeggios of the Dessners, and the hypnotic but fluid drumming of the other Brother Devendorf. His croon floats within, sometimes alongside their always-ascending instrumentation.

That soft and often-indiscernible baritone has been transformed into a soaring croon no longer relegated to the lower octaves. He’s the only member of the band not a trained or practiced musician.

“’I Should Live In Salt’ was the first one that Matt gravitated towards,” Scott muses. “He reacts very organically to these songs, so if he can work with something that's odd, it’s not something he's conscious of, it’s just something that he rhythmically feels. He'll do something unusual or unexpected against something a trained musician might be able to say 'Oh yes this goes here'.”

Later that day, the group would embark on a setlist that follows the natural course of many of their songs, ascending near-unbearable heights before a doting audience.

But even sat amongst the grandeur of Alexandra Palace, how can The National climb much higher, no matter the pace?

“We realise the band is a band, we're not gonna change direction and become the next big EDM thing,” Scott says in closing. “The band now has an identity, a loyal fan base which we’re lucky to have. Well hopefully keep doing it for as long as it's reasonable and not embarrassing.”

“We don't think it's the best band in the world, but it's important to us and we've worked hard. It's important that people enjoy it. We have a commitment to that.”

“It's our life.”

The National will play one night at Auckland's Vector Arena on February 4th, 2014.

(Edited by Grace Bradshaw. All images from Getty.)